While on the attack on Pearl Harbor the IJN accounted for many US BB sinkings, I can’t think of a single US Battleship sunk during actual open combat. Japan sank several Battleships in the surprise attack, but it appears they didn’t manage to sink any more for the rest of the war.
I find this a little surprising. Both nations engaged in Battleship on Battleship action several times, and its interesting that the USN walked out of it relatively unscathed.
As far as I can tell, U.S. and Japanese battleships engaged each other just twice: in Guadacanal, where two American BBs sunk a Japanese one, at the cost of major damage to one of them; and in Leyte Gulf, where the USN managed to “cross the T” and cause major damage to an enemy that barely managed to get a shot in.
The Japanese, in general, were loathe to commit their battleships to battle, largely due to their belief in the “decisive battle doctrine”, that the naval war would be resolved by a single major engagement between battleship fleets, like Trafalgar, Tsushima or Jutland. The irony, of course, is that they did get their big battle at Leyte Gulf, and lost it - and even if they had won it wouldn’t have made much of an impact on the war.
For the concluding battleship vs battleship phase of Surigao Strait the Japanese didn’t get even a single shot off; the US battleships and cruisers were using radar fire control. By the time they had run the gauntlet of PT boats and destroyers Fuso was already sinking and the entire Japanese force consisted of the battleship Yamashiro, heavy cruiser Mogami and a single destroyer. Crossing the T was only adding insult to injury, it hardly even mattered at that point.
How about the The Oklahoma. OK, not really what you’re looking at, and it did take six years, but it was being towed because of the hits it took at Pearl Harbor. From the looks of things, it might be the largest US capital ship whose whereabouts are unkown. Any other contenders?