Ryūjō (Japanese: "prancing dragon" was a light aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy. She was laid down by Mitsubishi at Yokohama in 1929, launched in 1931 and commissioned on 9 May 1933. Her final design resulted in a top-heavy unstable vessel and within a year she was back at Kure Naval Yard for modification. With her stability sufficiently improved, Ryūjō was returned to service and employed in operations during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Early on in the Second World War, she participated in subsidiary operations in the Philippines, Java Sea, Bay of Bengal and the Aleutian Islands before being sunk by American carrier aircraft at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons on 24 August 1942.