On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes and submarines attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. This event single-handedly moved the United States from its then-neutral position during World War II to a fighting member of the "Allied Powers." Pearl Harbor was the first in a long series of clashes between the United States and the Japanese in an attempt to gain control of the Pacific. Unlike the "War in Europe", Pacific strategy was dominated by naval and air battles, with occasional "island-hopping" land campaigns. As such, one of the most important factors in the war in the Pacific was the size of the fleet: the more ships a country could send to war, the better. Pearl Harbor was the Japanese's attempt to manage the massive American Pacific Fleet. However, Pearl Harbor did not mark a turning point in the war. After December 7, the United States began working on many technological developments that would ultimately help it in one of the most important battles of World War II, the largest naval confrontation of the war, the Battle of Midway . The battle, which took place June 4–7, 1942, is widely considered the turning point of the Pacific theater (James & Wells). Thanks to the post-Pearl Harbor desire for "revenge" and various technological advantages, including codebreaking and radar, the United States was able to outwit the Japanese at Midway and ultimately win the battle, ultimately leading to a victory in the Pacific. Halfway between Pearl Harbor and Midway, the United States has advanced with various technological and military advantages. One of the most important was the decryption efforts of Commander Joseph J. Rochefort Jr. “Most of the United States' information [on Japan] came from Rochefort. R...... middle of paper ...... while the United States lost only one, the USS Yorktown, which had already been heavily damaged in previous conflicts in the Sea of Coral. Had the United States lost at Midway, the Japanese would have achieved their objective and ended what Pearl Harbor had started by permanently crippling the U.S. Navy. In a preface taken from an excerpt by Japanese aviator Fushida Mituso (who shouted “Tora, tora, tora”), the Japanese defeat at Midway did exactly the opposite of crippling the Navy. “Over the next two years, while Japanese shipyards launched six new heavy aircraft carriers, the Americans produced 17” (Mituso). Ultimately, the Pacific theater and World War II ended on August 15, 1945 after two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. of Midway, the turning point of the Theater would not have been won without the various technological assets and the desires for revenge of Pearl Harbor.