American fighters were better placed to catch Japanese aircraft withdrawing from their attacks than to intercept them on the way in. Japanese target fixation added to the danger. Figures attributed to Lundstrom give 99 Japanese aircraft lost out of 203 involved, and 148 pilots and aircrew killed, including ten senior officers. The losses amounted to roughly 49% of torpedo-bomber crews, 39% of dive-bomber crews, and 20% of fighter crews committed. Japan lost more aircrew at Santa Cruz than at Coral Sea, Midway, and the Eastern Solomons combined. The cumulative figure cited from Sunburst is 409 dead among the 765 aviators who had taken part in the Pearl Harbor attack, by October 1942. Such attrition helps explain the Japanese carriers' auxiliary role at Leyte Gulf. Even after forcing American carriers back, Japan could not bring enough heavily equipped ground troops to retake Guadalcanal, while both navies increasingly used battleships in night operations around the island.
Chapter · 1:37:07-1:42:21
The aircrew cost that made victory hollow
Japan pushed American carriers back but lost a proportion of its naval aircrew that its carrier arm could not afford, helping to explain its weakness at Leyte Gulf.