Wednesday · November 11, 2026

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Hornet goes down off the Santa Cruz Islands; Enterprise limps away battered

Two Japanese carriers and a cruiser take heavy damage in return, but the American carrier force is down to one.

By late October 1942, the Navy was running out of carriers to feed the fight for Guadalcanal. On October 26, carrier aircraft from USS Hornet and USS Enterprise clashed with four Japanese carriers near the Santa Cruz Islands, neither fleet ever coming within sight of the other. Hornet took torpedo and bomb hits she could not survive and sank; Enterprise was heavily damaged but stayed afloat. Japan sank more American tonnage that day, but it also lost veteran aircrews the Imperial Navy could not replace…

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More from October 26

The Congress breaks up; the colonies now have a boycott and a date to reconvene

Fifty-six delegates close seven weeks at Carpenters' Hall with a trade embargo, a petition to the king, and the promise to meet again come spring.

Four days of battle end: Japan's navy leaves Leyte Gulf broken

The largest naval battle in history closes with the Imperial Japanese Navy no longer able to fight as a fleet.

Pan Am's jet lands at Le Bourget; New York to Paris in six hours of air time

A refueling stop in Gander was the only thing slowing the Clipper America down.

Exiled from Memphis five months earlier, she answers with a pamphlet instead of a retreat.

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Read the full October 26 edition →Everything that happened on October 26 →

More from The World Wars

Einstein steps off the boat in America, a scientist with no country to go home to

Seven months after refusing to return to Germany, he lands to take up a post at a research institute that barely exists yet.

Two US submarines catch Kurita's fleet at midnight; three heavy cruisers torpedoed by dawn

Darter's radar finds the Japanese Center Force in the dark, and the admiral himself ends up swimming for his life.

Musashi rolls over and sinks after waves of American carrier strikes

Nineteen torpedoes and seventeen bombs were enough to capsize the heaviest battleship ever built.

Davis becomes the Army's first Black general

Weeks after being left off the promotion list, the colonel gets his star from Roosevelt himself.

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