Prof. Greg Jackson

As for the Aleutian Islands, this strike is more about dividing American attention and complicating its response at Midway.

Getting a toehold on Alaska would be great, but the real focus is crushing America's ability and will to fight before its mighty industrial machine can fully mobilize.

Some harbor doubts about these plans, and those doubts do not vanish.

But officially, the Battle of the Coral Sea is framed as a victory, and enough confidence remains for the operation to go forward.

On the night of May 25th, 1942, Imamoto holds a party aboard his battleship, the Yamato.

But does the night harbor an ill omen?

Steward Omi Heijiro realizes that the cook has boiled the main dish of tai, which is a whole fish, and miso instead of salt.

In Japanese, the saying to put miso on food idiomatically means to make a mess of things.

Well, unlike his steward, the optimistic Yamamoto doesn't make much of the mistake.

He and his officers drink to Japanese victory all night.

Only days later, Vice Admiral Nagumo Chuichi, the very same who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, once again sails out of Japanese waters with his massive naval force, Kido Butai.

Though lacking the two aircraft carriers damaged in the Coral Sea, he still has four of these massive, powerful, plane-carrying vessels, the Ikagi, Kaga, Hiryu, and Soryu, as well as a few battleships and cruisers, and roughly a dozen destroyers.

Meanwhile, another part of the Japanese combined fleet sails off to make its near simultaneous attack on Alaska's Aleutian Islands.

Yamamoto's plan is now officially in motion.

Back in America this same May 1942, the newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of the U.S.

Pacific Fleet, otherwise called the Sink Pack, Admiral Chester Nimitz, knows something's fishy.

Chester's had a long Navy career.

In 1909, he became a submariner and rose quickly through the ranks during World War I before eventually being entrusted with the role of Sink Pack after husband Kimmel's perceived failures at Pearl Harbor.

A fast bio, I know, but the key thing to follow is that Chester is a proper Navy man, now holding one of the most coveted, or feared, depending on how you see it, positions in the U.S.

Navy.