Nearly 6,000 of the planes were manufactured during the war and served as the U.S. Navy’s primary carrier-based ... the four Japanese aircraft carriers involved in the battle. Three of the Japanese ...

But Hitler’s Germany did make progress towards building an aircraft carrier. This was the Graf Zeppelin—named for Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, best known for developing the eponymous airship.

For a nation of more than 17,000 islands at the southern edge of one of the world’s most contested waterways, the idea of an aircraft carrier might seem like a bold, even necessary, step.