My own view, and with multiple ancestors that were in the Pacific Naval theater and survived.
The US military invested, and still does, a lot in damage control and survivability. Everything is designed to maximize the equipment and people that can survive to fight another day. This has a significant cost, but the US has always leaned into their prodigious production capacity in support of this objective. This is doctrinal and fundamental, the US really goes to great lengths to make sure every soldier comes home, preferably with minimal damage.
In a long war, experience compounds. You can build a core of savvy battle-hardened veterans in a matter of months if your soldiers can learn the necessary lessons of the conflict without dying in the process. Experienced savvy soldiers are effective and difficult to kill. In many military traditions, these lessons are learned immediately before dying. US doctrine is that they learn their lessons quickly, survive, and adapt. That may not always come off, but that is the approach and has worked well for the US. There is no substitute for contact with the adversary when it comes to learning; how quickly you can adapt to those learnings determines outcomes.
No country's military is ever prepared for real war. US doctrine has been that they will survive their hard lessons, unpleasant as they usually are, and leverage that experience behind their vast productive capabilities. With respect to the US Navy specifically, the US has always had a strong naval traditions, by virtue of their location in the world. Even when they aren't at their peak, they've always known what they are doing.
And US torpedoes didn't work for the first two years. Meaning, they bounced and sank. Almost always. Two years.
Apparently at some point somebody noticed that one that worked had hit at a shallow angle, and arranged for that until they got fixed torpedoes. My impression was that this was not communicated to other submariners. I don't know how long the trick was used.
Culturally the U.S. inherited a strong and aggressive maritime tradition from the pre-eminent naval civilization, the English. American colonists were famously pirates, some of whom operated as far away as the Indian Ocean. The spiritual father of the U.S. Navy is John Paul Jones, a brawling pirate and revolutionary war figure who responded "I have not yet begun to fight!" when asked to surrender.
"I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way."
Letter to Le Ray de Chaumont (16 November 1778)
"The future naval officers, who live within these walls, will find in the career of the man whose life we this day celebrate, not merely a subject for admiration and respect, but an object lesson to be taken into their innermost hearts. . . . Every officer . . . should feel in each fiber of his being an eager desire to emulate the energy, the professional capacity, the indomitable determination and dauntless scorn of death which marked John Paul Jones above all his fellows."
U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, address to Naval Academy
Another important aspect of suitability is the building time for new ships, in most cases you will only be able to fight the current war with the ships that you already have or are currently under construction. So having ships survive is important, and it is why so many of the WW1/2 navies were so afraid of using them.
The US military invested, and still does, a lot in damage control and survivability. Everything is designed to maximize the equipment and people that can survive to fight another day. This has a significant cost, but the US has always leaned into their prodigious production capacity in support of this objective. This is doctrinal and fundamental, the US really goes to great lengths to make sure every soldier comes home, preferably with minimal damage.
In a long war, experience compounds. You can build a core of savvy battle-hardened veterans in a matter of months if your soldiers can learn the necessary lessons of the conflict without dying in the process. Experienced savvy soldiers are effective and difficult to kill. In many military traditions, these lessons are learned immediately before dying. US doctrine is that they learn their lessons quickly, survive, and adapt. That may not always come off, but that is the approach and has worked well for the US. There is no substitute for contact with the adversary when it comes to learning; how quickly you can adapt to those learnings determines outcomes.
No country's military is ever prepared for real war. US doctrine has been that they will survive their hard lessons, unpleasant as they usually are, and leverage that experience behind their vast productive capabilities. With respect to the US Navy specifically, the US has always had a strong naval traditions, by virtue of their location in the world. Even when they aren't at their peak, they've always known what they are doing.