On a more serious note....
This about more recent events in Royal Navy. And NOT specifically about pirates or the GAOP.
"THE GOLDEN RIVET"
I do not wish to make an issue of this, and would not otherwise have mentioned it. However, as I have been challenged, and in high places, to prove that every word in the three-word title of my book is accurate, as otherwise it would be misleading, I have included here an extract from the Naval Chronicle that was sent to me by a retired naval officer about a hanging for sodomy - see SODOMY - A HANGING. I shall reproduce it as an appendix to any second edition of the book.
For the same reason, and reluctantly, I would also draw the attention of readers to this front page head-line article in The Times of Thursday 31 October 2002:-
“A secret clamp-down on homosexuality in the Fleet was ordered in the late sixties after officials discovered that half of all sailors had indulged in gay acts and that no ship was immune from the risk of blackmail.
“The problem was highlighted in 1969 when scores of sexually explicit photographs of British sailors were found in a flat in Bermuda. More than 400 sailors had been involved in "gross indecency" there, and the names of the men and their ships were written on the pictures.
“At the same time, more and more drunken sailors were being lured into having sex with catamites, men masquerading as beautiful women, in Singapore.
'The security concerns which will revive old 'hello sailor' jokes and Sir Winston Churchill's assertion that naval life was 'rum, sodomy and the lash' are disclosed in documents released by the Public Record Office yesterday under the 30-year rule. They say that homosexuals were at risk of being blackmailed because of disgusting, infamous or immoral acts that they would want to keep hidden.
“Admiral Sir John Bush, the Commander-in Chief of the Western Fleet, responded by writing to all commanding officers, ordering them to stamp out this vice. 'There is,regrettably, ample evidence that homosexual practices are rife in the Fleet', he wrote in November 1969. 'It can be assumed that the cases that come to official notice are but a small proportion of those who indulge in these practices'.”
The scale of the problem had been outlined a year earlier in Captain Donald MacIntyre's Report on Homosexuality in the Royal Navy. That claimed that there was a risk of discharging on security grounds a “considerable number of men who were otherwise loyal. Senior naval officers have told me that they reckon that at least 50 per cent of the Fleet have sinned homosexually at some time in their naval service life”.
The article went on to explain the perceived security threat and stated that a large number of naval ratings went to a male brothel in Bermuda where they were lavishly entertained and given presents in return for sexual favours, giving rise to fears of blackmail if the pictures were obtained by a foreign power. The case led to at least 40 sailors being discharged.
Naval friends tell me that homosexuality is jocularly called “the Golden Rivet” that holds the Navy together!
Buggery
If any Person in the Fleet shall commit the unnatural and detestable Sin of Buggery or Sodomy with Man or Beast, he shall be punished with Death by the sentence of a Court-martial.
From The Naval Chronicle for 1807, Volume 18, p 342.
On the 2d of October, a court martial was held on board the Salvador del Mundo, in Hamoaze, Plymouth, on charges exhibited by Captain Dilkes, of his Majesty's ship Hazard, against William Berry, first lieutenant of the said ship, for a breach of the 2d and 29th articles; the former respecting uncleanness, and the latter the horrid and abominable crime which delicacy forbids us to name. Thomas Gibbs, a boy belonging to the ship, proved the offence, as charged to have been committed on 23d of August, 1807.
Several other witnesses were called in corroboration; among whom was Elizabeth Bowden, a female who has been on board the Hazard these eight months. Curiosity had prompted her to look through the key-hole of the cabin-door, and it was thus she became possessed of the evidence which she gave. She appeared in court dressed in a long jacket and blue trowsers [sic].
The evidence being heard in support of the charges, but the prisoner not being prepared to enter upon his defence, he begged time, which the court readily granted, until ten o'clock the next day, at which hour the court assembled again, and having heard what the prisoner had to offer in his defence, and having maturely and deliberately weighed and considered the same, the court were of opinion, that the charges had been fully proved; and did adjudge the said William Berry to be hanged at the yard-arm of such one of his Majesty's ships, and at such time, as the Right Honourable the Commissioners of the Admiralty shall direct. Sir J.T.Duckworth was the president.
The unfortunate prisoner was a native of Lancaster, and only in his 22d year, above six feet high, remarkably well made, and as fine and handsome a man as in the British navy. He was to have been married on his return to port.
The awful sentence of the court was carried into execution on Monday the 19th of October, on board the Hazard, in Plymouth Sound, the prisoner having been removed from the Salvador del Mundo into that ship which lay alongside a hulk in Hamoaze. At nine o'clock he appeared, and mounted the scaffold with the greatest fortitude. He then requested to speak with the Rev. Mr Birdwood on the scaffold; he said a few words to him, but in so low a tone of voice they could not be distinctly heard. The blue cap being put over his face, the fatal bow gun was fired, and he was run up to the starboard fore-yard-arm, with a thirty-two pound shot tied to his feet. Unfortunately the knot had got round under his chin, which caused great convulsions for a quarter of an hour. After being suspended the usual time, he was lowered into his coffin, which was ready to receive him in a boat immediately under, and conveyed to the Royal Hospital, where his friends meant to apply for his body for interment. He was dressed in a blue coat, white waistcoat, blue pantaloons, and boots. For the last week he seemed penitent, firmly collected, and prepared to meet his fate.
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