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 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