The captain goes down with the ship

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The captain goes down with the ship
"The captain goes down with the ship" is the maritime concept and tradition that a sea captain holds ultimate
responsibility for both his ship and everyone embarked on it, and he will die trying to save either of them. The
concept may be expressed as "the captain always goes down with the ship" or simply the "captain goes down with
his ship." Although often associated with the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912 and its captain, Edward Smith, the
phrase predates the Titanic by at least 11 years.
[1]
In most instances the captain of the ship forgoes his own rapid
departure of a ship in distress, and concentrates instead on saving other people. It often results in either the death or
belated rescue of the captain as the last person on board.
History
The concept is closely related to another protocol from the nineteenth century, "women and children first." Both
reflect the Victorian ideal of chivalry in which the upper classes were expected to emulate a morality tied to sacred
honour, service, and respect for the disadvantaged. The actions of the captain and men during the sinking of HMS
Birkenhead in 1852 prompted praise from many due to the sacrifice of the men who saved the women and children
by evacuating them first. Rudyard Kipling's poem "Soldier an' Sailor Too" and Samuel Smiles' Self-Help both
highlighted the valour of the men who stood at attention and played in the band as their ship was sinking.
Law
The idiom literally means that a captain will be the last person to leave a ship alive prior to its sinking or utter
destruction, and if unable to evacuate his crew and passengers, the captain will not evacuate himself. In maritime law
the responsibility of the ship's master for his ship is paramount no matter what its condition, so abandoning a ship
has legal consequences, including the nature of salvage rights. So even if a captain abandons his ship in distress, he
is generally responsible for it in his absence and would be compelled to return to the ship until danger to the vessel
has relented. If a naval captain evacuates a vessel in wartime, it may be considered a capital offense similar to
desertion unless he subsequently returns to the ship at his first opportunity to prevent its capture and rescue the crew.
Abandoning a ship in distress may be considered a crime that can lead to imprisonment. Hence, Captain Francesco
Schettino, who left his ship in the midst of the Costa Concordia disaster, was not only widely reviled for his action,
but was arrested by Italian authorities on criminal charges. Abandoning ship is a maritime crime that has been on the
books for centuries in Spain, Greece and Italy.
[2]
It appears South Korean law may also require the captain to rescue
himself last. In Finland, the Maritime Law (Merilaki) states that the captain must do everything in his power to save
everyone on board the ship in distress and that unless his life is in immediate danger, he shall not leave the vessel as
long as there is reasonable hope that it can be saved.
[3]
In the United States, abandoning the ship is not explicitly
illegal, but the captain could be charged with other crimes, such as manslaughter, which encompass common law
precedent passed down through centuries. It is not illegal under international maritime law.
The captain goes down with the ship
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Notable examples
Bounty sank during Hurricane Sandy on October
29, 2012. Two people died, including Captain
Walbridge, after the ship lost generator power
and flooded.
September 12, 1857: William Lewis Herndon was in command of
the commercial mail steamer Central America when it encountered
a hurricane. Two ships came to the rescue, but could only save a
fraction of the passengers, so Captain Herndon chose to remain with
the rest.
March 27, 1904: Commander Takeo Hirose, in command of IJS
Fukui Maru at the Battle of Port Arthur, went down with the ship
while searching for survivors, after the ship sustained a direct strike
from Russian coastal artillery, causing it to explode.
April 13, 1904: Admiral Stepan Makarov of the Imperial Russian
Navy went down with his ship, the Petropavlovsk, after his ship hit
a Japanese naval mine during the early phase of the Battle of Port Arthur.
April 15, 1912: Captain Edward Smith was in command of the RMSTitanic when it struck an iceberg. Smith
knew within minutes that the ship was doomed and did all in his power to prevent panic. Smith did not survive the
sinking. As the ship went down, Smith was seen walking towards the bridge, only a few minutes before it, and the
rest of the ship's forward superstructure, were engulfed by the sea. When the ship's lamp trimmer, Samuel
Hemming, entered the bridge seconds after Smith was seen walking towards it, he found the bridge apparently
empty.
[4]
There are conflicting accounts of what happened to Smith: some, including second radio operator
Harold Bride,
[5]
claimed to have seen him jumping in the water, or in the water, swimming either toward a
lifeboat or near the capsized collapsible lifeboat "B," while others claimed he committed suicide by shooting
himself.
[6]
Others, including first-class passenger Robert Williams Daniel, said that Smith entered the wheelhouse
on the bridge and died there when it was engulfed.
[7]
The actual fate of captain Smith will probably remain
uncertain.
December 10, 1941: Admiral Sir Tom Phillips and Captain John Leach both went down with their ships during
the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse by Japanese warplanes off the coast of Pahang, British Malaya.
June 5, 1942: Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi, on board the aircraft carrier Hiryu, insisted on staying with the
stricken ship during the Battle of Midway. The ship's commander, Captain Kaku, followed his example.
February 7, 1943: Commander Howard W. Gilmore, captain of the American submarine USSGrowler, gave the
order to "clear the bridge," as his crew was being attacked by a Japanese gunboat. Two men had been shot dead;
Gilmore and two others were wounded. After all others had entered the sub and Gilmore found that time was
critically short, he gave his last order: "Take her down." The executive officer, hearing his order, closed the hatch
and submerged the crippled boat, saving the rest of the crew from the attack of the Japanese convoy escort.
Commander Gilmore was never seen again, but the submarine made repairs and returned to battle. Gilmore
received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his "distinguished gallantry," the second submariner to receive
this award.
October 24, 1944: Admiral Inoguchi Toshihira
[8]
chose to go down with the Japanese battleship Musashi, during
the Battle of Leyte Gulf, even though he could have escaped. Over half of the ship's crew, 1376 of 2399, were
rescued.
April 7, 1945: Admiral Seiichi Ito, the fleet admiral, and Captain Kosaku Aruga went down with the Japanese
battleship Yamato during Operation Ten-Go.
December 9, 1971: Mahendra Nath Mulla, the captain of the Indian frigate INSKhukri, went down with the ship
after it was attacked by a submarine in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. At least 194 members of the crew died in
the sinking, which reportedly took two minutes.
October 29, 2012: Captain Robin Walbridge of the Bounty, a replica of the HMSBounty, stayed on the ship until
it capsized during Hurricane Sandy. Fourteen crew members who made it to life boats survived the sinking of the
The captain goes down with the ship
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sailing ship and were rescued by U.S. Coast Guard helicopters. Walbridge's last known words were to his crew:
"Abandon ship."
[9]
Counter-examples
In some cases the captain may choose to scuttle the ship and escape danger rather than die as it sinks. This choice is
usually only available if the damage does not immediately imperil a vast portion of the ship's company and
occupants. If a distress call was successful and the crew and occupants, the ship's cargo, and other items of interest
are rescued, then the vessel may not be worth anything as marine salvage and allowed to sink. In other cases a
military organization or navy might wish to destroy a ship to prevent being taken as a prize or captured for
espionage, such as occurred in the USSPueblo incident. Commodities and war materiel carried as cargo might also
need to be destroyed to prevent capture by the opposing side.
In other cases a captain may decide to save himself to the detriment of his crew, the vessel, or its mission. A decision
that shirks the responsibilities in the command of a vessel will usually bring upon the captain a legal, criminal, or
social penalty, with military commanders often subject to capital punishment and dishonor.
July 17, 1880: The captain and crew of the SSJeddah abandoned the ship and their passengers in a storm
expecting it would sink, but the ship was found with all passengers alive two weeks later.
August 4, 1906: Captain Giuseppe Piccone abandoned the SSSirio at the first opportunity. Between 150 and 400
people died when the ship sank.
November 12, 1965: When a fire broke out aboard the SSYarmouth Castle, Captain Byron Voustinas was on the
first lifeboat, which had only crew and no passengers aboard. 90 people died.
April 7, 1990: Captain Hugo Larsen abandoned the MSScandinavian Star after arson caused the ship to burn. 158
people died.
August 3/4, 1991: Captain Yiannis Avranas of the cruise ship MTS Oceanos abandoned ship without informing
passengers that the ship was sinking. All passengers survived.
January 13, 2012: Captain Francesco Schettino abandoned ship during the Costa Concordia disaster. 32 people
died in the accident.
April 16, 2014: Captain Lee Joon-seok abandoned the South Korean ferry MS Sewol. The captain and much of
the crew were among the first to leave, abandoning hundreds of high school students embarked for a school trip.
Many passengers apparently remained on the sinking vessel and died. Following this incident Lee Joon-seok was
arrested and put on trial beginning in early June 2014, when video footage filmed by some survivors and news
broadcasters showed him deserting the boat and not even trying to rescue his passengers before the sinking.
Extended or metaphorical use
When used metaphorically, the "captain" may be simply the leader of a group of people, "the ship" may refer to
some other place that is threatened by catastrophe, and "going down" with it may refer to a situation that implies a
severe penalty or death. It is common for references to be made in the case of the military and when leadership
during the situation is clear. So when a raging fire threatens to destroy a mine, the mine's supervisor, the "captain,"
may perish in the fire trying to rescue his workers trapped inside, and acquaintances might say that he went down
with his ship or that he "died trying."
The concept has been explicitly extended in law to the pilot in command of an aircraft, in the form of laws stating
that he "[has] final authority and responsibility for the operation and safety of the flight."
[10]
Jurisprudence has
explicitly interpreted this by analogy with the captain of a sea vessel. For example, following the crash of US
Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River, pilot Chesley Sullenberger was the last person to exit the aircraft, and
performed a final check for any others on board before doing so.
The captain goes down with the ship
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References
[1] "...for if anything goes wrong a woman may be saved where a captain goes down with his ship." The Night-hawk: a Romance of the '60s
(http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=DrUXAAAAYAAJ& dq="captain goes down with his ship"& pg=PA249#v=onepage& q="captain
goes down with his ship"& f=false), p. 249, Alix John, Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York, 1901.
[2] In a cruise ship crisis, what should happen? (http:/ / articles. cnn. com/ 2012-01-17/ travel/
travel_cruise-ship-passenger-safety_1_cruise-ship-international-maritime-organization-large-passenger-ships?_s=PM:TRAVEL) CNN
January 17, 2012
[3] Merilaki (http:/ / www.finlex. fi/ fi/ laki/ ajantasa/ 1994/ 19940674), 6 Luku 12 . 15.7.1994/674. FINLEX.
[4] Testimony of Samuel Hemming (http:/ / www.titanicinquiry. org/ USInq/ AmInq07Hemming01. php) at Titanic inquiry.com
[5] Testimony of Harold Sidney Bride (http:/ / www.titanicinquiry. org/ USInq/ AmInq14Bride01. php)
[6] http:/ / www. encyclopedia-titanica.org/ capt-smith-ended-life-when-titanic-began-founder. html
[7] [7] Bartlett 2011, p.224.
[8] Inoguchi Toshihira (http:/ / ww2db.com/ person_bio.php?person_id=308), WW II Database
[9] " Witness recounts Claudene Christian's last minutes on Bounty (http:/ / thechronicleherald. ca/ novascotia/
696424-witness-recounts-claudene-christian-s-last-minutes-on-bounty)," Beverly Ware, South Shore Bureau, Herald News, February 15,
2013.
[10] [10] "CFR Title 14 Part 1 Section 1.1," U.S. Federal Government. Retrieved 06-12-2010.
Article Sources and Contributors
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Article Sources and Contributors
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