I don't think the British decision (whether it was by the officers or by the men) was particularly heroic. So indeed they shouldn't get decorations. It was correct and the intelligent thing to do.
It is one thing to resist interrogation for information. There is no such thing as infinite resistance, but if you are tough, you might be able to resist until your data becomes obsolete, or at least until they use drugs or beatings so strong that the interrogators themselves can't be sure you are still lucid enough to be able to tell the truth if you wanted to.
However, if the point of interrogation is to gain a confession, with no restriction on the methods used, the interrogated chances of "winning", even a relatively short fight, is extremely poor. Eventually your survival and the effects of proxity on perceived importance (seeing one your own guys getting shot feels 100x worse than hearing the deaths of a whole company that you knew only by designation.).
The rules might say "Hold out to the last", but the point of an officer is intelligent intepretation and weighing of the rules. Getting your guys shot for a bit of glory might be heroic (and that's if you didn't blab after the Iranians had shot all the enlisted and were coming to you).
There was no loss. The Brits probably knew very well that whether they intruded into Iranian waters is actually irrevelant. There would be about 10 people outside Iran that believe Iran and 5 billion that believe Britain (the remainder don't watch the news. What the Brit prisoners had or had not said is almost irrevelant.
There will be a loss if they didn't confess. It is hardly only the British that are squeamish about losses these days. Thanks to the Gulf War, the West in general now counts casualties by ones and twos, not by the thousands.
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