Shoho was a light carrier of the Zuiho class in the Imperial Japanese Navy. She had first gone to sea as the tender Tsurugizaki. Captain Ishinosuke Izawa took command on 1 October 1941, while that earlier name was still hers.
On 22 December 1941 the ship was renamed Shoho. Izawa remained in command after the renaming. In the spring of 1942 she was at sea as a light carrier with Goto's cruisers.
She was lost in the Battle of the Coral Sea. On 7 May 1942, north of Misima, aircraft from the American carriers Yorktown and Lexington overwhelmed her. Their bombs sank her, and she went down within minutes.
The aircraft came from both carriers, and the sinking is not credited to any one ship. She was the first Japanese carrier sunk in the war.
The destroyer Sazanami was with her that day. Sazanami was the ship sent back for the men in the water. How many of them came up the destroyer's side has never been settled.
Izawa was still her captain when she was lost on 7 May 1942. He stayed on the books until Shoho was struck on 20 May 1942.