Devil Doc
When Death smiles, Corpsmen smile back
It was on this day in 1789 that a mutiny broke out on a British cargo ship called the HMS Bounty. It was the most notorious mutiny in naval history. William Wordsworth wrote a poem about the story called "The Borderers" (1795), and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798) was partly inspired by the events following the mutiny. But the work that did the most to popularize the story was the novel Mutiny on the Bounty (1932) by Charles Nordhoff and James Hall.
In that novel, and the several movie adaptations, the villain of the story was Captain Bligh, who was so brutal in his command of the ship that he actually had a man whipped to death with a cat-o'-nine-tails and ordered the whipping to continue even after the man was dead. In that fictional version of the story sailors under his command had no choice but to rebel against him.
But historians argue that Bligh wasn't any stricter than the average sea captain, and that the cause of the mutiny was that the men missed the women they had met on the island of Tahiti.
In fact, historians suggest that Captain Bligh was the hero of the story. On this day in 1789, a few days after leaving the island, 11 crew members burst into Bligh's cabin and forced him out on the deck, dressed only in his night shirt. They placed him in a small lifeboat, and they were shocked when seventeen other members of the ship volunteered to go with him. They were given a hundred and fifty pounds of bread, twenty pounds of pork, five quarts of rum, three bottles of wine, and twenty-eight gallons of water. Bligh and his remaining loyal sailors were then set adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Bligh's boat was a little more than twenty feet long and seven feet wide. It had one sail and six oars. It barely stayed afloat, weighed down by so many men and supplies. Barely six inches of its sides were exposed above the water. Bligh navigated to the nearest island, but when they ran aground, the local islanders began pelting them with rocks. Bligh and his crew were only able to escape after throwing some of their clothing overboard, which distracted the islanders. After that, Bligh decided that their only chance of survival was to sail to the nearest colonized island, about 3,900 miles to the west to the island of Timor.
Doc.
PS. I hope that these historical asides I've been posting arn't annoying members. I went to college late in life (graduated in 1996 :0) so this stuff is still exciting to me.
In that novel, and the several movie adaptations, the villain of the story was Captain Bligh, who was so brutal in his command of the ship that he actually had a man whipped to death with a cat-o'-nine-tails and ordered the whipping to continue even after the man was dead. In that fictional version of the story sailors under his command had no choice but to rebel against him.
But historians argue that Bligh wasn't any stricter than the average sea captain, and that the cause of the mutiny was that the men missed the women they had met on the island of Tahiti.
In fact, historians suggest that Captain Bligh was the hero of the story. On this day in 1789, a few days after leaving the island, 11 crew members burst into Bligh's cabin and forced him out on the deck, dressed only in his night shirt. They placed him in a small lifeboat, and they were shocked when seventeen other members of the ship volunteered to go with him. They were given a hundred and fifty pounds of bread, twenty pounds of pork, five quarts of rum, three bottles of wine, and twenty-eight gallons of water. Bligh and his remaining loyal sailors were then set adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Bligh's boat was a little more than twenty feet long and seven feet wide. It had one sail and six oars. It barely stayed afloat, weighed down by so many men and supplies. Barely six inches of its sides were exposed above the water. Bligh navigated to the nearest island, but when they ran aground, the local islanders began pelting them with rocks. Bligh and his crew were only able to escape after throwing some of their clothing overboard, which distracted the islanders. After that, Bligh decided that their only chance of survival was to sail to the nearest colonized island, about 3,900 miles to the west to the island of Timor.
Doc.
PS. I hope that these historical asides I've been posting arn't annoying members. I went to college late in life (graduated in 1996 :0) so this stuff is still exciting to me.
