Aircraft carriers were a key component of projecting power into the pacific. They've never been impregnable (obviously both sides lost carriers in the pacific,

Aircraft carriers were a key component of projecting power into the pacific. They've never been impregnable (obviously both sides lost carriers in the pacific, including at least one I can think of to a lone submarine). > “Why the US ended up winning the war in the Pacific was therefore not because of the fleet that they started the war with—it was the fleet that they ended it with—almost all of whose most effective and advanced warships were launched after the Battle of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941”. Considering that the tonnage of ships the US had was limited by treaty (treaties were expired, but it takes time to build ships) and that Japan's attack further reduced the fleet strength, one would expect that the US won with ships built after Pearl Harbor. There was an 18 month period in which the US built more fleet carriers than Japan had in the entire war. In addition, Japan lost a huge fraction of their experienced pilots in 1942, which was arguably as deleterious as losing the carriers.