Carrier battle group at the Battle of Midway. In contrast, the United States Navy deployed its large carriers in separate formations, with each carrier assigned its own cruiser and destroyer escorts. These single-carrier formations would often be paired or grouped together for certain assignments, most notably the Battle of the Coral Sea and Midway. By 1943, however, large numbers of fleet and light carriers became available, which required larger formations of three or four carriers. These groups eventually formed the Fast Carrier Task Force, which became the primary battle unit of the U.S. Fifth and Third Fleets. With the construction of the large
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