You're right about Okinawa (and the rest of your comment), but it was so lop-sided (if I recall correctly, even the captain of the Yamamoto understood it as a s

You're right about Okinawa (and the rest of your comment), but it was so lop-sided (if I recall correctly, even the captain of the Yamamoto understood it as a suicide mission) that I think it was hardly a test of the Navy's war-fighting capacity. I'd say the last true test of the "fighting culture" of the Navy came during the Samar phase of Leyte.