I read a similar real-life story about by the commander of an Israeli tank column in the Golan Heights in 1967 (I think). They passed another tank column at night at a crossroads. While the columns were passing each other the commander realized that the other tanks weren't Israeli, but he was too nervous to fire and let the other column past.

I lost two good boats to lone destroyers in night storms. I made it to the bridge for one only to see the towering bow of a DD crashing into my stern. The other time I didn't even make it that far.

Since it was 1942 for both I just assumed they had radar. I usually spend a lot of storm time at about 60m now.:nope:

It's scary as hell when that happens.
It's hard to pull yourself out of that initial shock and think.
It takes an extra ½ second to tell myself "THINK, STUPID".
If we haven't been sunk by then I manage to figure out a way out.
Man oh man, that slow, hard SH3 tension is powerful stuff.