more than that it sunk it with early mark 14/15 torpedoes that had very bad reliability issues with detonators resulting in loads of duds (part of the reason why the first carrier with name USS Wasp was still afloat for the japs to sink it was because all the torpedoes that were launched to scuttle it missed or failed to detonate after impacting) and also had a nasty habit of circle running after launch (1 confirmed US sub loss was from torpedo circling and striking the sub after launch and another loss was highly likely same reason)
more than that it sunk it with early mark 14/15 torpedoes that had very bad reliability issues with detonators resulting in loads of duds (part of the reason why the first carrier with name USS Wasp was still afloat for the japs to sink it was because all the torpedoes that were launched to scuttle it missed or failed to detonate after impacting) and also had a nasty habit of circle running after launch (1 confirmed US sub loss was from torpedo circling and striking the sub after launch and another loss was highly likely same reason)
Taihou was sunk in mid 1944 quite a while after more or less all issues with US torpedoes had been sorted by the later half of 1943. In point of fact there was no real inherent design flaws with US torpedoes, barring the magnetic exploder, the problems were almost solely a result a insufficient testing to iron out comparatively minor defects, likely largely due to very limited budgets in the depression era. (The lack of adequate oversight of the single source of torpedoes was also a factor, but arguably this was largely a result of the above lack of funding)
Wasp was torpedo by the Japanese, Hornet was the carrier where a scuttling attempt revealed problems with contact exploders at angles approaching normal, IF the torpedo was set for a high speed run. At it's lower speed setting the exploder actually functioned as intended. This stemmed from having been designed first for an older, slower torpedo. The higher speed the new model could attain was crushing the heads before they could detonate. In hindsight it seems stupid this wasn't tested, but the contact pistol was seen mostly as a back up to the magnetic exploder and so was even more poorly tested then it was. They'd worked fine on the older torpedoes and occurring in the middle of the great depression... well no one was in a hurry to expend a bunch of what amounted to the tomahawk cruise missile of it's day in 'unneeded' tests.
To this extent being a militaristic empire with totally unsustainable long term, but in the near term almost unlimited military budgets had it's advantages. The Japanese military pretty much got what it wanted in the 30s and if it wanted to fire off a bunch of live torpedoes at the equivalent of a million dollars a pop today it would fire off a bunch of live torpedoes.
It was also an issue that the accumulation of defects managed to conceal each other in sequence so that they couldn't all be spotted and corrected at once and instead each had to be corrected before the next was revealed. First off the magnetic exploder clearly wasn't working, so most captains ordered it disabled and the weapons set for contact. This meant setting the torpedo for a shallower run to actually hit to target, but when this was done it then became clear the torpedo was running too deep and so wasn't hitting anything. This was fixed by the reasonably simple expedience of simply setting a shallower run depth to 'trick' the weapon into running properly. Torpedoes then began hitting, but many failed to explode thus revealing the final defect in the exploder. This required either less then optimal launch angles or using the slow speed setting to combat (neither very appealing) and did ultimately require a minor design change to finally fix.
Circular runs were something that just happened with torpedoes sometimes and often because of user error, not necessarily weapon defect. Indeed despite the fairly heavy scrutiny it gets no particular specific defect that would have caused unusual numbers of circular runs was ever identified in US torpedoes. About 25 were confirmed during the war, but this has to be balanced against the fact that thousands of torpedoes were expended. At least some of the incidents are also definitely known to have been user error relating to either outright not installing or improperly installing the gyros needed to assure the torpedoes stability before firing.
All of this was largely sorted out by late august-early September 1943. Once that was done the US torpedo was functionally equivalent to other naval torpedo in use in terms of reliability. It's interesting to note that Germany had very nearly the same set of problems with it's own weapons and it took a similar time span to fully sort out around 18 months, for much the same reasons regarding money and lack of testing.
Taihou was still even unluckier then it might appear though the reason being WHY she was only hit by a single torpedo. Albacore was a veteran submarine and given the attack profile they'd set up there was no reason it shouldn't have plastered Taihou with three or even four torpedoes like Shokaku would be later, but as they were preparing to make the attack the computer used to calculate firing solutions for the torpedoes failed. With no time to try and fix it before Taihou would pass by and start moving out of range they upped periscope, eyeballed it, and fired with what the sea going equivalent of Kentucky windage. This was probably almost entirely the reaosn why only one torpedo hit, but one proved to be enough...
Somehow, I can feel some evil eyes staring at me... I'm pretty weak to subs, after all... Taking a good look at this girl... at the practice time... I-ku-ku... I'm gonna eat up this tasty morsel here too...
