@Old Salt,
I also have been on a couple of ship’s bridges in the waters between the PI and Oz. My take is that the wiki article skates around what I heard. Kennedy played glamour boy and had an unauthorzed shipalt done to put the stolen 37mm cannon on his craft. They saw the destroyer approaching and the visiting Ensign tried to get off a shot while Kennedy loitered instead of getting out of the way. When he tried to gun the engines they failed to catch the first time and it was to late. It was made very clear to me that Kennedy was an object lesson up to that moment in how not to act as a eager Junior Officer. His conduct afterwards was exemplary but that would not have protected him if he didn’t have political cover.