https://thehistorypress.co.uk/publication/the-coal-black-sea/

An excellent recounting of a neglected episode--deliberately neglected to protect one man.

"The First Lord carefully undertook an exercise in damage limitation and constructed a carefully crafted narrative issued by the Press Bureau via the office of the Chief Naval Censor at the Admiralty. The official line was that these were old, obsolete vessels of negligible strategic significance. What’s more, they were manned by amateur part-timers and that the commanding officers had made errors of judgement in stopping to pick up survivors struggling in the water. Blame was artfully deflected from the Admiralty, to those serving at sea."

That was my impression as well until this book.