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“I defended Steve because I found out the wrong guy
was on trial. Only way I could defend him was to sink Queeg
for you." In both the novel and the film version of
The Caine Mutiny, so speaks the court-martial defense
counsel, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Barney Greenwald, arriving at
a party celebrating the exoneration of his client, Navy Lieutenant
Steven Maryk.
The charges against Maryk stemmed from his having relieved
Captain Queeg, his ship’s Commanding Officer, or C.O.,
of duty in the midst of a typhoon. Such a forcible relief
would almost always lead to a court-martial, the military
equivalent of a criminal trial, for the officer effecting
his Commanding Officer’s removal. This article explores
the legal correctness and ethical justice of the decisions
by Greenwald to save his client, Maryk, by in effect destroying
Queeg under cross-examination. Greenwald accomplishes this
feat by leading Queeg to seem helpless, paranoid, and hopeless,
spinning three tiny balls nervously in his hand. In addition,
this essay shall mention the relevant secondary issues which
lead to Queeg’s relief.
Despite the importance of both novel and film, neither the
literary narrative nor the movie version has received adequate
critical examination, and most of the critical scrutiny tends
to be judgmentally repetitive. Any analysis which deals with
a novel and a filmed version must address the consequences
of the differences between the two arts. While film cannot
capture the range of the novel and necessarily loses details,
it also possesses the capability to create a richer experience
through pictorial possibilities, and a discussion of The
Caine Mutiny must keep the two mediums distinctly in
mind.
As the story unfolds, the ship’s executive officer,
Lieutenant Maryk, relieves the captain, Queeg, on the direct
issue of Queeg’s persistence in steaming course 180,
due south, during a typhoon in the Pacific Ocean. After Maryk
relieves Queeg, he orders the Caine’s helmsman to set
course 360 (due north). In a storm, this maneuver is termed
going “head up"; in other words, altering course
to windward. The historical time of the story is 1944. The
U.S. is then at war with Japan, and 180 is, to the knowledge
of everyone in the bridge, or ship’s control area, fleet
course, meaning the direction in which the entire fleet is
to steer.
By steering 180, also, the U.S.S. Caine is going with a following
sea, with waves astern, or coming at the ship’s rear,
ahead of a major typhoon. In most instances, in heavy weather,
namely, with rough seas and strong winds, the ship does best
to steam with waves astern, or breaking at the rear of the
ship. By controlling the craft’s speed, the captain
can assure that the ship will level off in the troughs, and
not plunge bow-first into the back of the next wave, which
might lead to its pitch-poling or somersaulting over her stern
on a wave. By going “head up," or waves to windward,
the person at the helm reduces steeply the chances that the
ship might broach or head up too sharply, and thus lose stability.
Furthermore, by running downwind, the ship can maintain the
greatest interval before being struck by the next wave. In
addition, by steaming at the right speed a craft can reduce
the effect of the velocity of the waves.
The disadvantage of steaming with a following sea in heavy
weather is that this tactic exposes the ship’s stern
to the heavy seas. The stern of any craft is neither shaped
nor reinforced to resist the direct action of such seas. As
long as the waves, however, fail to crash down on the stern
and poop (that is, smashing the amidships area by the weight
of a huge wave over the stern), running downwind is the most
prudent and gentle manner to ride out a major storm.
Maryk and the crew feared that the Caine would either broach,
or else turn beam (that is, sideways) to the heavy weather
(the latter can occur when a ship gets caught sideways in
a trough). But whether steaming upwind, known as “head
to wind," or downwind, turning beam in a typhoon remains
a serious concern. True, the Caine rode better head to wind;
that is, with the bow heading into the waves, as the novel
indicates: “With its head to the wind, the Caine rode
better." And “Butting and plunging, the Caine
was a riding ship again." But the issue was not comfort.
The seas were rough, but in the novel the ship shows no sign
of taking on water or sustaining structural damage. Fittings
did not pop, nor did compartments evidently flood in either
version. In the novel, the engineering plant did not have
any difficulty and responded to each of the engineers’
orders in timely fashion. The Caine, in other words, remained
seaworthy, or able to survive, in the heavy weather.
In novel and film, the Caine had difficulty sticking course
180, and Queeg ordered dual engines to maintain fleet course.
But this maneuver proved good seamanship. Dual engines place
extra stress on the fuel tanks, but provide steadier drive.
Going into the typhoon, Queeg had a 40% fuel load and would
no doubt have needed to refuel sometime soon. Also, he had
not ballasted ahead of the storm. Ballasting involves deliberately
taking seawater into the ship’s fuel tanks, in order
to provide stability for the craft. But during the storm,
weather would not allow ballasting, since this process requires
a ship to slow to only two to four knots. With the Caine’s
stern to the sea, Queeg needed at least standard speed to
run the same speed as the seas.
In addition, Queeg proved conscious of the fact that he was
steaming with the fleet during wartime. Needless to say, typhoons
were much more difficult to predict as to time and place in
1944, the historical time of the narratives, than they are
today. Additionally, in today’s Navy, the ballasting
process allows the tanks to filter the sea water so that the
tanks remain clean and perfectly operating both during the
ballasting and afterwards. In contrast, during World War II
the fuel tanks proved unable to clear the salt and silt out
of the seawater.
After a ship had been ballasted, the fuel tanks soon became
corroded. Thus, had Queeg ballasted the Caine unnecessarily,
he risked disabling his ship altogether. At best, had Queeg
ballasted, he would have risked propulsion if he had exposed
his fuel pumps to saltwater. Queeg, as the Commanding Officer,
therefore assumed that riding high with limited propulsion
is better than riding heavy with NO propulsion.
Queeg’s captainship decisions during the crucial “Typhoon"
chapter of The Caine Mutiny, then, proved not only
“sensible and sound but the best possible in the circumstances"
(this according to my conversation with a Lieutenant Commander
Robert Hyde). Queeg’s decisions were based on more than
just “some bad weather." He was the C.O. of a
destroyer-minesweeper during World War II. As far as he knew
(communications had recently been severed by the storm), in
steaming course 180 he was steaming fleet course. His vessel
was at sea to accomplish a mission as part of a battle group.
The Caine was heaving and yawing, but it was not in danger
of sinking (the novel makes this fact much clearer than the
Hollywood version). The crew was scared and sick and in the
center of the seaway, the naval term for rough water, but
it was not incapacitated. Queeg made a difficult but correct
decision in the face of extreme adversity.
The Executive Officer, Maryk, was wrong. Unless the ship was
in imminent danger of sinking, he had no correct authority
to relieve the C.O. of his duties.
Why, then, was Queeg relieved? The U.S.S. Caine, a Destroyer
Minesweeper (DMS—18 Caine) is tasked to serve as a Landing
Control Ship (LCS) for the Marines’ amphibious landing
on Kwajelein. For this operation, Maryk remains on the bridge,
whereas Queeg makes sure his is the most protected spot, by
the superstructure aft (to the rear of the bridge, where the
ship’s steering is controlled). Some fairly ineffective
shore-based artillery fire directed the Caine’s way
has Queeg petrified. Some 2,500 yards away from shore, he
orders that a few cans of yellow dye be hastily dumped in
the lee of the Caine as the only marker ashore for the Marines
in the numerous amphibious landing craft behind his ship.
Queeg then orders the Caine to turn swiftly back away from
the beach. Even before this, the Caine had been steaming farther
and farther ahead of the Marines on the small amphibious landing
craft in the Caine’s wake. Thus, by the time the yellow
dye buckets had been dumped over the side, the amphtracs were
almost out of sight of the Caine. At this time, the Caine’s
mission, as a Destroyer Minesweeper (DMS), should have been
threefold: serving as a Landing Control Ship to guide the
Marines’ amphibious tractors to the correct spot on
the beach to be assaulted; providing close and direct gunfire
support ahead of the amphtracs holding the Marines; and clearing
mines encountered ahead of the small, and lightly armored,
Marine assault craft.
After Queeg orders the dumping of the few cans of yellow dye,
he assumes the conn (that is, control of the ship), and turns
the Caine away from the beach, nearly a full mile before the
1,000-yard, officially prescribed, distance for DMS Landing
Control Ships during an amphibious landing in combat. Such
a precipitous retreat left the large portion of the Marine
landing force behind the Caine in extreme hazard.
In the film, the Pacific island landing is not named, but
in the novel, Kwajelein clearly is the Marines’ objective.
Kwajelein constitutes the largest atoll in the Pacific. The
attack on Japanese-occupied Kwajelein took place January 30—February
4, 1944. Kwajelein was possibly the most complicated amphibious
landing in history. The prospective tactical difficulties
in this landing, code-named FLINTLOCK, were enormous. The
atoll comprises a circle of dozens of mostly tiny islands
in the Ralik Chain of the Marshall Islands. All but three
of these Kwajelein islands are small. One of the major tactical
problems for the U.S. landing force, however, was that the
primary assault beaches were within a lagoon so that the sea-borne
attacking forces were, potentially, subject to Japanese artillery
fire not only from the islands directly being assaulted but
also from flanking fire from the surrounding islands as the
assault boats neared the beach. The protection and guidance
of the Primary Landing Control Ships, such as the Destroyer
Minesweepers, with their combined capabilities of employing
their five inch guns and sophisticated mine-clearing apparatus,
proved especially important.
FLINTLOCK began with the Marine assault personnel being transferred
at sea from large ships, such as Landing Ship Docks (the acronym
for which is LSD) to LVTs, or amphibious landing boat tractors.
On the day of the landing the seas proved very rough, and
the time required to sweep the targeted harbor of mines took
far longer than expected. Thus, the Marines spent an inordinate
period carrying dozens of pounds of equipment in fully loaded
amphtracs (26 Marines and one Corpsman—E.M.S. man).
If the amphtracs ran out of fuel, they sank, since once in
the water they needed to keep moving to stay afloat. With
their long delays in circling around in the rough weather,
some of the craft at Kwajelein never linked up with their
Primary Control Ships and went down at sea. Once the landing
craft did link up with their LCSs, however, were they to have
had such poor guidance as provided by the Caine, then even
more amphtracs would have run out of fuel trying to locate
the correct beachheads. Queeg ordered the Caine to turn away
from the beach at 2,500 yards. Then as now, the standard distance
for which the support ships are to provide guidance, mine
clearance and fire support in the U.S. naval services is 1,000
yards. On FLINTLOCK, ship to ship communications proved so
poor that the Marines in the landing craft were not only unable
to hail Landing Control Ships, such as the U.S.S. Caine but
they were also unable to communicate with each other, not
to mention the beach masters, who served from shore as guides
to the landing craft. Since the amphtracs only made four knots
maximum, even in easy weather, they proved ready targets for
the Japanese artillery from the time the Marines had been
abandoned by the Caine.
In a word, Maryk’s disgust with Queeg’s cowardice,
lack of force, and failure of attention to duty at Kwajelein
proved the proximate cause which set the Executive Officer’s
determination to relieve Queeg at the first opportunity. Less
directly noteworthy for the Caine’s XO were the wardroom
fiascos involving some missing strawberries and coffee.
Prior to FLINTLOCK and the typhoon, Queeg has his officers
investigate these inconsequential peccadilloes with an intensity
surpassing the interviews done for the Nuremberg Courts. The
Captain’s obsessiveness regarding these missing food
stores is reminiscent of the Joan Crawford of Mommy Dearest:
“no wire hangers! no wire hangers!" Neither Queeg
incident, however, bears any operational relevance. Nonetheless,
both episodes serve to solidify among the ship’s officers
the idea that their Captain is an insane and incompetent,
obsessive-compulsive individual, unfit for a U.S. Navy ship’s
command in wartime.
In The Caine Mutiny novel and film, however, more
germane to Queeg’s problems as an operational commander
is the shirt-tail incident. During a target-towing maneuver,
one sailor aboard the Caine has his shirt-tail not tucked
into his trousers due to a skin rash. Queeg so extensively
and obsessively pursues this dress code breach that, despite
numerous warnings by the helmsman, the ship circles around,
severs its own towline, and destroys the target it had been
pulling.
To sum up, then, we recall the words of defense counsel Greenwald
with which this essay begins: “I defended Steve because
I found out the wrong guy was on trial. Only way I could defend
him was to sink Queeg for you." Greenwald goes on to
say, however, “I’m sore that I was pushed into
that spot, and ashamed of what I did, and thass why I’m
drunk. Queeg deserved better." As our audience can now
somewhat better understand, Greenwald here spoke the truth
about this case in ways even he may not have fully understood.
In the crucial typhoon scene, Queeg’s seamanship decisions
prove “sensible and sound"—in fact, “the
best possible" decisions. This article has indicated
that this is so by means of a review of the war-time tactical
situation, as well as of the seamanship techniques of the
period. At base, Queeg was relieved of duty because of prior
incidents which “added up" against him: minor
instances of obsessive-compulsive behavior, combined, most
importantly, with his cowardice and lack of force during the
invasion of Kwajelein. As the Skipper of a Destroyer-Minesweeper,
and Landing Control Ship, his failure to support the Marine
amphibious landing force constituted a serious breach of naval
courage. This failure no doubt doomed many Marines and Corpsmen
to death in a watery grave.
Hostility to other people often is rooted in events that may
have occurred hours, days, weeks, and months before the anger
boils up in the guise of vituperative actions. In the novel
The Caine Mutiny, clearly, and also, inferentially,
in the classic film made after it, Maryk’s serious hostility
toward Queeg begins bubbling to the surface directly after
Queeg’s shameful and tactically dangerous decision to
abandon the Marine landing force at Kwajelein. After FLINTLOCK,
Caine’s Executive Officer, Lieutenant Maryk, decided
that, at first excuse, “Old Yellow Stain," his
cowardly C.O., would have to go.
January 2005
From James J. Kirschke, Professor of English at Villanova
University and retired Captain in the U. S. Marine Corps
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