Caine Mutiny, The

Novel by Herman Wouk, 1951

Film directed by Edward Dmytryk, 1954

An epic of ordinary men caught in the maelstrom of World War II, The Caine Mutiny earned author Herman Wouk the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1952 and became a successful Broadway play, television movie, and motion picture. Critics hailed the novel as a serious examination of the unique moral dilemmas faced by naval officers in wartime, and applauded a sophisticated plot that offered no clear-cut heroes or villains. At the same time, mainstream audiences were drawn to Wouk's rousing action sequences and sharp dialogue, and to a dramatic court-martial so compelling that both the book and the film remain popular today.

The story revolves around Ensign Willis “Willie” Keith, a young naval officer serving aboard the USS Caine during World War II. The Caine is an old destroyer-minesweeper near the end of its useful life, and a far cry from the glorious assignment the Princeton-educated Keith hoped would await him in the Navy. He is appalled by the dreary and dirty life led by the weary crew of the ship when he joins them in 1943, and his growing disillusionment is fueled by Lt. Thomas Keefer, an intelligent would-be novelist filled with disdain for the Navy. Both are held in check by the ship's second-in-command, Lt. Steve Maryk, a cheerful and competent officer who hopes to make the Navy a career. They are hopeful when their commanding officer is replaced by Lt. Commander Philip Francis Queeg, whom Keith hopes will make the Caine a far more impressive military machine.

Instead, Queeg gradually reveals himself as a paranoid, insecure tyrant who oppresses the crew and proves incompetent in crisis. As Queeg founders through a series of mistakes and emotional outbursts, the officers become increasingly sullen and withdrawn. Keefer suggests to Maryk that Queeg is delusional and possibly insane, and when the captain freezes on the bridge during a furious typhoon, Maryk relieves him of command. In the subsequent court-martial for mutiny, Maryk is defended by Lt. Barney Greenwald, a brilliant defense attorney who secures his acquittal. Afterward Greenwald stuns the celebrating officers by blaming them for turning on Queeg rather than supporting him. He argues that Keefer was the real culprit for helping convince Maryk the captain was insane, and that Queeg and the rest of the regular Navy were heroes for defending the United States in peace-time and in the early years of the war when men like himself, Maryk, Keefer, and Keith were all civilians.

After the trial ends, Maryk is assigned to a dead-end post as the commander of a transport ship, Queeg is sent to await his retirement at a remote outpost in Iowa, and Keefer becomes the next captain of the Caine. Keefer's true character reveals itself when he panics and jumps overboard after the ship has been hit by a Japanese plane. Keith is left aboard to save the vessel; when he becomes captain at the end of the war his coming-of-age is complete. He understands the loneliness of command, realizes that he, Maryk, and Keefer were wrong to seize command of the ship during the typhoon in spite of Queeg's shortcomings, and concludes that the brave, ordinary men of the Caine were the real heroes of the war because they did their duty to the best of their ability despite their anonymity and lack of recognition. Keith returns the ship to New York City for decommissioning, decides to leave the Navy, and, at the end of the novel, attempts to reconcile with and marry May Wynn, the lovely nightclub singer [Page 102]his mother and his own immaturity had led him to believe was beneath him.

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