The first thing a ship must do is keep a proper lookout. Failure to keep a proper lookout is unacceptable.
Apparently, this ship was sent to sea without sufficient manning to keep a proper lookout. I’m not sure if that was a legal order.
I guess the captain could have resigned his commission in protest, but he decided to play the game, and obeyed his orders. That was his only chance at keeping his career on track.
I’m sure there’s a lot I don’t know about this, but I don’t think I could have left the bridge and gone to sleep knowing I didn’t have lookouts on the port and starboard bridge wings.
As for the captain’s “long-term” failures, he had only been in the job for a month. Accusing him of long-term failures is transparently malicious.
His gamble to maybe preserve his career instead of telling his superiors his ship and crew were not ready killed a bunch of young people for nothing.
How would you feel if one of those sailors who drowned in their compartment was your son?