It is a famous story about Admiral Chester Nimitz, who, as a young LTJG was put in command of a rickety destroyer (USS Decatur) out in the Philippines and ran her aground. After trying furiously to free her without success, a passing vessel was able to pull him off.
When he reached port, he dutifully reported the incident, and was subjected to a court martial which found him guilty, but he successfully argued that the charts were obsolete and that, as a destroyer captain, he was obligated to operate his ship aggressively.
That got him off with a mild letter of reprimand that took those factors into account, and his career blossomed.
Later, as the Captain of a cruiser approaching a pier, he took the helm from a young OOD to bring the vessel in himself and very nearly smashed into the dock.
Crestfallen, he turned to the young officer and said (I am paraphrasing, I don’t remember the wording): “Lt. Jones, tell me what I did wrong.”
The young officer gulped then said “Sir, you didn’t judge the wind correctly, you didn’t adjust for the current, you came in at too sharp an angle and with too much speed.”
Capt. Nimitz fixed his blue eyes on the young officer and said “That’s right. When you bring a ship in, never forget what I did wrong.”
It was said that, through his career, he always tried to be fair in various judgments, and one of his favorite sayings was “Every dog deserves a second bite.”
Gotta love that man. No wonder people served so hard and faithfully for him.
I think we can all be grateful that West Point declined Nimitz's application; it's hard to imagine he could have accomplished so much had he been an Army officer.
I had read PT-105, by Dick Keresey. He described how terrified he and the other PT skippers were about running aground, both because of the danger from the enemy as well as from the court-martial when they returned.
The saddest story of a court-martial, of course, would probably be that of Captain McVay (USS Indianapolis); he took his own life in 1968 after what was nothing more than a Navy search for a scapegoat for an enormous loss of life in the closing days of the war.