the battle of savo island. the key lessons learned in the moment in the battle of savo island, two things reinforced by prewar experience and also observations. the primary challenge is surprise. the japanese did so well because they surprised us. the other is we were afraid of opening fire for fear of hitting our own ships. friendly fire was real danger. it had been a danger not just at savo island but every nocturnal exercise the navy employed and that i have come across. there was a risk of ships shooting at each other when they tried to rejoin operations at night. so he creates a very compact linear formation. a number of researchers said it is logically derivative from the work they did prewar. it is a linear battle formation in microcosm. that is what scott was doing. i disagree. what he is trying to do is address these challenges, surprise and friendly fire, concentrate the force. that will prevent friendly fire. he makes it a linear formation because he wants to prevent surprise. he wants to attack in e

as of savo island, they are unable to capitalize on this victory, now for a lack of resources more than a lack of will. yamamoto cannot accept the reality that his fleet is going to suffer heavy losses, sustaining a counter attack each side has lost 24 warships since august. the japanese cannot continue this type of exchange. they have seen the surface forces of the u.s. navy both have the will and the and thehal to fight, shipyards in the states are full of ships that will arrive in the theater in 1943, utterly swapping them if they do not withdraw now -- utterly swa mping them if they do not withdraw now. they fulfilled the order given by admiral nimitz at the start -- you will be governed by the order of calculated risk. commander is given the order to make our -- make out how the calculation is made. his greate of characteristics as a war leader on display, in full at the pivot point of the pacific campaign, one of the reason nimitz deserves to be one of the best remembered combat commanders in this nation. in the seven sea battles of the japanese finally ceased the reinforcement ef