Why Taffy 3 destroyers kept fighting after heavy hits

How did Taffy 3's Fletcher-class destroyers remain underway so long despite damaging overpenetrations?

Special-treatment steel helped, but the ships were fighting on despite likely loss and prioritised speed and combat effect over a long-term return home.

Special-treatment steel and robust construction helped Taffy 3's destroyers remain underway after heavy hits. Their tactical endurance should not be mistaken for an expectation that the ships could return home. Slowing down for ideal damage-control work would only allow the Japanese force to destroy them sooner and expose the escort carriers behind them. Crews therefore kept speed and weapons in action for as long as possible, accepting likely loss in order to gain time and inflict damage. The exchange uses this as an example of a specifically maritime fatalism: at sea there may be nowhere to retreat without abandoning the force one is protecting.