Santa Cruz and the last functional carrier

Enterprise's aircraft located and struck Japanese carriers and cruisers at Santa Cruz before the ship took two bomb hits, losing forty-four men and suffering seventy-five wounded. She remained in action and absorbed aircraft and crew from Hornet when her sister ship was lost. The battle helped secure reinforcement of Guadalcanal and protected Henderson Field from another bombardment, giving it strategic value despite severe American losses. Hornet's destruction left a damaged Enterprise as the only functioning US fleet carrier in the Pacific theater. The situation exposed the danger of designing for maneuver at sea and then tying a carrier to an island objective that restricted its room to evade attack. US carriers built around open-ocean maneuver found themselves defending fixed positions, while British carriers designed with constrained waters in mind often fought in campaigns of movement.