 Their inexperienced air groups were relegated to airfield attacks during the attack on Pearl Harbor , but they later sank two of the four fleet carriers lost by the United States Navy during the war in addition to one elderly British light carrier . The sister ships returned to Japan after the Battle of the Coral Sea , one to repair damage and the other to replace aircraft lost during the battle , so neither ship participated in the Battle of Midway in June 1942 . After the catastrophic losses of four carriers during that battle , they formed the bulk of the IJN 's carrier force for the rest of the war . As such they were the primary counterattack force deployed against the American invasion of Guadalcanal in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons in August . Two months later , they attempted to support a major offensive by the Imperial Japanese Army to push the United States Marines off Guadalcanal . This resulted in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands where they crippled one American carrier and damaged another in exchange for damage to Shōkaku and a light carrier . Neither attempt succeeded and the Japanese withdrew their remaining forces from Guadalcanal in early 1943 using the air group from Zuikaku to provide cover . 
