Since it was just a periscope that was damaged, the captain may be okay? I'm curious to understand how they did not know they hit anything, until later? Isn't someome always manning the periscope?
“Isn’t someome always manning the periscope?”
No, not always. A boat relies on sonar. If anything or anyone is at fault then it would be the sonarmen on watch at the time. Fishing boats do not make as much noise in the water as larger vessels. With the water being shallow then that distorts sounds in the water because of the sounds bouncing all over the bottom. With all of the sounds in the Strait it would be confusing to a sonarman but a good sonarman should have ‘heard’ it.
Nope the days of being able to run aground (like Nimitz did early on) or be involved in a collision at sea and not have it kill your career are long gone.
Shame ... Sounds like it was small enough that sonar couldn’t pick it up and that they were just a little too shallow. Periscope is only put up occasionally to check on things when at proper depth but they do tend to protrude out the top a bit similar to an antenna even when stowed - or at least older models did...