page_title: Japanese aircraft carrier Zuihō
section_title: Battle of Leyte Gulf
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese aircraft carrier Zuihō / Service / Battle of Leyte Gulf
caption_attribution_description: The Japanese carrier Zuiho pictured during the Battle of Cape Engano. Note the battle damage to her flight deck. This photograph was shot by a U.S. Navy Grumman TBM Avenger from Torpedo Squadron VT-20 from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6).
context_page_description: Zuihō was the name ship of her class of two light aircraft carriers built for the Imperial Japanese Navy. Originally laid down as the submarine tender Takasaki, she was renamed and converted while under construction into an aircraft carrier. The ship was completed during the first year of World War II and played a minor role in the Battle of Midway in mid-1942. She participated in the Guadalcanal Campaign during the rest of 1942. Significantly damaged during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in that campaign, after repairs Zuihō covered the evacuation of Japanese forces from Guadalcanal in early 1943.
  Her aircraft were disembarked several times in mid- to late-1943 and used from land bases in a series of battles in the Southwest Pacific. Zuihō participated in the Battles of the Philippine Sea and Leyte Gulf in mid-1944. In this last engagement, she mainly served as a decoy for the main striking forces and was sunk by American aircraft. In between battles, the ship served as an aircraft ferry and a training ship.
context_section_description: After the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the commander of the Combined Fleet, Admiral Soemu Toyoda, prepared various contingency plans: Shō-Gō 1 (捷１号作戦 Shō ichigō sakusen) was a major naval operation in the Philippines, while Shō-Gō 2 was intended to defend Formosa, the Ryukyu Islands and southern Kyushu. He activated Shō-Gō 2 after the Americans attacked the Philippines, Formosa and the Ryukyu Islands beginning on 10 October. This required the transfer of most of the 653rd Naval Air Group to Formosa and Luzon to attack the American forces, with only a few aircraft retained for carrier operations. Most of the 653rd's aircraft were fruitlessly destroyed when the Americans suppressed Japanese defenses in the Philippines, preparatory to the actual invasion.
  On 17 October Toyoda alerted the fleet that Shō-Gō 1 was imminent and activated the plan the following day after receiving reports of the landings on Leyte. Under the plan, Zuihō and the rest of Ozawa's carrier force were to approach Leyte Gulf from the north as a diversion from two other forces approaching from the south and west, with all three forces converging on the gulf on 25 October; the Main Body left Japan on 20 October. As decoys, the carriers were only provided with a total of 116 aircraft: 52 A6M5 fighters, 28 A6M2 fighter-bombers, 7 Yokosuka D4Y "Judy" dive bombers, 26 B6Ns and 4 B5Ns. By the morning of 24 October, the Main Body was within range of the northernmost American carriers of Task Force 38 and Ozawa ordered an airstrike launched to attract the attention of the Americans. This accomplished little else as the Japanese aircraft failed to penetrate past the defending fighters; the survivors landed at airfields on Luzon. Preoccupied with the other Japanese naval forces and land-based air attacks, the Americans could not spare any aircraft to search for the Japanese carriers until the afternoon. They were spotted at 16:05, 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 did, however, turn all of his ships north to position himself for a dawn attack on the Japanese carriers the next day in what came to be called the Battle off Cape Engaño.
  Aircraft from the light carrier Independence were able to track the Japanese ships for most of the night and Halsey ordered an airstrike of 60 Hellcats, 65 Curtiss SB2C Helldiver dive bombers and 55 Avengers launched shortly after dawn in anticipation of locating the Japanese fleet. They spotted them at 07:35 and brushed aside the 13 Zeros that the Japanese had retained for self-defense. Zuihō attempted to launch her few remaining aircraft, but was hit by a single bomb on her aft flight deck after a number of torpedo-carrying Avengers missed. The 500-pound (230 kg) bomb started several small fires, lifted the rear elevator, bulged the flight deck, knocked out steering and gave the ship a small list to port. Twenty minutes later, the fires were put out, steering repaired and the list corrected. A second attack an hour later focused on Chiyoda and ignored Zuihō. The third wave arrived around 13:00 and badly damaged the ship. She was hit once by a torpedo and twice by small bombs, although fragments from as many as 67 near misses cut steam pipes and caused flooding of both engine rooms and one boiler room. Zuihō was forced to reduce speed to 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) and flooding increased so that all available hands were ordered to man the pumps at 14:10. The ship took on a 13° list to starboard and went dead in the water at 14:45 when the port engine room fully flooded. The fourth wave of American aircraft attacked ten minutes later, but only damaged her with splinters from another ten near misses. This was enough to increase her list to 23° and she was ordered abandoned at 15:10. Zuihō sank at 15:26 at position 19°20′N 125°15′E with the loss of 7 officers and 208 men. The destroyer Kuwa and the battleship Ise rescued 58 officers and 701 men between them.
caption: Zuihō showing damage on her flight deck aft
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