 For example, the Battle of Midway is often cited as a decisive operational victory for the US despite the fact that the Pacific War ended more than three years later with the decisive "strategic" victory of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which directly led to the Japanese surrender; this is because the Midway operation represented the destruction of the majority of the IJN's offensive carrier forces, which decisively stopped both the IJN's string of unbroken victories in combat and their plans to expand eastward into Midway Island, Hawaii, the Aleutian Islands and potentially the US mainland.During this period the US Navy expanded greatly and the IJN was never able to regain their former strength, making the victory decisive in terms of determining the future operational shape of the battles for the Pacific.On the tactical scale, the attack on Pearl Harbor is cited as a decisive victory, as it destroyed the entirety of the US Pacific battleship fleet and neutralized Pearl Harbor's ability to retaliate in one fell swoop, thus resolving the issue of whether the battleships (which the Japanese inaccurately saw as the greatest threat) would present a threat to Japanese expansion in the West.