was an

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...

unit of the Imperial Japanese Navy's

First Air Fleet The , also known as the ''Kidō Butai'' ("Mobile Force"), was a name used for a combined carrier battle group comprising most of the aircraft carriers and carrier air groups of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) during the first eight months of the P ...

. At the beginning of the Pacific Campaign of World War II, the First Carrier Division consisted of the fleet carriers ''Akagi'' and ''Kaga''. The division participated in the Attack on Pearl Harbor and Indian Ocean Raid. After ''Akagi'' and ''Kaga'' were sunk at the Battle of Midway in June 1942, carriers ''Shōkaku'', ''Zuikaku'', and ''Zuihō'' were redesignated as the First Carrier Division.

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Commander

The First Carrier Division participated in the largest carrier-to-carrier battle in history, the Battle of the Marianas, and specifically the

Battle of the Philippine Sea (the so-called “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot”) on 19–20 June, where the Japanese naval forces were decisively defeated with heavy and irreplaceable losses to their carrier-borne and land-based aircraft.

References

* *''The Maru Special series'', (Japan) *''Ships of the World series'', , (Japan)

Organization (extract)

Commander

References

Further reading