The Ships of Battlegroup: Japan Zuikaku (CV)

Displacement	25,675 tons	Belt Armor	Nil
Overall Length	845 feet	Deck Armor	Nil
Beam	95 feet	Aircraft Complement	84
Speed	34.2 knots	Main Guns	16 × 5″

Laid down in May 1938, launched in November 1939 and commissioned on October 8, 1941. Zuikaku was the second "unlimited" aircraft carrier built after Japan had dropped out of the treaties that restricted aircraft carrier sizes. The name means "Happy or Lucky Crane". Zuikaku was the second ship of the two ship Shokaku class. Both ships had their islands on the starboard side, unlike previous pairs of Japanese aircraft carriers, which had alternated islands on their port and starboard sides. Japan started World War II in the Pacific with the best-trained aircrews and some of the best carrier aircraft in the world. Their problem was that as the veterans fell, there were no experienced aircrew to replace them and Japanese industry proved unable to produce reliable new aircraft models in the quantities to fight a total war.

Both ships formed Carrier Division Five and took part (along with Akagi, Kaga, Haruna, Hiei, Hiryu, Kirishima, Kongo and Soryu ) in the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. After raiding in the Indian Ocean, the "Spoiled Children of Victory" were detached to the base at Truk. Carrier Division Five next sortied to cover an invasion fleet sailing for Port Moresby in southeast New Guinea.

They bumped into an American carrier force built around Lexington (CV-2) and Yorktown (CV-5) in the confused Battle of the Coral Sea in early May 1942. When the first battle fought purely between aircraft carriers was over, the Japanese light carrier Shoho was sunk, the Lexington (CV-2) was sunk, Yorktown (CV-5) was damaged, the Shokaku had caught fire and was barely saved and Carrier Division Five had lost over half of their aircraft. This damage and losses prevented both flattops from participating in the disastrous Midway campaign during June, leaving them as the only surviving fast fleet carriers in the Japanese Navy. In July, the two big aircraft carriers and light carrier Zuiho were formed into a new Carrier Division One. Carrier Division One participated in the Guadalcanal operations at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons (less the Zuiho) on August 24, 1942, where the light aircraft carrier Ryujo was lost and the U. S. S. Enterprise was damaged, and the Battle of Santa Cruz (with the Zuiho) on October 26, 1942, where Hornet (CV-8) was sunk and Enterprise was damaged again but so was the Shokaku, while just about the last 100 veteran Japanese carrier air crews went down in flames, including 26 credited to the curtain of antiaircraft fire from the fast battleship South Dakota .

The 1942 carrier to carrier battles had proved costlier than anyone could have imagined and the experienced Japanese carrier aircrews had been largely expended while the American pilot and aircrew training programs were just getting into high gear. After the almost constant operations of 1942, the Zuikaku was not again engaged until the Battle of the Philippine Sea, in June 1944. The Japanese carrier aircrew, after being systematically shot to pieces during three land deployments defending the Solomons during 1943 and early 1944 were largely green while the Americans had veteran leaders and well-trained flyers. As the Japanese approached the largest carrier versus carrier battle of the war, they expected to be supported by up to 1,000 land-based aircraft but these aircraft had been systematically destroyed by American air strikes and fighter aircraft as the Japanese fleet sailed into range. After being thinned out by American submarines (aircraft carriers Shokaku and Taiho were all lost to the "silent service" during the approach to the American fleet), the remainder of the Japanese carrier fleet launched their air strikes from a range too distant for the American aircraft to retaliate. These strikes ran into American combat air patrols that turned the battle into a slaughter known to history as the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" and surviving Japanese aircraft attempting to land on air strips in the Marianas were butchered by additional American aircraft patrolling those bases. American air strikes the next day sank carrier Hiyo and damaged carriers Chiyoda, Junyo, Ryuho and Zuikaku plus battleship Haruna the following day. At the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the last four available Japanese aircraft carriers, the Chitose, Chiyoda, Zuiho and Zuikaku , carrying few aircraft, were sacrificed to draw off the American fast carriers and all were sunk by carrier air strikes on October 25, 1944.

For contemporary British aircraft carriers, see: Ark Royal and Victorious .

For the Essex class fleet aircraft carriers facing the Japanese in 1944, see: Hornet, Intrepid, Lexington and Yorktown .

Where did we get all these fascinating historical tidbits and factoids? See the Bibliography for the culprits.