First Carrier Division
"Taihō" was formally commissioned on 7 March 1944. After several weeks of service trials in Japan's Inland Sea, she was deployed to Singapore, arriving there on 5 April. "Taihō" was then moved to Lingga Roads, a naval anchorage off Sumatra, where she joined veteran carriers and in the First Carrier Division, First Mobile Force. All three carriers engaged in working up new air groups by practicing launch and recovery operations and acting as targets for mock aerial attacks staged from Singapore airfields by their own planes. On 15 April, Vice-Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa officially transferred his flag from "Shōkaku" to "Taihō" to take advantage of the carrier's extensive command facilities. Shortly thereafter, the First Mobile Force departed Lingga and arrived on 14 May at Tawi-Tawi off Borneo, where the fleet could directly refuel with unrefined Tarakan Island crude oil and await execution of the planned Kantai Kessen ("decisive battle") known as Operation A-GO.&lt;ref name="Ahlberg/Lengerer84"&gt;Ahlberg/Lengerer, p.84&lt;/ref&gt;