Shōkaku

Shōkaku ("Soaring Crane") was the lead ship of the Shōkaku class, a pair of fast fleet carriers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy in the late 1930s. Commissioned in August 1941, she operated with her sister Zuikaku as the Fifth Carrier Division, taking part in the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Indian Ocean raid. The two ships were the most modern carriers Japan possessed: fast, well protected by a battery of dual-purpose guns, and carrying a balanced air group of fighters, dive bombers and torpedo bombers. In May 1942 the two carriers were sent south to cover the operation against Port Moresby. On 8 May, during the battle of the Coral Sea, dive bombers from the American carriers struck Shōkaku with three bombs: her flight deck was wrecked, more than two hundred of her crew were killed or wounded, and she could no longer launch aircraft. Her damage took months to repair at Kure, and with Zuikaku's air groups equally depleted, neither carrier could join the attack on Midway a month later — a shortfall that helped decide the battle.