I imagine that there will be some surprises washing up over the next few weeks.
Thanks for the Nimitz story. I thought he was smarter than that.
The US Navy does believe in Court marshalls when ships are lost.
Halsey had more ships under his command at that time than I think we have today (we had 6000 ships at the peak of WWII). He had several Task Forces -- one, I think under Rear Admiral Bogan, knew which way to steer clear of the hurricane.
McCain's grandfather was a commander of Halsey Task Force at this time. But Halsey and Spruance alternated commands of the same ships, but gave them different Fleet Designations (5th and 7th fleets, I think), which probably confused the Japs.
Some of this I need to re-read in the official History of the US Navy in WWII.
One of the better stories, though, is how a battleship named Washington, under Admiral Lee, basically stood off a Jap Task Force at Guadacanal, but it ended with the Washington (under Lee) checking fire after 15 minutes and firing 75 16 inch rounds into the Jap Battleship. The Japs had some heavy cruisers, light cruisers and destroyers to attack with, but were really intimidated by the sinking of their battleship so quickly.
The USS South Dakota was part of this action, but had to withdraw (official line was that it was an unlucky ship, but it was not Battleship certified -- meaning when it fired its 16 inch guns, it threw all the electrical mains. At that time, our battleships were dependent on Fire Control Radar and other electrical things that put the South Dakota out of action in this engagement).