I think is because they were captured, supposedly without much fight and failed to destroy sensitive information on the ship. NKs and soviets reverse engineered

I think is because they were captured, supposedly without much fight and failed to destroy sensitive information on the ship. NKs and soviets reverse engineered the communication system and were able to listen on to us communications for a while till the said systems were upgraded.. That being said, I think it's wrong to to not classify the crew as POW. They were tortured and starved...