Editing Isoroku Yamamoto (section)

==Actions after Midway==
{{Unreferenced section|date=February 2013}}<!-- Most of this material is in Paul S. Dull's battle history of the Imperial Japanese Navy -->
The Battle of Midway checked Japanese momentum, but the Japanese Navy was still a powerful force, capable of regaining the initiative. It planned to resume the thrust with [[Operation FS]], aimed at eventually taking [[Fiji]] and [[Samoa]] to cut the American lifeline to Australia.

Yamamoto remained as commander-in-chief, retained at least partly to avoid diminishing the morale of the Combined Fleet. However, he had [[lost face]] as a result of the Midway defeat, and the Naval General Staff were disinclined to indulge in further gambles. This reduced Yamamoto to pursuing the classic defensive "decisive battle strategy" he had attempted to avoid.

Yamamoto committed Combined Fleet units to a series of small attrition actions across the south and central Pacific that stung the Americans, but in return suffered losses he could ill afford. Three major efforts to beat the [[Guadalcanal Campaign|Americans moving on Guadalcanal]] precipitated a pair of carrier battles that Yamamoto commanded personally: the Battles of the [[Battle of the Eastern Solomons|Eastern Solomons]] and [[Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands|Santa Cruz Islands]] in September and October, respectively, and finally a [[Naval Battle of Guadalcanal|pair of wild surface engagements]] in November, all timed to coincide with Japanese Army pushes. The effort was wasted when the Army could not hold up its end of the operation. Yamamoto's naval forces won a few victories and inflicted considerable losses and damage to the American fleet in several battles around Guadalcanal which included the Battles of [[Battle of Savo Island|Savo Island]], [[Battle of Cape Esperance|Cape Esperance]], and [[Battle of Tassafaronga|Tassafaronga]], but he could never draw the United States into a decisive fleet action. As a result, Japanese naval strength declined.