JAPANESE PLANNING AND PREPARATIONS FOR THE MIDWAY OFFENSIVE The very complex Japanese Navy plan for the Midway and Aleutian operations required careful cooperation by five separate groups of warships, and precise coordination of ship movements over a very large area of the Pacific Ocean stretching from Alaska to the central Pacific. All of this had to be achieved while maintaining strict radio silence. A huge fleet of about 200 Japanese warships, transports, and oilers was assembled for the Midway and Aleutian offensives. It included eleven battleships, five large fleet aircraft carriers, three light aircraft carriers, twenty-three cruisers, sixty-seven destroyers, and twenty-two submarines. The Japanese fleet was divided into five main commands: Main Force (Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, aboard the giant battleship Yamato ), First Carrier Striking Force, or Kido Butai, (Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, who led the carrier attack on Pearl Harbor), Midway Invasion Force (Vice Admiral Nobutake Kondo), Northern Aleutians Force, and the Advance Submarine Force. The Japanese offensive against America's Aleutian Islands off the western coast of Alaska would take place on 3 June 1942, and was intended by Navy General Staff to provide a northern anchor for Japan's eastern defensive perimeter in the Pacific. Admiral Yamamoto hoped that the Aleutian operation would distract the attention of the United States from Midway Atoll which was the focus of his main attack. Preparations for the Midway Operation
