June 7, 1942

End of the Battle of Midway. Thanks to a combination of intelligence work, strategic thinking and a bunch of pilots who had to carry their testicles around with wheelbarrows the Japanese Navy- which until then had been doing damn near anything it wanted in the Pacific- got its ass kicked: threefour* carriers, a cruiser and more than three thousand pilots and sailors lost. And Japan didn't have replacements for those experienced pilots; they seem to have done the same thing the Germans did, keep their pilots on the lines until wounded or something, whereas someone with a brain on our side started rotating our better pilots home for a combination of rest and "Here's what kills the enemy" passing-on to new pilots.


*I can't tell if I can't count, or can't remember which comes after what...