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And yet there weren’t that many pure carrier-vs-carrier battles in the Pacific War after Midway, probably because the Japanese lost their four best carriers. :^) By August 1945 the US had 21 Essex-class carriers, each of which was more capable than anything the USN had in 1941.

Even though the US had to go to war with the Navy it had in 1941, good commanders and good strategy and tactics — along with the amount of fight in the US fighting men in all branches of the service — were right on time for a war potentially covering half the world’s surface. :^)

Even so there was still a trajectory of time involved until they got squared away into a wartime footing. A strong "peacetime inertia" was in play, that didn't get dispersed until around mid-43. Regulations, procedures, attitudes, equipment that didn't fit the new posture had to be discarded or revamped. I know of one captain relieved of command due to his obsession for requiring everything to be constantly polished or painted. Ship crews in the fleet were not permitted to service their own weapons, they didn't even have tools to do so, servicing was to be done by certified armorers at the nearest base. That one got thrown out pretty fast as soon as they could get custom tools made down in the machine shop. Number of shipboard weapons underwent modifications on the fly, since what worked on land didn't necessarily translate to what would work and be reliable in conditions at sea, particularly under the duress of combat. We started off the war with the same damage control strategy as the Japs with specialized personnel, which turned out to be inadequate since casualties, being cutoff from each other and getting separated from being an effective team rendered them mostly useless. That's when fire school was adopted, "every man a firefighter" and had to have a certificate before being eligible for deployment aboard ship. I could go on, but you get the picture.

You had a couple of carrier battles during the Guadalcanal campaign the Battle of the Eastern Solomons and the Battle of Santa Cruz and then for the most part the Japanese carriers were targets and in a defensive mode and offered little to no offensive punch at the Battle of the Philippine Sea aka the Marianna’s Turkey Shoot, better radar operations and fighter direction and control with the F6 Hellcat destroyed any offensive punch there. In the Battle of Leyte Gulf Japanese carriers were nothing more than bait.

" By August 1945 the US had 21 Essex-class carriers, each of which was more capable than anything the USN had in 1941."

By the end of the war, the USA had 109 carriers in the Pacific, most were Escort Carriers.

The sub I was on played war games with the USS Essex in the early 60's.