I’ve mentioned this elsewhere - but that novel is based both on a real event (“Halsey’s Typhoon” in December 1944) and to a considerable extent on a real captain, James Marks of the destroyer Hull. According to Bruce Henderson’s book Down To The Sea, Marks shared some characteristics with Capt. Queeg (rigid, disliked disciplinarian, bad ship handler, not good in a crisis situation). It is related that when Hull was in danger of sinking during the typhoon, the exec was urged by at least one fellow officer to relieve the captain and put needed emergency measures into effect. The exec reportedly refused on the grounds that he’d be court-martialed for mutiny.
End result, Hull sank, the exec died, the captain lived and went on to a further successful Navy career (hearings after the sinking of Hull and two other destroyers in the storm did not find Marks at fault. And he was not known to have a habit of rolling steel balls in his hand).
Wouldn’t the point of removal of command by a medical officer be way past (moot/not supposed to even get there) by observation by XO of whatever patent symptoms, who follows procedure (“follow procedure” makes it sound all nice and clear and matey, which of course it’s not).
I suppose a case of sone diagnosis of insidious disease could have a medical removal–“we just found a tumor that’s 90% gonna blow with two months, so the nuke sub tour is out.”
To go back to the digression about Lieutenant Hornblower I’m surprised that nobody has mentioned the person who seems the most likely to have caused Captain Sawyer’s accident: Wellard, the young volunteer.
Forester strongly indicates his motivation, his guilt and the fact that Hornblower is shielding him: “Wellard was pale and weak with fatigue and worry too; he was being reassured. Possibly he was being told that a secret was still safe.”
Absolutely. I read the CNP book 35 years ago and still remember vividly my annoyance, almost disgust, at his willfully wrongheaded misreading of Hornblower’s role.
Hornblower had both motive and opportunity, but actual evidence is lacking. As gkster notes, Wellard seems more likely - if indeed the captain was pushed.
Peter Zschech, captain of the WW II German submarine U-505, shot himself in the head while the sub was under depth-charge attack. The sub is now a museum in Chicago. According to our tour guide, Zschech did not die immediately, but was moaning on his bunk, where he had been moved. The boat’s doctor was working on him, but a number of sailors put a pillow over Zschech’s face to smother him. The doctor loudly protested, but the second in command told the doctor to be quiet and not interfere.
Months earlier, Zschech had ordered the crew to abandon the sub when it sustained significant bomb damage, but the officers refused to obey and over a two week period the crew made enough repairs so that the sub could limp home.
The TV interpretation implied that Hornblower was lunging toward the captain as he fell down the hatch. By the expression on Hornblower’s face the viewer assumes he was trying to catch the captain, not push him.
CalMeacham may certainly be correct about the way that the captain dies in the novel, but in the TV adaptation he is released from restraints once the ship is boarded, stands side by side with Wellard, and helps him fire a volley at the boarders. Presumably they’re cut down together.
They are cut down together . Both are mortally wounded . Wellard asks the captain if he’d done well, been brave . The captain, now completely sane , reassured him.
It’s been a while since I read it, but isn’t Lt. H the one in which Hornblower kills a sailor whose deranged ravings threaten to give them away to the enemy? He’s cold-blooded enough to kill someone on his own side when it threatens the whole crew/mission.
TSBG, the incident you’re thinking of is in Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
“Victory and the lives of a hundred men depended on silencing Hales, and silencing him instantly. Hornblower thought of the pistol in his belt, and of using the butt, but there was another weapon more conveniently to his hand. He unshipped the tiller, a three-foot bar of solid oak, and he swung it with all the venom and fury of despair. The tiller crashed down on Hales’ head, and Hales, an unuttered word cut short in his throat, fell silent in the bottom of the boat. There was no sound from the boat’s crew, save for something like a sigh from Jackson, whether approving or disapproving Hornblower neither knew nor cared. He had done his duty, and he was certain of it. He had struck down a helpless idiot; most probably he had killed him, but the surprise upon which the success of the expedition depended had not been imperilled.”
Later, after the surprise attack has succeeded, he has regrets:
"Hornblower looked back up the estuary of the Gironde. Somewhere up there the jolly boat was drifting about, and lying in it was Hales, probably dead, possibly alive. In either case the French would find him, surely enough, but a cold wave of regret extinguished the warm feeling of triumph in Hornblower’s bosom when he thought about Hales back there. If it had not been for Hales he would never have nerved himself (so at least he thought) to run out to the maintopsail yardarm; he would at this moment be ruined and branded as a coward instead of basking in the satisfaction of having capably done his duty.
Jackson saw the bleak look in his face.
“Don’t you take on so, sir,” he said. “They won’t ‘old the loss of the jolly boat agin you, not the captain and Mr. Eccles, they won’t.”
“I wasn’t thinking about the jolly boat,” said Hornblower. “I was thinking about Hales.”
From a retired Navy doctor who’s a friend of mine:
*I’m not aware of any real-world examples. I guess being an overbearing A-hole is not a disqualifying medical condition.
The regs require that one go through a tedious process involving a Medical Board which has input from line officers. Not aware that a Medical officer can relieve a superior officer on the spot.
Navy docs can put anyone on the Sick List or Binnacle List, which indicates a person is unfit for duty at least temporarily.*
There’s one thing you’ve missed, though. It’s different when you’re a division officer or exec than when you’re THE COMMANDING OFFICER of a ship. YOU are responsible. YOUR decisions are final. YOU have to carry out the ship’s missions properly, protect the physical condition of the ship, and keep your crew safe. There are pressures that come to bear that ONLY come to bear when you’re The Old Man. It’s not the same for a 3 hour (or however long they are) qualification for command test. It’s several months of commanding.
