The DESRON commodore was at fault. The flagship was using radio bearings to navigate, which was a new technology at the time. Many senior officers did not trust it. The Pt. Arguello lighthouse operator gave them a radio bearing which correctly placed the ships still north of Santa Barbara Channel. The commodore insisted the lighthouse operator had given them a reciprocal bearing and that the ship’s DR position was correct. He ordered the turn over the doubts of the flagship navigator and the squadron hit the shoreline north of Pt. Arguello.
Try to imagine the feeling...no, don't. It might be sickly funny if 23 guys didn't get killed. That sort of takes it out of the realm of humor. It's a miracle it wasn't more.
Thanks for the info. It sounds like the commodore was cut from the same cloth as Rear Admiral Callaghan who didn’t trust radar off Guadalcanal and blindly sailed his task force straight into the middle of a Japanese battle fleet, almost resulting in a total disaster.