The Aircraft Carrier Forced to Fight Japan on its Own

It was October of 1942, and the Guadalcanal campaign in the Pacific Theater had devolved into a brutal deadlock. Both the Japanese and the US forces could not push their adversaries off the region, and each side kept pouring more men and equipment into the lethal stalemate. After Japan took USS Enterprise out of action weeks prior, the US lost naval superiority in the region. However, the Americans still had air superiority thanks to the capture of Henderson Field. Everything boiled down to that airbase; if the Japanese could recapture it, they would be able to overwhelm the US forces by air as well as by sea. As such, holding Henderson Field was the most crucial objective of the US Navy and the Marines. Soon, Japan moved its superior fleets to the Santa Cruz Islands, hoping to lure the US warships out once and for all. But despite being vastly outnumbered and having only two aircraft carriers, the US fleet steamed ahead, knowing they had to protect the US airfield at any cost. A massive clash ensued, one of the first and most violent carrier battles of the entire war…