Strategy
The Midway Atoll has two islands: Sand and Eastern Islands. It is located about 2,250 miles Southeast of Japan and 1,250 miles Northwest of the Hawaiian Islands. Since the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Japanese had been conquering a lot of territory in the Pacific. Admiral Yamamoto convinced the Japanese Navy to prepare for a Battle at Midway for two reasons. He wanted to use Midway as an air base to launch a Japanese invasion of Hawaii and he wanted to destroy the US Navy in the Pacific by sinking a lot of its ships in a major battle. Admiral Yamamoto's bosses would agree to his plan only if he sent some of his forces to the Aleutian Islands (in Alaska) as a diversion, but also to try to get complete control of the ocean between Japan and the US.
Not many people knew it at the time, but the US was able to use the Magic Decoder system to break the code for Japanese communications. In fact, Japan was so confident it could beat the US Navy, that its security and training for this battle were not as good as for the attack on Pearl Harbor. Admiral Nimitz learned about Japan's battle plans for attacking Midway but had a hard time convincing his bosses that Midway was really the target, and not Hawaii or the Aleutian Islands or the California Coast. Admiral Nimitz knew that Japan would have many, many more ships in the battle than the US. (Japan had 86 ships including 4 aircraft carriers while the US had 24 ships plus 3 aircraft carriers. The total numbers of aircraft were about the same, but Japan had the Zero fighters which were better than any US fighters at the time.) Admiral Nimitz decided on a strategy for the US to surprise Japan. Japan planned to begin the battle with an air strike on the Islands, followed by an amphibious assault. Instead of meeting the Japanese fleet head-on, Admiral Nimitz ordered his three carriers to travel more than 300 miles out from Midway and surprise-attack the Japanese from the side as they got closer. To do the most damage, the US needed to strike first and bomb Japan's carriers while their airplanes were still on-deck. The American carriers located the Japanese ships on the morning of June 4th, so they sent a continuous attack by both land-based and carrier-based airplanes. The torpedo planes that were sent first were almost completely destroyed immediately by the Japanese Zeros. However, while they fought with the Zeros at a lower altitude, the dive bombers were able to attack Japan's ships from a higher altitude and with more accuracy. Luckily, a Japanese destroyer was completely confused and led the American planes straight to all of the Japanese ships! Dive bombers severely hit the carriers Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu, but didn't hit the Hiryu, which retaliated by nearly destroying the Yorktown carrier. After the Yorktown's crew abandoned ship, a Japanese submarine sank it.
Losses
At the end of the battle, here is what the Japanese lost:
Akagi (aircraft carrier)
Kaga (aircraft carrier)
Hiryu (aircraft carrier)
Soryu (aircraft carrier)
Mikuma (heavy cruiser)
Mogami (heavy cruiser; was heavily damaged)

Losses
After the battle was over, here is what America lost:
Yorktown (aircraft carrier)
Hammann (destroyer)
The Battle of Midway was a turning point in World War II because Japan stopped expanding its territory in the Pacific and had to defend existing territory instead. Now back to the