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In peacetime the loss of a ship is a great tragedy but it's not worth the cost of seven lives. I would have let them out of that berthing compartment even if the ship were to sink as a result of that action. Court martial me if you want. I say this as someone with many years of ocean going naval experience.

In wartime those sailors would have to face drowning but the situations are different.

Those folks were awakened by this ramming whether intentional or not. They didn’t know. I assume they followed procedure that is drilled into them. This article speculates that the men were alive. Maybe they were. Maybe they were injured upon impact. We don’t know. It is a terrible tragedy.

I was looking at the ship’s Facebook page and noticed that the ship had been involved in some joint Navy exercises a week ago. I haven’t had a chance to ask my Navy family members anything about this, but I was wondering how fatigued a crew might be after intense training. It is so baffling that the crew did not awaken the captain. That means they were unaware that there was anything near them.

central_va said: "I would have let them out of that berthing compartment even if the ship were to sink as a result of that action."

I believe that your thinking is wrong on several counts.

First, think back to Pearl Harbor. When a naval ship sinks, there are almost always lost lives because there are so many spaces that can be a death trap even if the watertight doors are open. I think about 1200 lost their lives on the Arizona.

The second point is also made by thinking of the Arizona. None of the sailors aboard the Arizona that morning was aware that the U.S. would be at war with Japan that afternoon. Their ship was attacked and their duty was to save the ship. The outcome of the war was greatly impacted by the aircraft carriers that were not sunk during that attack.

My final point is made by the statement in the movie "12 O'clock High" by the General commanding a B17 bomb group. He told his crews to stop thinking about being hurt or killed during a mission. Just consider yourself already dead. Without the sense of duty adopted by the great majority of military fighters, the typical battle would become a mad dash of individuals attempting to save their own skins by running away or trying to hide while others did the dirty work.

Without a sense of duty of greater importance than life itself, the Normandy landings could never have occurred and the world we live in would be very much different.

You're assuming that by freeing those 7--assuming they weren't badly injured during the collision--everyone else on the ship would've been rescued if the ship sank. We'll never know of course, but it's possible that the loss of those 7 may have saved the remainder of the crew onboard.