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
Japanese aircraft carrier Hōshō striking force, "Hōshō" missed the major portion of the battle in which Nagumo's four fleet carriers were ambushed and fatally damaged by US carrier aircraft on 4 June. The next day, "Hōshō" aircraft helped guide the remnants of Nagumo's force to a rendezvous with the Main Body. Around the same time, one of "Hōshō's" aircraft, crewed by pilot Shigeo Nakamura and observer Kiyoshi Ōniwa, discovered the burning, sinking . Photographs of the abandoned carrier taken by Ōniwa have been described as "among the most dramatic of the war in the Pacific". With the battle lost, a significant strategic defeat for