Fellow Contributors,
Again what does British Naval Disciplinary Law have to do with Bismarck?
Precedents of German ships surrendering under fire as presented in another thread:
Returning to the options of warships when disabled and unable to fight, at the Falklands Captain Ellerton of HMS Cornwall offered Leipzig quarter by signalling
"Am anxious to save life. Do you surrender?"
Leipzig continued to return fire with what guns could still do so despite the observations of one of her officers
"The Lyddite would burst in the middle of a group and strip them of their arms and legs- men would rush about with exposed bones, crazy from the effects of the shell"
By 19:00 Leipzig fired torpedoes but the ship stopped shortly after and seacocks were opened but the ensign still flew. The crew were given permission to jump into the freezing sea but surrender was not authorized. After a further cannonading, by 21:00 two green flares were fired which the British took to mean surrender, firing stopped and rescue boats were lowered. By delaying the inevitable until it was dark, Captain Haun who went down with his ship, ensured that the rescuers, working by searchlight saved only 18 of Leipzig's 300 crew.
Nurnberg, another of Von Spee's cruisers was brought to bay when her boilers blew up, and when in a severely damaged condition was closed by HMS Kent to see if she would surrender. Her ensign still flew and a single shot was fired , hitting the Kent. The latter responded with full broadsides and a few minutes later Nurnberg hauled down her flag. After repairing her shattered boats HMS Kent rescued just 12 survivors.
Dresden also hoisted the White flag whilst skulking and infringing Chilean neutrality and was taken under fire when anchored close inshore and out of fuel. The ship was scuttled while the crew watched from the shore, cheering just like the watching British crews as the demolition charges blew her magazines up. HMS Glasgow took Dresden's wounded to hospital in Valparaiso.
To which we can add Emden which hauled down her flag when Sydney returned from catching the auxiliary vessels and re-commenced cannonading.
The German High Seas fleet mutinied rather than emerge to face the Grand Fleet in 1918 and only met it when protected under the terms of the Armistice.
The British took possession of Langsdorff's ship by the simple expedient of buying it.
The Italian Fleet was menaced by air bombardment in 1943 and surrendering meant it was saved from the RAF and USAAF but not from the Luftwaffe.
Indeed death was not the sole punishment for mutiny in the British Navy but...From the Web:
There was a further naval mutiny in Russia, that of the gunboat 'Cicala' in the White Sea. Death sentences were imposed on the 'ringleaders'. The fact that these were later commuted to one year's imprisonment reflects the continuing strength of the sailors' movement.[6]
Mutinies in the forces of intervention were not confined to the Navy. There was a large mutiny in a Marine battalion at Murmansk. The 6th Battalion of the Royal Marines, formed in the summer of 1919 at a time of unrest over demobilisation, were originally intended to police Schleswig Holstein. But, at short notice, the Battalion had been diverted to cover the evacuation of Murmansk. They were sent to the Lake Onega region, a further 300 miles south of Kem. In August 1919 two companies refused duty: 90 men were tried and found guilty of mutiny by a court martial. Thirteen men were sentenced to death and others to up to 5 years imprisonment.
None of the death sentences were actually carried out. The 90 mutineers were shipped to Bodmin prison, where they continued their resistance to arbitrary authority. (In this they were acting in the best traditions of the Royal Marines. In December 1918 some Marines had been involved in a mutiny inside Bodmin prison which had resulted in three death sentences, later commuted to five years penal servitude.) Continued resistance paid off. The ninety men arrested after the Murmansk incident had their sentences reduced as follows: the 13 sentenced to death were commuted to five years, but 12 were released after only one year, and the other after two years. Twenty men, originally given 5 years, were released after six months. 51 men sentenced to two years were also released within six months.
Hardly the Draconian enforcement available under the outmoded Articles of Warre, with all these example Post WW I sentences commuted. Death sentences were given under the authority of the wording and then then sensibly rescinded as they were unwarranted.
At Ivergordon
There were more than 8 ships in the Atlantic Fleet, up to 15 including different classes of warship, but not all were involved in the mutiny to the same extent, 2 or 3 possibly not at all.
Estimates put the number of men involved in the mutiny at 12,000.
The party’s identification with it intensified when two prominent Communists, Shepherd and Allison, were arrested on trumped-up charges of inciting ratings to further mutiny and given stiff prison sentences.
W G Shepherd and George Allison were charged under the Incitement to Mutiny Act and sentenced to 18 months and 3 years penal servitude respectively in November 1931 for trying to spread communism among sailors (after the mutiny). Security files confirm that they were set up with the help of an informer.
Neither Shepherd nor Allison were naval personnel and so not subject to the Articles of Warres. The wording of the Incitement to Mutiny act still required penal servitude for life in 1931 (it was of course death originally in 1797) and only reduced to imprisonment for life in 1948. They did not get life but 18 months and 3 years. Another case of the archaic wording not being followed.
Twenty four so-called ringleaders of the strike were unceremoniously kicked out of the Navy. A further 93 men were groundlessly discharged.
At Invergordon 12,000 involved, none imprisoned, only outside agitators from the British Communist Party sent to jail under Civil Law, and just over 100 discharged from the Navy. The archaic and obsolete wording was clearly largely ignored by 1931.
The attempt to keep alive Antonio's unfounded allegations that certain officers should have been charged under these same Articles, and hidden in this debate which is supposed to be about Lutjens' options in a German battleship is bogus.
All the best
wadinga