It was a definite learning curve. I doubt we would have lost the Lexington had similar damage been inflicted later in the war. One thing the Navy was quite good at was capturing lessons learned from each ship that sank. IIRC, the trick of flooding gas lines with CO2 was developed on the Lex or Yorktown.
The point I was trying to make was that even pre-war we took damage control more seriously than many nations. Clearly the Japanese did not take the same view, and paid dearly for it. |