You don't have to. Just admit to 15-20.
Back in 1975 I was in the Marine Detachment of the USS Simon Lake in Rota Spain. On November 22, the USS Kennedy crunched one of its escorts, the USS Belknap.
I remember reading in "Stars and Stripes" that about 15-20 guys were killed. Too bad, of course, but I didn't think too much of it. They towed Belknap into Rota; she definitely was badly burned. The only guys I saw on her had "Kennedy" baseball hats. I didn't think much more about it.
The next year I was back at Camp Lejeune in 1st Bn. 8th Marines. We had a sergant Munoz; he was the machine section leader. We got to talking and it turned out that he was on board Kennedy when it rammed the Belknap. I mentioned the 15-20 KIA figure I saw in S&S. He really bristled and said it was damned lie. There were over 100 KIA, he said; he knew because the bodies were laid out on the hanger deck and he had counted them himself.
I have never heard anything else about this incident; but it sure sounds strange.
Walt