A court martial found Beach guilty of "not having enough steam available to get under way on short notice", with the huge waves at the time being considered a byproduct of weather and therefore predictable. In light of the circumstances, however, Beachs punishment was limited to being moved back 20 places on the seniority list, a sentence that was further reduced to five places by Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels when evidence was presented that the waves were a tsunami generated by an underwater earthquake, and not freak wind-driven waves generated by a hurricane.