The Battle of Blackett Strait appears almost incidentally inside an Office of Naval Intelligence account of the Munda and Vila-Stanmore bombardments. Track charts, standing orders, rules of engagement, and commanders' statements can reconstruct the choices available at each moment. Those sources still cannot give participants information they lacked at the time. A sound analysis reads history forward from uncertainty instead of judging every decision backward from a known result.
Notable Point · 31:16-36:06
Read naval decisions forward, without hindsight
The official bombardment report, track charts, orders, and commander accounts illustrate how to judge decisions using only information available at the time.