the battle of savo island. there are a couple of key lessons learned in the moment at the battle of savo island. we are admiral norman scott absorbs these. two things reinforced by prewar experience and also by his observations were the primary challenge is surprise. the japanese did so well because they surprised us. the other problem 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 try to rejoin formations or coordinate operations at night. scott tries to address these issues by creating a very compact linear formation. , a number of researchers said it is logically derivative from the work u.s. navy did pre-war. it is a linear battle formation in microcosm. i disagree. what he is trying to do is deliberately trying to address these challenges of surprise and friendly fire, conce