Naval Courts-Martial

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 324, 9 April 1928, Page 7

Naval Courts-Martial

IMPARTIAL SEA TRIALS

Officers are Judge and Jury

INSTITUTION THREE CENTURIES OLD

(Special to THE SUNj SEA officers as a rule know little about the tine points of judicial procedure, but a sailor’s training brings to senior officers broad, open minds, and much common sense. For fair play and patience, indulgence to the accused with all the benefit of the doubt, to the final acquittal or meting out of stern justice, the British naval court-martial stands square above all others.”

A FIXER compliment to the impar* tiality of the Royal Navy’s tribunals than that of the late Admiral Sir Christopher Craddock could scarcely be paid. Harsh as the punishments meted out to Captain G. B. Dewar and Commander H. M. Daniel, of H.M 3. Royal Oak, appear to the lay mind, it is the severity of the regulations for the preservation of naval discipline, by which court-martial must be guided, rather than the Court itself, which must be held responsible. In sea trials, such as those held aboard the aircraft carrier Eagle, at Gibraltar, the accused is given every chance to clear himself. To ensure an absolutely unbiased trial, no officer of his own ship, or anyone who has had any connection with events leading up to the trial, is allowed to on the Court, which comprises from five to nine officers of senior rank drawn from at least two other ships of the fleet. These officers act both as judge and jury under the guidance of a Deputy Judge Advocate (usually referred to as the D.J.A.), a senior paymaster who is an expert on naval law, and who is there to ensure the correct procedure being carried out. At least 24 hours before the trial opens the prisoner, as the accused is termed, is handed a copy of the charge sheet and the circumstantial letter —the document in which the captain of his ship details to the convening authority (the senior admiral present) the circumstances leading up to his request for a trial by courtmartial. With the help of the “prisoner’s friend,” usually an officer versed in the laws of the Navy, or in some cases a qualified solicitor, the accused prepares his defence. It is nobody’s ambition to be tried by court-martial, but, curiously enough it is the one and only occasion on which the average naval officer can ever hope to be saluted by one of His Majesty’s ships of war. As the prisoner, in the full glory of his frock coat, sword, cocked hat and epaulettes, boards the sh:~ in which the trial is to take place, a solitary gun booms an ominous welcome. The “court” is usually the captain’s or admiral’s cabin, but in the case of the Royal Oak trials an airplane hangar aboard H.M.S. Eagle served the purpose. To this room the prisoner is escorted by an officer of liis own rank, who stands beside him with a drawn sword throughout the whole of the trial. The prisoner’s own sword is surrendered to the Court and placed on the table around which the members sit, with the hilt toward the President. DIGNIFIED PROCEEDINGS

The ensuing proceedings, in a setting of full-dress uniforms, gold lace and orders, are solemn and dignified. As in the empanelling of a jury ashore the prisoner, after the warrant convening the Court is read, is given the right to object to any members of the Court whom he has reason to think will not try his case impartially. The Court is then sworn, the D.J.A.

reads tlie charge-sheet and the circumstantial letter, after which the prisoner is asked to plead. If it is “guilty,” the trial is cut short, but if “not guilty,” the prosecutor, usually the captain of the prisoner’s own ship, proceeds with the case. After this the trial goes on on much the same lines as in a Court ashore, the witnesses being called, sworn and cross-examined in the ordinary way. On the defence being closed the Court is cleared of everyone except the actual members of the Court, who deliberate on their finding. Little time is wasted in reaching a decision. Judgment is never reserved. The conference of the Court is of very much shorter duration than the retirement of a jury. On the sentence being determined the prisoner, all witnesses, the prosecutor, and the public are brought back in the order named, and the sentence, if the prisoner has been convicted, is read by the D.J.A.

The prisoner’s first thought on being escorted back to the court-room is of his sword. If it is lying hilt toward him he has cause for elation, but if it lies point toward him he knows he must expect the worst. Mention is made of “Martial Courts” as far back as 1635, when the first Ship Money fleet of Charles I. put to sea. Henry VIII., however, knew no such refined methods of dealing with defaulters. His “Sea Laws” contained the following instruction which, it is safe to assure, was rigidly enforced:—

“All captains must be obedient to their admiral. If any be stubborn, the admiral shall set him on shore and put another in his place, and write to the King and his Council of his faults, truly

without malice.” Charles 11. issued “Articles of War” (a name still preserved in the service) which authorised the comman-der-in-chief of his fleet “to act while afloat as the King’s vice-regent, and summon courts-martial for the trial of all offenders.” Those were days when a king did not scruple to upset a Court’s judgment if it did not meet with Royal approval. In 1690, when the Stuarts had given place to William of Orange, Lord Torrington was tried for failing to achieve the impossible and annihilate the French fleet. He was acquitted, but that did not suit William 111., who cancelled the finding and dismissed the admiral from the service of his country. Perhaps the best-known court-mar-tial in history was that of Admiral John Byng, another scapegoat, who paid the price of popular clamour with his life. The feeling aroused, during the Seven Years War, by the apparent failure of Byng’s inadequate fleet to save the island of Minorca from the French, over-rode the Court’3 recommendation to mercy, and Byng was shot on his own quarter-deck in 1757.

“His loyalty and bravery,” to quote his epitaph, “were insufficient securities for the life and honour of a naval officer.” —C.W.V.