I see no reason to fight fair, why put our troops at unnecessary risk?

I also can’t think of a reason why we wouldn’t capture their unarmed ship, or at least give them ample opportunity and “incentive” to surrender. Honestly, the greatest show of strength is the ability to show compassion and humanity to your enemy. Think of how much power it would project to capture a whole warship, hold the crew as PoWs, treat them well, and return them well fed and cared for?

Instead, we blew them up and left the survivors stranded in the ocean for other nations to assist.