How wreck surveys overturn torpedo-explosion stories

Why did records say Japanese heavy cruisers were lost to exploding torpedoes when later wreck surveys found otherwise?

The records repeated plausible wartime assumptions rather than direct physical evidence, and later wreck inspection exposed the false premise.

Contemporary records often converted an observed blast near a torpedo stowage area into a confident claim that the torpedoes had exploded. Wreck surveys can test that inference directly. When later analysis treats the assumption as settled evidence, its explanation rests on a false premise.