Naval history of World War II 4–7, 1942, the United States Navy decisively defeated a Japanese naval force that had sought to lure the U.S. carrier fleet into a trap at Midway Atoll. The Japanese fleet lost four aircraft carriers to the U.S. Navy's one American carrier and a destroyer. After Midway, and the exhausting attrition of the Solomon Islands campaign, Japan's shipbuilding and pilot training programs were unable to keep pace in replacing their losses while the U.S. steadily increased its output in both areas. Military historian John Keegan called the Battle of Midway "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval
Battle of the Philippine Sea many of them were subsequently lost when "Taiho" and "Shōkaku" were sunk. After the second day of the battle, losses totaled three carriers, more than 433 carrier aircraft, and around 200 land-based aircraft. These losses to the already outnumbered Japanese fleet air arm were irreplaceable. The Japanese had spent the better part of a year reconstituting their carrier air groups, and the American Fast Carrier Task Force had destroyed 90% of it in two days. The Japanese had only enough pilots left to form the air group for one of their light carriers. As a consequence, during the Battle of