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Subject:  Re: [long] Royal Navy canings - sometimes not bare, sometimes severe |
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Author:  Lucas |
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Date Posted: 17:57:02 04/05/26 Sun In reply to: Jerry (to Lucas) 's message, "Re: Famous caning movie on TV in the UK again" on 20:02:55 04/04/26 Sat Hey Jerry, it's complicated! First of all, HMS Defiant was released within a year of the release of the first Lord of the Flies movie. And that movie had no problem showing a bare bottom caning as well as lots of other nudity. HMS Defiant is set in 1797. At the time you are correct, midshipmen (and other boys on board ship) who received formal punishments, would almost always have got them bare bottom. (But some informal whacks with ropes might've been over clothing.) However, in later eras of the Royal Navy (that the movie producers might have been more familiar with), canings over the sailor boy's white "duck trousers" were not just standard, but actually part of the official regulations. This was in the regulations from the 1860s onwards, and described in great detail at corpun.com (which also causes some confusion because the detailed descriptions are about punishments of ordinary boy sailors, not punishments of boy midshipmen). The descriptions should also allay your concerns about the effectiveness of a caning over apparently loose duck trousers. 'the youth would be given a medical inspection ("the boy's buttocks are examined and his general physical condition observed"). He was then marched to the ship's tailor to be fitted into a pair of extra-thin tropical-weight white duck trousers, with -- at least on HMS Ganges -- no underwear allowed' 'According to several accounts, the punishment ducks kept in a range of sizes by ship's tailors for this purpose were specially worn-out ones, rubbed threadbare at the seat with years of use' (this was later denied by the Admiralty) 'White ducks were baggy in the legs but quite snug-fitting around the groin and lower torso so that, when the wearer was ordered to bend over, the flimsy fabric would be drawn smooth around the behind and up into the crotch, tautening the buttocks and accentuating the lower part of the seat. Thus the effectiveness of the caning was maximised while still satisfying the legal "with clothes on" requirement' 'The cane was a Nilchert rattan, 40 inches long and half an inch in diameter, bound with cord in two or three places to prevent splitting. It was about twice the thickness of the typical secondary-school cane. (A thicker instrument would bruise more, but lacerate less, than a thinner one.) According to some accounts, the rattan was soaked beforehand in linseed oil to make it heavier and more supple' 'A sore, heavily bruised and wealed backside was the inevitable and intended consequence of this form of discipline. The weals typically lasted at least 14 days. Sitting down would be very uncomfortable for a while, especially as ship's police were trained to aim the cane at the area between the horizontal centre of the posterior and the gluteal crease. There is anecdotal evidence that boys were sometimes allowed to take their meals standing up for a day or so after receiving cuts. 'Particularly after a maximum caning of 12 strokes, there could be superficial bleeding where cuts had crossed over each other, according to some accounts. All recipients who have commented on the matter seem to agree that the experience was not one they ever wished to risk repeating. Several accounts describe boys emerging from the punishment room after "12 cuts" scarcely able to walk, dazed with pain and shock. Antiseptic lotion would be applied in the sick-bay afterwards as necessary.' These canings were supposedly a minimum of 6 whacks and a maximum of 12. I think the midshipman in the movie gets about 12 in the caning that's shown. An actual eyewitness account of a caning for smoking: 'The prisoner comes forward, hitches his pants ['pants' here meaning 'trousers'], and throws himself across the gun upon his stomach; his head hangs down one side, his feet on the other. A couple of men kneel by his head and take a wrist and an ankle each and draw them together so that the trousers fit very taut in the most prominent place. The corporal throws himself into a striking attitude. Evidently this is to be no child's play. Swish! The boy can't rub, he can only writhe and wait for the next. [...] 'The corporal is in no hurry. The first stroke had been a sort of overhead and downward cut. This second one -- whew! -- swish! It comes underhand and upwards. [...] Whizz! -- slosh! A straight forearm cut fair across the other two lines. The men let his hands and feet go, he springs erect with flushed face and suspiciously brilliant eyes, and trots off to his duties' (seems to be more "a bit tearful" than "dazed with pain and shock") I notice the position described is different to the one in the movie: in this description the boy is properly over the gun, with his head hanging down on one side and his feet on the other. Canings like this continued in the Royal Navy until 1967 - so five years *after* the movie was released. The producers of the movie would be very familiar with boys getting caned at school. In the 1960s British school spankings were mostly done over clothing, with a few exceptions like Eton where birchings and some canings were still done on bare bottom. So it's totally possible that the movie producers imagined that this post-Victorian prudery extended right back to the pre-Victorian 18th century. As evidence of prudery of the era, there are one or two scenes in the movie that I think are supposed to represent wild debauchery. But this is represented by women wearing colourful dresses and putting their arms around men and shouting a lot, not by anything genuinely outrageous. During the main caning scene the Captain comments mildly that the senior midshipman may be "over-doing it a bit". But the plot is that the 12 year old midshipman is worn down not by the severity of any one caning, but by the frequency of the canings he gets. One of the crew comments that the midshipman got "a beating every day for a week". Which ofc would be very severe treatment if each caning was one of the ones that produces a heavily bruised and wealed bottom. The character of Scott-Paget (who is behind the plot to have Midshipman Crawford repeatedly caned) is based on the real life Captain Hugh Pigot, who was so sadistic in repeatedly ordering members of his crew flogged for stupid reasons (like being the last man down from the rigging) that his crew mutinied and killed him and most of his officers in 1797, the same year the movie is set. Two men had died from the floggings, and three died falling from the rigging in their haste to get down. 24 of the mutineers were later executed, but 8 were pardoned, including a twelve year old boy. There was also sometimes justice for boys unfairly caned. In 1861 a Commander in the Royal Navy was court-martialled and discharged from the service in disgrace, after a reign of terror that involved giving 15 and 16 year old boys canings on consecutive days, with sometimes more than a hundred whacks in each caning. The 15 year old on one occasion "begged hard that the punishment might be delayed as he said from the effects of the previous punishment he was extremely sore and could hardly sit down". The caning went ahead anyway. One of the Lieutenants (junior officer slightly higher in rank than a midshipman) called in evidence, was asked "Do you consider the punishment to have been cruel?" and replied, "Yes. I was so incensed that I could have contained myself no longer had I remained on deck." The 15-year-old fainted from the pain after that punishment. Those canings were also over trousers, but blue trousers instead of white ones. corpun.com also has three visualisations of what a bare bottom flogging would look like. Click each pic in turn to view the full size version: https://www.corpun.com/jcppix.htm#24415 There's a caning of a 15-year-old midshipman in an episode of the TV series Hornblower, set in the same era as HMS Defiant. The midshipman receives 18 whacks with the cane over two sessions before he faints from the pain. He doesn't yelp or cry. There are traces of blood afterwards. The ship's surgeon gives the boy laudanum (opium/morphine) for the pain afterwards. It's implied that this caning is also over trousers. I don't know if the original Hornblower books by C.S. Forester would've had the same implication. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| Subject | Author | Date |
| Re: [long] Royal Navy canings - sometimes not bare, sometimes severe | Jerry (to Lucas) | 18:28:55 04/05/26 Sun |
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