That is what an institution that learns can do to an institution that does not. That is the part of the Pacific War you do not see in the famous footage of Marines on Ewima or carriers burning in Laty Gulf. It happened in the quiet, in the dark, in the warm water north of the Admiral T Islands. It was not loud.

 It was not photographed. The men who did it mostly did not talk about it after they came home. If this forensic breakdown of the destroyer war gave you something to think about, hit that like button. It helps this analysis reach the people who care about getting the history right, not just the history that got written down loudest.

 Subscribe if you want the next chapter because the story of how the same American learning machine destroyed the Japanese surface fleet and then the Japanese merchant fleet and then the Japanese economy itself is far from finished. And remember this because it is the part that matters most. The men in those boats, the Americans on the destroyer escorts and the Japanese on the submarines were not numbers.

 They had names. They had families. They had been ordered into the dark and they did the work they had been told to do. They deserve to be remembered as people, not as casualty totals. War is a system. The men who fight it are not ended.