This is an IHeart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories.

And we love to tell stories about everything in one of our favorite subjects,

American history. Up next, a story about one of the most important battles of the 20th century.

December 7th, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese forces and our Pacific fleet. It was

nearly wiped out. We entered World War II down

and out and looking for a major victory. That victory would come at Midway, a small island in the

middle of the Pacific Ocean. Here's writer Anne Claire to tell the story of this major battle.

The tiny 2.4 square mile Midway Atoll was annexed by the U.S. in 1867.

The descriptively, if not really imaginatively, named eastern and sand islands in the Atoll

weren't inhabited, and they weren't useful for resources,

but their allure lay in their strategic location. The atoll was about halfway between Asia and the

U.S., or I suppose you could say midway between them, and pretty close to Hawaii. And in 1940, work began on getting that area set up with air and submarine facilities.

Now, the famous Battle of Midway was actually not the first time in World War II that the Antel came under fire.

On December 7, 1941, shortly after attacking Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces also attacked Midway.

The engagement was fairly short, but there was still loss of life.

One notable case was Lieutenant George H. Cannon, who became the first U.S.

Marine to earn a Medal of Honor in World War II. Now, six months later, in May of 1942,

the Japanese goals toward Midway were more ambitious. Now, Admiral Yamamoto of the Japanese Navy

had his eyes set on the destruction of Midway's defenses and the occupation of the atoll by Japanese forces.

He set the date for the attack, June 4th, with Midway, hopefully, flattened and occupied by the 7th.

Now, there were, of course, lots of facets to the plan, but part of it at least revolved

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