In October 1944, "Zuikaku" was the flagship of Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa's decoy Northern Force in Operation Shō-Gō 1, the Japanese counterattack against the Allied landings on Leyte. At this time, the ship had 28 A6M5 Zero fighters, 16 A6M2 Zero fighter-bombers, 7 D4Y reconnaissance aircraft and 15 B6Ns. On the morning of 24 October, she launched 10 fighters, 11 fighter-bombers, 6 torpedo bombers, and 2 reconnaissance aircraft as her contribution to the airstrike intended to attract the attention of the American carriers away from the other task groups that were to destroy the landing forces. This accomplished little else as the Japanese aircraft failed to penetrate past the defending fighters; the survivors landed at airfields on Luzon. The Americans were preoccupied dealing with the other Japanese naval forces and defending themselves from air attacks and finally found the Northern Force late that afternoon, but Admiral William Halsey, Jr., commander of Task Force 38, decided that it was too late in the day to mount an effective strike. He turned all of his ships north to position himself for an attack.