> The American people wanted a Pacific fight. Maybe so, but the war was larger. The US was part of a coalition. And, while a good payback in the Pacific would

> The American people wanted a Pacific fight. Maybe so, but the war was larger. The US was part of a coalition. And, while a good payback in the Pacific would have felt quite cool, the nightmare scenario was Stalin coming to terms with Hitler. And as of mid 1942 that was a real possibility. Stalin was at the end of his rope at that point: the second battle of Kharkov [1] had just concluded about one week prior to Midway, with close to 300k Soviet casualties and more than 1200 tanks lost, Sevastopol would fall in less than one month [2], with more than 100k casualties. In the month of July, the Soviets would suffer a crushing defeat at Voronezh [3], where they have almost 600k casualties. In all these cases the ratio of Soviet casualties to Axis casualties is between 5:1 and 10:1, and maybe worse in terms of loss of materiel. You could say that the Soviets could afford the materiel losses because of the Lend-Lease program, but no. Just as a coincidence, just 3 weeks after Midway, the Allies suffer the worse naval disaster in the Atlantic theater [4], the annihilation of the convoy PQ 17. Not only more than 400 tanks went to the bottom of the ocean with the ships that were carrying them, but the Allies suspended the convoys for the next 3 months (at about 2 convoys per month, it means Stalin effectively lost a few thousands of tanks that he could have put to good use). Stalin desperately needed the Allies to attack Germany somewhere, anywhere. But the Allies were not in such good shape either. At the time of Midway, the British and Germans were exchanging blows in Africa at the battle of Gazala [5], which ended with the capture of Tobruk, and the worse British defeat of the war (with the possible exception of Singapore). Malta was on the verge of collapse, and just about one week after Midway the British mounted two relief operations, Harpoon and Vigorous [6],[7], both ended in defeat. Did I mention the Soviets wanted their western Allies to do something? The Brits tried a raid at Dieppe in August [8], it didn't work out that well, with an Allied casualty rate of more than 60% (out of an admittedly small contingent of 6000 men). Eventually the Allies delivered, with the massive Operation Torch (more then 100k troops, for comparison the Normandy landing had a bit more than 150k troops landed). Historians agree however that a "reverse Midway" would have delayed Torch by at least 6 months. Stalin wasn't very happy with Torch, he thought it was quite small and in an inconsequential theater. He would have been even more unhappy with no Torch at all. Now, the US had huge industrial might, but a Soviet Union switching sides would have resulted in a truly scary Colossus. Imagine all the natural resources of the USSR and their manpower and the industrial capacity of Germany. Oh, and the industrial capacity of the USSR itself was nothing to sneeze at, especially with a bit of finishing touches from their new best friends the Nazi engineers. So maybe the Americans were angry for the Japanese perfidious attack at Pearl Harbor, but the war in Europe was not waiting for them to have their revenge. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Kharkov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Kharkov [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sevastopol_(1941%E2%80%931942) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sevastopol_(1941%E2%8... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Voronezh_(1942) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Voronezh_(1942) [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_PQ_17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_PQ_17 [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gazala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gazala [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Harpoon_(1942) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Harpoon_(1942) [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Vigorous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Vigorous [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieppe_Raid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieppe_Raid