She was one hell of a tough ship (with a design that exceeded what she needed as a carrier due to her conversion) but even though we were far ahead of the Japanese on damage control design and techniques at that point in the war, we still had a lot to learn at that point.
We learned, and applied lessons to both design and technique, especially after the disaster at Savo Island.
The Japanese did not.
There was an excellent book recommended to me by a Freeper, “Shattered Sword” about the Battle of Midway, and it very much told the tale from the perspective of the IJN, and it was extremely interesting to me.
The design of their damage control systems on their ships was horrible across the board. Our ships were designed in a way that fire mains could be more readily isolated if battle damage made that necessary, but their ships could have half the ships fire mains knocked out with a single bomb. Two well placed bombs could take out the entire firefighting apparatus.
That was a shock to me, I had no idea.
i always appreciate your insight and learn something every time
here’s a white paper i found i will read later