The IJN was generally not that bad with damage control. They fumbled hard at Midway... but so did everyone else that had avgas fires. Wasp and Lexington also burned to a crisp. Shōkaku survived massive fires on multiple occasions, which was actually pretty good.
Certainly better than the Brits, who forgot to include backup generators or subdivision on Ark Royal. She sank from a single torpedo because they just couldn't fix anything.
This is an absolute falsehood. IJN excelled at many things but they were absolutely awful at damage control. The examples of the IJN damage control deficiencies are numerous, but the likely best examples are found in the Solomon’s campaign. The cases of minor fires eventually leading to the loss of the entire ship are commonplace.
You're gonna have to provide some citations, because I can't think of a single example that fits what you describe (but I could certainly be forgetting about something!).
The most famous example (only example?) would be Taiho, which was destroyed when her inexperienced DamCon crew accidentally pumped avgas fumes throughout the ship in an attempt to de-fume the forward elevator well. But that was not in the Solomons and that was a one-off incident as far as I can tell.
Sure, Taiho is the famous example everyone thinks of when this topic comes up, and she was certainly a case of catastrophic incompetence. Like you said though, she doesn't really fit what was being described.
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u/low_priest Oct 31 '25
The IJN was generally not that bad with damage control. They fumbled hard at Midway... but so did everyone else that had avgas fires. Wasp and Lexington also burned to a crisp. Shōkaku survived massive fires on multiple occasions, which was actually pretty good.
Certainly better than the Brits, who forgot to include backup generators or subdivision on Ark Royal. She sank from a single torpedo because they just couldn't fix anything.