The first aircraft carrier to be sunk in action was the HMS Courageous which was hit by two torpedoes on Sept 17, 1939.
Her sister ship, HMS Glorious was the second carrier to be lost when she ran into the KMS Scharnhorst and Gneisenau on June 8, 1940.
The first carrier sunk in the Pacific was also British, HMS Hermes was sunk by air attack on March 9, 1942.
The first US carrier, USS Langley was sunk by aircraft in Feb 1942. No longer an aircraft carrier, she had been converted into a aircraft transport and was moving AAC P-40s to Java when she was sunk.
The first Japanese carrier lost was HIJMS Shoho, sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea on May 8, 1942. The first US carrier to be sunk, the USS Lexington followed shortly thereafter.
The last American fleet carrier to be sunk was USS Hornet, on Oct 24, 1942.
The last Japanese carrier to be sunk, HIJMS Amagi was pounded to death by airstrikes in Kure Harbor on July 24, 1945.
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The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis.
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