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 Santa Cruz Islands one more hit. "Chikuma", escorted by two destroyers, withdrew from the battle and headed towards Truk for repairs. The U.S. carrier forces received word from their outbound strike aircraft at 08:30 that Japanese attack aircraft were headed their way. At 08:52, the Japanese strike force commander sighted the "Hornet" task force (the "Enterprise" task force was hidden by a rain squall) and deployed his aircraft for attack. At 08:55, the U.S. carriers detected the approaching Japanese aircraft on radar—about away—and began to vector the 37 Wildcats of their CAP to engage the incoming Japanese aircraft. However, communication problems, mistakes by