It must be very rare but I imagine it’s happened at some point.
My wife and I were watching the Horatio Hornblower series on DVD and (spoilers for a 14 year old tv movie based on a 64 year old book) we got to the part where the captain Hornblower is serving under shows himself to be off his rocker (I don’t know if he’s supposed to be paranoid schizophrenic, but that’s what it seems like). A large part of the drama is the officer wondering if they should mutiny against their insane captain and trying to convince the ship’s doctor to declare the captain “unfit for command” so they can legally take over the ship. The Doctor eventually does so when under fire the captain goes on a loony diatribe, but of course the officers still go through a court martial for potential mutiny.
I’m wondering when the practice of being able to remove a ship’s commanding officer starting (if it ever existed)? First recorded instance? Last recorded instance? What’s the procedure and is it still available to naval doctors today? How often did it actually happen (I imagine rarely, as certifiably insane people are rarely asked to command a ship) ?
I haven’t seen the TV movie, but the book does not have the doctor declare the captain unfit for command. Instead, the captain is seriously injured in a fall down a hatch under circumstances that admit the interpretation he was pushed - perhaps by Hornblower. After this, there’s no question he is unfit for command - he’s only semi-conscious and frequently incoherent.
I have no statistics, but undoubtedly the vast majority of historical cases where a captain is judged unfit for command are due to physical injuries (especially in battle), not mental issues.
But it’s worth noting that declaring a captain unfit due to his erratic behavior is essential to the plot of The Caine Mutiny - which is of course fiction.
Interesting question. With the extensive screening that nearly all military personnel go through nowadays (not just officers) in first world countries, I would imagine that the chances that, say, the captain of a US Navy submarine or a Royal Navy destroyer would develop serious mental problems while at sea is quite low.
One thought I had - considering that many militaries automatically disqualify someone from joining on the basis of simply having a diagnosis of a mental disorder (without any individualized showing that said disorder would necessarily interfere with their abilities to serve), I wonder if any mental health diagnosis made in a commanding officer would necessarily result in unfitness for duty nowadays.
A relevant (and very interesting) case concerns the Vietnam war, the USS Vance and its captain Marcus Aurelius Arnheiter. This 1968 NY Times article covers it well.
TLDR:
Arnheiter had command of a radar picket destroyer escort on Vietnam coastal patrol. A whole series of goofy actions and behaviors came to the attention of his superiors and he was relieved of command (though not by a medical officer) after 99 days.
Note that the Caine had no doctor. It was the Number 2 in command who moved against Queeg, with the support of the other officers. A key point in the court martial was whether someone with no medical training could judge a commander’s fitness.
I don’t know the answer to your question, but the novel from which the TV movie was derived is C.S. Forester’s Lieutenant Hornblower, chronologically the second book in the series, although they weren’t written in chronological order. It was published in 1952. It’s remarkable in being the only Hornblower story not narrated in first person by Hornblower himself, but be the man who eventually became his second-in-command, William Bush. I suspect the main reason for this is to leave some ambiguity about Hornblower’s actions in the story.
As related above, the ship’s doctor is unwilling to declare the captain unfit for duty, despite his blatantly inappropriate actions. This is taken to not only indicate the wavering character of the doctor, but also the awful authority imposed on the Captain. Even his lieutenants, who disapprove of his actions and believe him unfit, are unwilling to take steps to deprive him of authority, even after the Captain is incapacitated. They’d seen courts martial, and knew what their chances were against a formal Board.
In the book (and, I think , the TV movie, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen it), the Captain falls through an open hatchway while going to arrest his officers for plotting mutiny. Some people suspect Hornblower and a midshipman of being responsible. The lieutenants continue on with their mission, partly to avoid a court martial, and hoping that a success will tell in their favor. Interesting adventures occur. In the course of them, the ship is captured and the Captain, tied to his bunk, is killed there.
At the actual court martial, the lieutenant who has taken command begs Hornblower to admit to puishing the captain, but he keeps repeating calmly that he knows nothing of it.
In his interesting biography of Hornblower, The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower (1970) C. Northcote Parkinson (who himself went on to write several Napoleonic sea novels involving a very Hornblower-like hero, Richard Delancey), says that Hornblower himself, in old age, set down an account of his activities during that period. These were kept within the family, and related that, not only did Hornblower pushed the Captain down the hatchway, he was also responsible for killing him in his bunk when retaking the captured ship (several people in the Forester book commented on how odd it was that the ones who had taken control of the ship had also killed the obviously restrained captain).
Nitpick: The books are not told in first person, but by a third-person narrator who relates Hornblower’s experiences and thoughts. Except, of course this one which generally sticks to Bush’s perspective (though still in third person).
As far as the OP goes I imagine there have been quite a few declarations done as a formality (Captain falls into a coma without formally ceding command, XO naturally takes over, but asks the doctor to make it official). Remember, the concept applies to physical issues as well as mental.
It would be interesting to know if there has ever been any situations where the Captain was declared unfit for command against their express opposition.
I don’t have the book in front of me, but that’s certainly not how I recall it. Prior to (not during) the court martial, the first lieutenant (Mr. Buckland) asks if Hornblower knows how the Captain came to fall down the hatchway (which is close to but not the same as asking him to admit doing this); Hornblower says he doesn’t know, but suspects the Captain must have overbalanced, due to the ship’s motion.
What’s the difference between what I wrote and what you wrote?
I most humbly beg ypur pardon.
Nevertheless, the books and stories are all told from a first-person viewpoint, and that viewpoint is Hornblower’s, in all cases but this one. It certainly is not an omniscient narrator, but only knows what the viewpoint character does, and reports his inner thoughts.
Buckland spoke to Hornblower about the captain’s fall before the court martial (or was it a court of inquiry?), not during it. During a naval court proceeding, it would make no sense for the two to be speaking to each other - each would separately be giving testimony to the court.
And Buckland never asked Hornblower to admit he pushed the captain, though it’s implied he may have suspected this, and that he was possibly hoping to hear such an admission.
I dunno if that’s quite the same as what I’m asking. He wasn’t removed because a doctor (or equivalent) found him incapable of executing the office due to mental handicap. He was removed because he was arrested and convicted of being a rapist and burglar.
Small strokes, or the cumulative effects of concussions can change someone previously judged fit to command into a dangerously unfit person, surprisingly quickly. I suspect that there are cases where a closed door meeting involving senior officers and the logbook led to a quiet decision to never send a captain back to sea after a ‘funny’ voyage.
ETA, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was preferred to formally relieving command in the field unless absolutely necessary, esp in cases where officers had some connection to the nobility.
I distinctly remember reading in a book about American submarine warfare during WW2 that since submarine commanders rarely experienced depth charging in peacetime, several of them cracked upon first depth charging by Japanese forces and were forced by the XO/second-in-command to give up their command and were given surface assignments when the submarine came back to port.
I was replying to robert_columbia’s assertion that modern day screening would prevent any nutty behavior of whatever nature. Pretty clearly this guy was nutty although in the cunning violent psychopath sense not in the raving hallucinating word salad spouting sense.
That kind of false bragadoccio/tyranny/permissible (until too much) latitude of action must be unique to the Navy, the traditions, and necessities and independence of detached combat units.
I can’t see that kind of lunatic behavior in a ground or air unit.
Maybe I’m wrong, but everything came together for this war-hero-wannabe-psycho.