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 Santa Cruz Islands the Americans and Japanese to deploy battleships in night operations around Guadalcanal, one of only two actions in the entire Pacific War in which battleships fought each other, with "South Dakota" again being damaged while two Japanese battleships were lost. Although the Battle of Santa Cruz was a tactical victory for the Japanese in terms of ships sunk, it came at a high cost for their naval forces, as "Jun'yō" was the only active aircraft carrier left to challenge "Enterprise" or Henderson Field for the remainder of the Guadalcanal campaign. "Zuikaku", despite being undamaged and having recovered the aircraft from