After checking in at Pearl Harbor following the Japanese attack, the Enterprise goes on the offense, first in the Marshall Islands then escorting Doolittle's raiders on the USS Hornet.
Wise to the Japanese trap at Midway the American carrier force prepares an ambush. Despite winning a tremendous victory, poorly executed air operations by the American forces lead to the loss of many air crews and the Hornet aircraft carrier.
The Japanese Guadalcanal invasion fleet engages Task Force 61 spearheaded by the Enterprise and Hornet. For the American forces it is a defensive battle as wave after wave of Japanese planes bombard the American carriers and eventually destroy the Hornet. But the attack decimates Japan's dwindling core of experienced pilots and two American dive bombers manage to find and destroy a Japanese aircraft carrier.
The Japanese send a fleet with a dozen troop carriers, a total of 13,000 men, to retake Guadalcanal. As the only remaining operational aircraft carrier in the pacific the job of stopping them falls to the Enterprise and its escorts.
United States forces go on the attack to drive the Japanese out of the South Pacfic. The Enterprise, with upgrades to almost all its combat systems, a new commander and a new fleet of powerful escort ships, leads the way with a devastating attack on Makin Atoll in the Gilbert Islands.
The Enterprise as part of a task force of seven other carriers and their support ships attack Japan's major harbor in Truk Lagoon hoping to devastate their fleet. But the Japanese anticipated the attack, pulled out their major ships and prepared a counter attack. Later the Japanese re-enforce and the Enterprise is back to deal out more punishment.
The USS Enterprise participates in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the most crushing American naval aerial victory of the Pacific Theatre of World War II.
As American forces prepare to invade the Phillipines the Japanese, now deficient in aircraft carriers and planes, change tactics to disrupt American amphibious landings with their massive battleships and use their aircraft carriers as decoys. The ruse leads to history's last battle between gunships and the largest navel battle in history.
The Enterprise engages in successful operations in the South China Sea, Iwo Jima and Okinawa and its string of luck continues even with the introduction of Kamikazes. But Enterprise finishes the war in port after a single kamikaze destroys its forward elevator.
