In the early afternoon of 25 October 1944, after the third U.S. air attack of the day, Zuikaku was stopped, listing severely to port, and clearly sinking. Surviving crewmen mustered on the flight deck, gave a final "Banzai" cheer and abandoned ship. Zuikaku, last of the six carriers that started the Pacific War with the Pearl Harbor attack almost three years earlier, capsized and sank shortly afterwards.
However, her sacrificial mission had been successful. A powerful Japanese surface force, headed by the huge battleship Yamato, entered the Pacific, and, as Zuikaku and her consorts were undergoing the first of the day's fatal attacks, encountered a force of U.S. escort carriers, producing the epic Battle off Samar.
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