Prof. Greg Jackson

Many living within this co-prosperity sphere already say it's the latter.

As for abroad, Japan's navy is ready to extend the empire's reach all the more, and as stated in a March 7, 1942 directive, quote, "...deprive the United States of its will to fight," close quote.

And Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Combined Fleet, Yamamoto Isoroku, believes he has just the plan for this.

He wants to move against Alaska's Aleutian Islands, that is, the chain of islands trailing toward Russia's Asian coast, and a far greater importance in his mind, the Midway Atoll.

Now, just what is this Midway, you ask?

Located 1,135 nautical miles west-northwest of Pearl Harbor, and 2,200 of those same nautical miles east-southeast from Japan, Midway Atoll is, well, about the middle of the way between the United States' west coast and Asia.

As for its geographical structure, it's a Pacific atoll, like many others, a coral reef encircling a lagoon.

Specifically, Midway has two less than two mile long islands nestled in the middle.

Put on the map by whalers in 1859, the U.S.

attempted to carve a channel through the lagoon a decade later.

That didn't work, but the U.S.

Navy nonetheless began making use of the islands around the turn of the century, and by the late 1930s, as war with Japan loomed, that formerly failed channel received new attention.

It was soon completed with an airfield.

Thus, in the months before Pearl Harbor, the small atoll became a crucial American island airfield.

In brief, the Midway Atoll is like an immobile aircraft carrier in the middle of the Pacific.

And taking these two little islands, and Alaska's most western Aleutian Islands, would give Japan a mighty new perimeter.

That said, Yamamoto is less worried about actually capturing Midway than drawing the U.S.

Pacific fleet out of the safety of Pearl Harbor to be engaged and destroyed.

Such a defeat, Yamamoto believes, will crush the Americans' hopes and push them toward giving up and making peace.

This outcome alone would make a surprise attack on Midway worthwhile.