This happend to me...in the middle of duking it out on a surface battle with a destroyer.
ran out of torpedos, had the nads to surface and use the deck gun, needed ahead flank to avoid the destoryer that was going to tbone me... push the lever..."cannot comply" check the crew status, ALL SLEEPING! son-of-a...
get rammed by the destroyer, which then sank, waited 'overnight' and steamed off when they woke up
if you send them to battlestations it should wake everyone up (i didnt know at the time)