I was never in the military, certainly not the Navy; but just reading a little history makes it clear that ...
... an order to kill survivors of a shipwreck, no matter what caused it, is completely outside all the norms not just of naval warfare, but of both the official and traditional Law of the Sea. Until the 19th century, ships were out of touch with their home ports, organizations, and nations for months at a time, facing danger from freebooters, pirates, privateers, and officially declared enemy warships on top of the ever-present dangers of extreme weather, rough seas, uncharted waters teeming with unpredictable currents and winds and submerged reefs, and a myriad of other difficulties and dangers which made just a round-trip voyage without casualties a real achievement, even without contemplating enemy action. Sailors, more than soldiers, had a tendency to recognize a commonality even with those who were nominally "the enemy" and, in extremis, set aside hostilities to effect rescue of sailors who had lost, or were about to lose, their ships -- effectively a death sentence in the open ocean or in cold waters anywhere. Once sailors had surrendered, been rendered hors de combat or their ships effectively scuttled, they could generally expect to be taken captive and given medical aid and sustenance until they could be transported to shore, although not always with the full measure of charity. The sea was the greater danger which they all faced, and that danger so overbore the danger of armed combat that sailors developed a tendency to look out for each other as a breed, even when sailing under the flags of mutual belligerents. Within the last few years, I had read of an incident in a famous naval battle (probably Trafalgar, but I can't swear to it) in which a French and an English ship had engaged in a real close-range battle to destruction. Keep in mind the primitive conditions: wooden ships propelled only by the wind in their sails; bronze (or cast iron) cannon in wooden cradles restrained by hemp ropes, firing 24- and 36-lb cannonballs with black powder (and choking smoke); ships' surgeons equipped with cloth bandages, bone saws, and rum, and not much else; no electronics, no "comms", no air evacuation. Crews preparing for battle began by tipping barrels of sand and spreading it around the decks to soak up the blood which would make the decks dangerously slippery. Ships closed to within cannon range and began firing, preferably broadside (all cannons on one side of the ship firing at the nearest enemy vessel) at close range. Cannonballs tore loose shards of wood which flew about the decks like shrapnel, or tore off limbs and heads with direct hits. Gun carriages tore loose from their moorings and went rolling about the deck as the ship rocked back and forth ("Loose cannon! Loose cannon!" ), rolling over sailor's limbs and bodies and pinning them against the ship's structure with tons of lethal force. As the ships closed in on each other, the violence only became more destructive -- sails, rigging, and yards, even whole masts, fell down on the upper decks, crushing and ensnaring the combatants, who were still under constant fire and often unable to flee. Grappling lines were thrown to make sure the vessel under assault could not escape, and officers and marines (if present) fired pistols or rifles at the opposing crew. In short, it was Hell, with each crew doing all it could to defeat, disable, or kill the other; the battle could end with one ship lowering its colors in defeat, or nailing them to the mast prior to the vessel being sent to the bottom. In the midst of all that, it seems that concepts such as "mercy" would be very hard indeed to find. And yet -- in the example I mentioned, when the battle was at its fiercest, with the two ships even becoming entangled in each others' rigging, the captain of the British vessel shouted "Cease fire! Cease fire!" an order relayed by shouting by any surviving officers, quickly followed by "Hold your fire! Hold your fire!" either of which should have been quite a puzzle to any of the crew, until they saw what the Captain had seen: smoke from the French vessel. The next order was "Away all boats! Away all boats!", triggering the release -- often an uncontrolled descent to the sea -- of the British rowboats, with many sailors leaping into the water before the boats were down, and all immediately striking out for the French vessel, quickly seen to be now billowing flames, the greatest fear of a sailor in those days. British sailors pulled the French, wounded or otherwise, from the sea and quickly rowed as far away from the flames (and the cannon, and especially the powder magazine) as they could manage. One British officer, IIRC actually the second-in-command, went so far as to board the French ship to check the cabins for any left behind. He never made it out before the magazine blew, scattering fragments of the French ship hundreds of feet in the air, and killing anyone still aboard the ship.
This was certainly an exceptional example, but similar cases fill the history of battles at sea. Many were tragedies compounded by failed or faulty rescue efforts, such as the dozens of German sailors pulled alive from the cold North Sea, only to die within an hour or so of drinking the traditional British sailors' "cure" of hot rum. Sailors, even officers, taken onto enemy vessels understood that their obligation to continue hostilities was ended under the circumstances, and often socialized comfortably with their rescuers. A similar sort of chivalry was seen between pilots in WWI, when only a handful of elites -- often social elites as well -- had the knowledge to pilot planes in combat, and were not at all above showing respect for their "fellow" airmen. The mechanization of war has done much to erase such attitudes, but the sailors' tradition of trying to send your enemy to Hell, only to stand between him and an undeserved fate, still has an emotional hold on some. A pity that the clown in officers' braid who serves as our SecDef, excuse me, our SeWar, is unable to grasp such concepts.
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