"North Carolina"s anti-aircraft claimed to have shot down between 7 and 14 aircraft, though evaluation of the gunners' effectiveness is mixed. The historian Richard B. Frank noted that the Japanese lost a total of eighteen D3As and credited "Enterprise"s Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters with half of them, with the rest shot down by the ships, "with the lion's share to gunners aboard "Enterprise". The naval analyst Norman Friedman highlighted the effectiveness of the 5-inch guns aboard "Enterprise" and "North Carolina", but noted that the ship had difficulty tracking targets with her fire control radar, owing to a combination of rapid maneuvering to avoid attacks, excessive vibration from steaming at high speed, and the number of friendly and hostile aircraft aloft. Contemporary observers took an optimistic view of the ship's performance; her captain credited her with shooting down five to seven aircraft, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, noted that her 5-inch fire was particularly effective in dissuading Japanese attacks.