Word: kaga
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Nimitz told his task force commanders, Rear Admirals Raymond A. Spruance and Frank Jack Fletcher, who well knew that the three carriers were about all that stood between the Japanese and California. Not far away, gliding serenely through a fog bank amid their great escort, the Japanese carriers Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu prepared for their strike...
...down at 70° out of light clouds, the SBD Dauntless dive bombers of Enterprise and Yorktown bore down undetected and unopposed. "Helldivers!" screamed a lookout on Akagi. Within minutes the dive bombers scored a fabulous nine hits and mortally wounded three of the Japanese carriers. Within hours, Akagi, Kaga and Soryu were on the bottom...
...Minutes. It was the U.S. fleet that had achieved the surprise. Caught with most of its planes aboard, the Akagi exploded and burned. So did two sister carriers, the Kaga and Soryu (Hiryu, the fourth, survived to be wrecked by an evening raid). In two minutes the whole course of the Pacific war changed. That night, its air striking power destroyed, the Japanese invasion armada turned in "emptiness, cheerlessness and chagrin" and limped for home. (The U.S. Navy lost the Yorktown, one of the three carriers that it was able to muster for the great battle...