DONALD TRUMP DELIVERS THE REPORT THAT WILL CLEAR HIS NAME
“But they encouraged the crew to go around scoffing at me and spreading wild rumors about steaming in circles and – and then “Old Yellowstain” – I was to blame for Lieutenant Maryk’s incompetence and poor seamanship. Lieutenant Maryk was the perfect officer, but not Captain Queeg. Ah, but the strawberries! That’s where I had them. I proved with…geometric logic that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox did exist, and I’d have produced that key if they hadn’t pulled the Caine out of action. I-I-I know now that they were only trying to protect some fellow officers.”
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For those who may be interested, the court-martial of Queeg and particularly the cross-examination, is taken from reality.
In June 1944, Admiral Halsey took the fleet into a typhoon for the second time. Typhoon Cobra in December is the typhoon in the movie that sparks the "mutiny." Several ships were in fact lost when their crews didn't do what Masaryk did and head into the wind.
Embarrassed by doing it a second time, Halsey looked for a scapegoat. Admiral J.J. Clark, his most aggressive task group commander, had disobeyed the rules and given orders to change course that saved his ships. Halsey charged him with disobedience of a direct order in wartime (a very serious charge!). Clark took a court martial, and it was held on Guam in July.
Clark was defended by his flag lieutenent, a New York defense attorney named Barney Rosenberg. He cross-examined Admiral Halsey over a day, destroying the Admiral as Queeg was destroyed. Admiral Nimitz saved Halsey - America's most famous admiral of the war - and sent him back to his fleet, but he knew his nemesis, Admiral Sprague, had orders to replace him. The war ended before that could happen and the incident was forgotten. (Clark gives the only account of it in his autobiography, "Carrier Admiral.")
The day of the cross-examination, every officer who could get in the courtroom did so. Among them was a young Lt(j.g.) who aspired to be a novelist. Herman Wouk.
The court-martial of Queeg is actually the cross-examination of Halsey.
Queeg was suffering the effects of PTSD, but what’s trump’s excuse? Queeg was at least somewhat sympathetic a character, but trump has no redeeming qualities whatsoever…