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Most of my Jap CV's are down to their last half dozen Vals and Kates. When are they replaced? Do you have to send the ships back to Truk? As far as I am aware only Vals are sent to Truk now and again, I have never seen a replacement Kate squadron sent and these are the most effective ship killers!

Any Ideas??

Japanese CV aircraft are automatically replaced if your CV's TF is in range of Truk allowing the transfer for Zeroes,Vals and Kates(North of Rabaul IIRC).Moreover the replacement rate for your Dive bomber and Torpedo bomber is very low especially for the Kates (10 or 20 per month);as Kates squadron don't start the campaign at full strenght,considering the heavy losses you have probably suffered in the first CV engagement,you will never get a full strenght squadron for the rest of the war.There is no independent Kates squadron IIRC,they arrive with their CV.That's why you should be careful before engaging enemy CV's and try to limit losses as much as possible.
Regarding the Vals you can possibly disband some independent squadron in order to recomplete your CV aircraft and the replacement rate is higher (60 per month).

If really critical, you can send some of your CVL's back to Tokyo. Their planes will go to replacement pool and fill rest of your carriers to full squrdons. Also sending those slow useless targets, ie. Junyo-class, gives you few extra Vals and Kates to your REAL carriers attack wings.