Driving destroyers hard could damage their boilers and turbines, a problem described as 'turbinitis' in Royal Navy usage. At Cape St. George, boiler casualties limited Burke's squadron to 31 knots, with Spence the worst affected. Senior commanders had to judge whether such damage resulted from effective operations or movement that achieved little. Burke's earlier battleship and destroyer service, together with his Naval Gun Factory work, had given senior officers personal knowledge of him. Those relationships helped him receive latitude in command, which the account judges his subsequent results to have justified.
Notable Point · 16:12-18:36
Cape St. George: machinery strain and command judgment
Spence's boiler trouble and the squadron's 31-knot limit illustrate the machinery costs that senior commanders had to weigh against operational results.