[bell-cot]

'67...wow. I'd bet I understand the reason for that kind of training. Folks who remembered (for instance) the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal (14–15 November, 1942) would still be serving. And the vast differences in the performances of the battleships USS Washington and USS South Dakota in that battle. Admiral Lee, aboard the Washington, had an incredibly detailed understanding of the ship and its systems. He made "Sink enemy battleship while taking no damage" look easy. Vs. the South Dakota's massive screw-ups in her electrical switchboard room - just before the battle got interesting - converted her into a helpless, easy target for enemy fire.

[mwint]

Sounds interesting, do you know of any good places to read about this?

[bell-cot]

Start at the mouth of the Wikipedia rabbit-hole -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Battle_of_Guadalcanal#Se...

- and beware! - Wikipedia has some seriously deep citations on this, if you don't have plenty of hours to kill.

[mandevil]

_Battleship at War_ by Ivan Musicant is the full story of the USS Washington, does a good job at detailing that battle from the USS Washington perspective, and also discusses the early portions of the development of the Combat Information Center (one of the first implementations of the manual processes described at the beginning of article- greasepaint on plastic, reverse writing, etc.- came aboard USS Washington so that Admiral Lee could have improved situational awareness inside the tiny armored room with basically no windows that was the citadel).

Read it 30 years ago and still remember it vividly today.

[caycep]

shoot, I forget...but wasn't there a ton of material written re the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal? I vaguely remember the name Samuel Eliot Morrison. Also, as a kid, I remember a Natl Geo style writeup by Robert Ballard since he led an expedition to use ROVs to look at wrecks on Iron Bottom Sound.

I think Lee got a bit of luck too...since all of the rest of his fleet got blown up around him and the Washington was able to take advantage of the fact that all the attention were on the burning destroyers and the South Dakota, while he could take shots at will.

[wcarey]

Samuel Eliot Morison wrote a definitive history of the naval war in the Pacific, so your memory is good! Ian Toll's new series is shorter, but also top notch and benefits from more access to Japanese sources.

[jandrese]

Beyond what was already posted there is a good starting overview video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI24zwFLcuU

[wolverine876]

I'd also be interested. Any books by professionals - historians, for example?

[rjsw]

A biography of Admiral Lee [1] was recently published.

[1] https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Battleship_Commander....

[GrumpyYoungMan]

Along those lines, a biography video for Admiral Lee by a naval history enthusiast really manages to capture what an impressive and capable person he was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58lfaMFUQc0

[wolverine876]

Thanks. I have no complaint, but I want to point out that there is a difference between an enthusiast and a professional. Enthusiasts don't know what they don't know.