 The carrier's crew suffered 811 fatalities, mainly among the aircraft mechanics and armorers stationed on the hangar decks and the ship's engineers, many of whom were trapped below in the boiler and engine rooms by uncontrolled fires raging on the decks above them. Twenty-one of the ship's aviators were killed. The loss of Kaga and the three other IJN carriers at Midway (Hiryū was also sunk during the battle), with their aircraft and veteran pilots, was a crucial strategic defeat for Japan and contributed significantly to Japan's ultimate defeat in the war.
