offensive that would end three years later at the doorstep of the Home Islands. victory here ended Japan's seemingly unstoppable advance across the Pacific and began a U.S. These tiny islands were the focus of a brutal struggle between the Japanese Imperial Navy and the United States Pacific Fleet. Inhabited by humans for less than a century, Midway dominated world news for a brief time in the early summer of 1942. They still perch on the airport runways and the old ammunition magazines and gun batteries, but they no longer need to do daily battle with America's armed forces for possession of the islands. Today, the shadows of their huge wings still dapple the glassy sea as they glide towards the islands to nest. The birds soiled the runways, clogged the engines of departing aircraft, and were always, always underfoot. Beautiful in flight, but ungainly in their movement on land, the albatrosses were called "gooney birds" by the men stationed on the islands during World War II. This lesson is part of the National Park Service’s Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) program.į or centuries, thousands of albatrosses have lived on the desolate islands that comprise the Midway Atoll.
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