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Early in WWII in the Pacific Theater the Japanese Zero was vastly superior to anything the USA had flying.As they had already been fighting in China for a while and we were coming out of the Depression and weren't spending/developing any war related hardware .Any way some Naval Airman invented "the Weave" where they'd criss-cross each other and shoot any Zeros trailing the other pilot. This formation had the guys name but I don't recall it

The Zero was superior at some things but it is an overstatement to say that it was "vastly superior".

The Zero was designed to maximize maneuverability and range so it was very good at those things but there were tradeoffs. It was not armored anywhere near to degree that American fighters were. Also, the lightweight construction resulted in a flimsy plane that couldn't match American fighters in a dive.

Early in the war some American pilots tried to dogfight with Zeros and those American pilots were mostly shot down because the Zero was a vastly superior dogfighter.

Later, American Pilots learned to use their fighters' relative superiorities to their advantage. P38 pilots, for example, learned that while trying to dogfight with a Zero was nearly suicidal, their machines were much faster and it didn't take much to knock down a Zero so the tactic they learned was to keep the throttle wide open and try to hit Zeros during high speed passes.

Thatch's weave was another highly successful tactic. It drew a trailing Zero through the guns gunsites of the wingman.

1675, Leibniz

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: 

The Battle of Britain Is Won (1940)
The Battle of Britain was the first major German failure in World War II. The Royal Air Force (RAF), outgunned and outmanned, nevertheless defeated the German Luftwaffe and thwarted Hitler's plan for an amphibious invasion, which he had hoped would end the war quickly. The event was not only a testament to the courage of British pilots, but it also marked the first time a major battle was fought entirely in the air and featured the first use of radar in battle.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY:

The Battle of Britain Is Won (1940)
The Battle of Britain was the first major German failure in World War II. The Royal Air Force (RAF), outgunned and outmanned, nevertheless defeated the German Luftwaffe and thwarted Hitler's plan for an amphibious invasion, which he had hoped would end the war quickly. The event was not only a testament to the courage of British pilots, but it also marked the first time a major battle was fought entirely in the air and featured the first use of radar in battle.

Goring was an idiot.The Luftwaffe was getting the upper hand then he started directing bombing of civilian targets.Had the Gerries stuck to radar installations it could have been game - set - match

Fire supression systems aboard the Yorktown and other new vessels kept them from getting sunk.When the japanese bombed it a 2nd time they thought it was another ship as they didn't think anything could take that pounding.It still wasn't sunk after the 2nd bombing and was finally sent to the bottom by a subs torpedo

This is a good point. The Japanese damage control was pathetic compared to the US. Compare the pounding that Yorktown took before sinking to the few hits each that doomed the four Japanese CV's lost off Midway.

Ultimately, as I've studied the war in the Pacific I've come to the conclusion that what happened at Midway wasn't a Miracle, it was simply the result of conditions. Japanese damage control was atrocious and that was bound to bite them eventually. 

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: 

Arecibo Observatory Opens (1963)
Located near Arecibo, Puerto Rico, the Arecibo Observatory is the site of the world's largest single-aperture telescope. The telescope dish, built into a natural limestone bowl, measures an astonishing 1,000 feet (305 m) in diameter. It is used in radar studies of comets and asteroids, as well as in radio astronomy, to detect and analyze radio waves from space.