Re: It wasn't just Nelson that won the battle of Traffalgar remember the sailors too

Go back far enough in time to Nelson's era, and the royal navy was
press
ganging working class men into service! >

According to that excellent book The Wooden World and contrary to
superstition the press-ganging was of merchant seamen in wartime. The
navy rocketed in size at such times and there were not enough trained
sailors. It took years to train a man and amateurs were useless. Try
climbing masts in a storm without hardened hands (oe even doing DIY
with hand tools). Wars could not wait.

In peacetime there was no shortage of recruits. It was a good career
for a poor lad on a farm and also for a more educated person with no
cash but ability to be an officer.

Contrary to superstition officers were expected to be popular with
their men. Mutinies, which were accepted practice in port, but not
tolerated at sea (for obvious reasons since it threatened all lives)
were a black mark against officers with the Admiralty as showing bad
leadership. On one occasion the Admiralty had to advertise in the
papers to get back a crew who deserted when told their officers were
being changed. It was not uncommon for bad officers to be attacked on
shore and for crews to turn up at an admirals home to make complaints.

Think about it. Would a brutalised hate-filled crew make a good
fighting machine? The Admiralty was not stupid.

During WW2 it took near two years to train aircrew in Canada and South
Africa. During the Battle of Britain there was a desperate shortage of
pilots. If pilots could have been press-ganged they would have been -
and justifiably too.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Spaceforce ranks of the RAF model?
    ... that "officers and men" was an obsolete historical relic. ... thousand crew who need to be fit into a pecking order. ... heirarchal teams in the air and in fact can't do so effectively. ... ship on the Air Force/NASA model? ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: Get rid of Chiefs?
    ... Rickover invented that Navy nearly a half-century ago and I lived ... Officers and Chiefs, with some occifers hanging on the sides. ... last ship, most of the chiefs were qualified or qualifying watch officer. ... will probably end up with more than the current 50-60 crew, ...
    (sci.military.naval)
  • Re: Get rid of Chiefs?
    ... Rickover invented that Navy nearly a half-century ago and I lived ... Officers and Chiefs, with some occifers hanging on the sides. ... last ship, most of the chiefs were qualified or qualifying watch officer. ... will probably end up with more than the current 50-60 crew, ...
    (sci.military.naval)
  • Re: USN ration scales
    ... The crew got to choose which flavor they liked, ... upon becoming aware of how unhappy the crew was with the food, ... He established a policy that one of the duty officers had to eat on ...
    (sci.military.naval)
  • Re: Mrs Stupid.
    ... officers of the Argentinian navy and although they never actually said ... My experience of Royal Navy officers at the time was that the 'thought ... Bloody hell, ... After the Falklands War the Royal Navy decided that what they did worked and ...
    (sci.military.naval)