I was told that this might be a good place to get some help so here I am. Right now this is somewhat of a rough draft but I wanted to get your thoughts on this. Any help would truly be appreciated. If I put this in the wrong place then I apologize for it.Battle of Santa Cruz Islands: Though a tactical victory for the Japanese as the Americans lost more in terms of ships, this battle shredded the last of the highly trained prewar carrier air groups. After this battle, both carrier forces would not engage each other for the next two years. By the time the Japanese carriers would engage their American counterparts in June 1944, the Americans had the upper hand in numbers, technology and training. In addition, the results of the battle helped ensure that the Americans would hold Guadalcanal until the decisive surface naval battles in November. Opening situation From October 25-26, the Japanese and American carrier forces engaged each other around the Santa Cruz Islands as part of the Guadalcanal campaign. The battle formed a major part of a Japanese attempt to capture Henderson Airfield on Guadalcanal and destroy the American garrison. After several ground assaults on the Americans had failed in August and September, the Japanese army and navy held a meeting at the large naval base at Truck to develop a new plan to defeat the Americans. After the commander of the Japanese 17th Army (the army in charge of the area) made his case, Admiral Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese fleet, promised him the support of the entire fleet to retake the island. The result of the meeting was that the Japanese army and navy began to throw a large portion of their resources into the struggle for the island and its vital airfield. Despite interference by the US Navy and US air units on Guadalcanal, the Japanese successfully poured troops and supplies onto the island. In turn, the Japanese navy attempted to weaken the American presence on the island with air attacks, shelling by ground artillery and naval bombardments, which proved at times devastating to the American defenders. By the time the buildup was complete in mid-October, the Japanese had 20,000 troops on the island facing the 23, 000 troops the Americans had on the island. With a large force of five carriers under their command, Vice-Admiral Nobutake Kondo and Vice-Admiral Chuichi Nagumo had orders to provide air cover for the ground assault. If any American naval forces rushed in to assist their ground forces on Guadalcanal, they would blunt all attempts and destroy them. Many Japanese commanders, including Yamamoto, believed that with the forces deployed in the battle zone, the Japanese would be able to avenge their disgraceful defeat at Midway.  Already problems had intervened to throw the Japanese plans into confusion. The ground forces had struggled to get into position through impassable terrain and had asked for several delays. At first, the navy reluctantly agreed but eventually ordered the army to get on with the attack, as the Japanese fleet could not remain on station indefinitely. This resulted from a fuel problem that came out from deploying so much of the Japanese fleet at sea. In fact, it got so bad that Japanese tankers had to draw fuel from the super-battleships Yamato and Musashi at Truk and transfer it to the rest of the fleet. When the attacked commenced on October 23, they all moved in to engage at staggered intervals. After 3 days of heavy fighting and strikes from Japanese artillery and airpower, the American forces held their ground. The problems of coordination also extended to the navy as it dispatched a small surface action group to support the assault after having mistakenly received word that the ground forces had taken the airfield. At first, they had success as they ran into miscellaneous US surface units and dispatched them in short order. However soon they ran into trouble as US artillery damaged a destroyer and forced the rest to withdraw. As they headed towards relative safety, US air attacks from Henderson Field eventually resulted in the loss of the Japanese light cruiser Yura.  To add to the trouble, one of the Japanese carriers, the Hiyo, had to return to Truk due to engine problems, which somewhat evened the odds for the Americans though the Japanese still had four large carriers available for an immediate battle in the near future. Despite the failure of the ground attack, Nagumo remained in the area and soon American PBYs from the Santa Cruz Islands reported his presence to the Americans. Though he attempted to head back north several times, an order by Yamamoto ordered him to head back south and engage the enemy fleet. On the American side, the US Pacific Fleet rushed reinforcements to the area despite the fact that the European theater took precedence. Already they had rushed in ground reinforcements, air units, several major warships and submarine units into the area and more were on their way. Unfortunately, they were outnumbered in terms of carriers they had suffered severe losses in the weeks after the American victory in the battle of the Eastern Solomons in August. In September, Japanese submarines scored big victories by damaging the Saratoga once again and sinking the Wasp. Still the Americans had two carriers (the recently repaired Enterprise and the Hornet) in the area along with impressive support assets as well as the all-important Henderson Field. However, they had problems of their own in the fact that most of the American pilots were still green and that they still could not coordinate an effective carrier airstrike. Although outnumbered in carriers, the numbers of aircraft on the two carriers, and despite the weaknesses, the Americans were also eager for a battle with the Japanese. In fact, one of Admiral William F. Halsey?s first orders when he arrived to take command in the South Pacific was for the fleet to ?Attack, repeat attack?. In preparation for a showdown with American carriers, the Japanese fleet split their forces into three groups. One group, under the direct command of Kondo had large surface assets as well as the Junyo among them. The remaining three carriers Shokaku, Zuikaku, and Zuiho waited some distance behind them. Another large surface action group, under the direct command of Rear-Admiral Hiroaki Abe, would also deploy forward of the main Japanese carriers and would assist Kondo in drawing some of the American fire away from Nagumo. Created after the battle of Midway as a means of countering an incoming enemy airstrike, Japanese naval commanders hoped that the battleships and cruisers would divert fire away from the carriers. Battle: Both sides started the battle by launching scout planes to search for the other while getting their main attack groups ready. For the Americans, they launched their SBD Dauntless armed with bombs on the off chance that they could get in quick hits when they found the enemy. They would not be disappointed as two such bombers from the Enterprise found the Japanese as they finished launching their planes for an attack on the US carriers. Moving in quickly as Japanese Zeros of the CAP (combat air patrol) dealt with other scout planes in the area, the two bombers targeted the Japanese light carrier Zuiho and shut down her flight operations with two bomb hits on her flight deck. Before the unexpected attack, the Japanese scout planes found their targets and soon both the opposing carriers rushed to get their air groups into the sky. The Japanese still managed to beat their counterparts by 20 minutes as they launched two initial strike waves of 110 aircraft against their American counterparts. In turn the American did manage to get their carrier air groups airborne but they still proceeded in a piecemeal fashion. As the opposing air groups came across each other, several of Zuhio?s fighters peeled off from the main force and took revenge for the damage on Zuhio by downing several of Enterprise?s planes and forcing several others to return to the carrier. When the American airstrike approached the Japanese fleet, they had to fight their way through swarm of Japanese Zeros. Quickly breaking through the American fighter cover, the Zeros started to make attack runs on the bombers. Soon the anti-aircraft fire from Japanese ships added to the obstacles that the Americans had to fight their way through to get to the carriers. In addition, as the battleships and cruisers came into their view, some of the American strike aircraft began to break formation and engage targets of opportunity. Eventually Hornet?s air group managed to get a shot at the Japanese carriers as her dive-bombers scored between four to six bomb hits on Shokaku and knocked her out of the battle. Another wave of Hornet?s bombers managed to engage and damage the cruiser Chikuma. The Enterprise air group fared badly as they suffered heavy casualties and only managed to add further damage to Chikuma, forcing her to withdraw alongside Shokaku from the battle. Like the Americans, the Japanese air strikes ran into a hail of resistance from both American fighters and more importantly, their AA defenses. Still they had a field day as the five airstrikes they launched through the daylong battle first hammered the Hornet and then the Enterprise. The Hornet got the worse lot as the Japanese launched their most lethal attack on a carrier of the entire war. Four dropped bombs, two torpedoes and even two planes, still armed with their payloads, crashed into the carrier and badly damaged her. The second and third Japanese strike waves soon followed on behind and after seeing Hornet heavily damaged, they turned and ran into Enterprise, which had managed to hide in a squall during the first airstrike. Though damaged her with two bombs and several near missies but she still was able to recover aircraft and get clear of the battle zone. To add to the carnage the Americans suffered thus far, a freak accident on a heavily damaged American TBF Avenger let loose its torpedo. It quickly slammed into an American destroyer with heavy damage and in short order; the American task force commander scuttled her. Other vessels such as the cruiser San Juan and the new battleship South Dakota as well as a destroyer suffered bomb damage but they put up strong resistance and helped in inflicting losses on the Japanese airstrikes aimed at Enterprise. The same did not apply to the Hornet as the undamaged carriers Zuikaku and Junyo launched the fourth and fifth airstrikes of the day. Though they were small in comparison to the previous airstrikes of the day, they inflicted additional damage on the carrier and forced the Americans to abandon her. Two American destroyers attempted to scuttle Hornet with gunfire and torpedoes to no success and eventually two Japanese destroyers delivered the coup de grace with their own torpedoes. Although the battle was a tactical victory for the Japanese, they paid heavily with the lost of 90+ aircraft and more importantly pilots (including many important squadron and section leaders and some of them were of the quickly dwindling pool of Pearl Harbor veterans). For the Americans, although they only had the Enterprise left in action, they held the supply line to their forces on Guadalcanal.  Quick repairs at Nomuea allowed Enterprise to return to action in November, where her planes contributed to the losses the Japanese suffered in the decisive surface battles that took place. The two remaining undamaged Japanese carriers would not be able to conduct major operations until the overstretched air training schools could provide replacements, which would be in a couple of very long months. Despite this, Juyno provided cover for an attempted Japanese reinforcement of the island in November. When the other carriers finally returned to action in January 1943, the battle for Guadalcanal had ended with a true decisive Japanese defeat and truly beginning the long hard march towards Tokyo with an increasingly powerful American carrier force, fueled by American industry, leading the way. Frank, Richard B. GuadacanalReynolds, Clark G. The Carrier WarMorrison, Samuel J. The Two Ocean War: a short history of the United States Navy in the Second World War. Stille, Mark. USN carriers vs. IJN carriers. Oxford. Osprey Publishing. Stille, Mark. Imperial Japanese Navy Aircraft Carriers 1921-1945. Oxford. Osprey Publishing, 2005. Stille, Mark. US Navy Aircraft Carriers 1921-1945: Prewar classes. Oxford. Osprey Publishing, 2005. http://www.combinedfleet.com