text: The slow carriers could not outrun  cruisers. They launched their aircraft and maneuvered to avoid shellfire, helped by smoke screens, for over an hour. "Taffy 3" bore the brunt of the fight. The Taffy ships took dozens of hits, mostly from armor-piercing rounds that passed right through their thin, unarmored hulls without exploding. , sunk in this action, was the only U.S. carrier lost to enemy surface gunfire in the war; the Japanese concentration of fire on this one carrier assisted the escape of the others. The carriers' only substantial armament—aside from their aircraft—was a single  dual-purpose gun mounted on the stern, but the pursuing Japanese cruisers closed to within range of these guns. One of the guns damaged the burning Japanese heavy cruiser , and a subsequent bomb dropped by an aircraft hit the cruiser's forward machinery room, leaving her dead in the water. A kamikaze attack sank ; kamikaze aircraft attacking other ships were shot down. Ultimately the superior Japanese surface force withdrew, believing they were confronted by a stronger force than was the case. Most of the damage to the Japanese fleet was inflicted by torpedoes fired by destroyers, and bombs from the carriers' aircraft.
  The U.S. Navy lost a similar number of ships and more men than in the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway combined (though major fleet carriers were lost in the other battles).
  The ships
  Many escort carriers were Lend-Leased to the United Kingdom, this list specifies the breakdown in service to each navy.
  : Two ships, one in USN service () and one in British service ().