Why official carrier speed figures need caution

Published maximum-speed figures can look precise even when the underlying evidence is thin. Official numbers are easy for historians to cite, while shipboard knowledge was compartmentalized and most sailors could only estimate what the whole vessel was doing. The senior officers best placed to know often worked through the prewar buildup and World War II, and some died before recording much of their experience. Some details remained covered by the Official Secrets Act when early postwar memoirs appeared, while ships or their successors were still operational and Cold War secrecy mattered. A figure can therefore be properly sourced and still remain uncertain.