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
Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi and contributed significantly to Japan's ultimate defeat in the war. In an effort to conceal the defeat, "Akagi" was not immediately removed from the Navy's registry of ships, instead being listed as "unmanned" before finally being struck from the registry on 25 September 1942. Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi Akagi (Japanese: 赤城 "Red Castle") was an aircraft carrier built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), named after Mount Akagi in present-day Gunma Prefecture. Though she was laid down as an , "Akagi" was converted to an aircraft carrier while still under construction to comply with the terms of the Washington Naval