Histories of Imperial Russia and the U.S.S.R. when dealing with the abortive risings of 1905 seldom omit to mention the mutiny in the Potemkin (phonetically Pahtyomkin). Richard Charques’ The Twilight of Imperial Russia and Alan Morehead’s The Russian Revolution are recent examples. But these references are always tantalizingly brief; no details are given. For students of the cinema the affair has been given significance by Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, adjudged a classic among silent films but from the historian’s point of view, suffering from both dramatic license and political considerations. It was made in the U.S.S.R. and possibly, as a result of this, more than one imaginative rather than factual version of the incident has been published outside the U.S.S.R.
Any attempt to remedy these shortcomings is open to the criticism that it is impossible to consult the only presumably accurate records—the reports made by the Commander-in-Chief, Black Sea Fleet, to the Russian Admiralty in St. Petersburg. Nonetheless, a reasonable version of the affair, of which there is none more extraordinary in naval annals, can be reconstructed from other sources, notably the St. Petersburg Official Messenger and British consular reports to the Foreign Office, which include a statement by one of the mutineers.
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For a century before 1905 Imperial Russia was boiling with unrest. The people suffered under the oppressive rule of an absolute monarchy. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, fifteen million serfs were working for 130,000 landowners, of whom the greatest was the Tsar. In December 1825, the safety valve lifted when the guards at St. Petersburg mutinied (the Decembrists). Nicholas I then tried to substitute discipline for freedom, and agrarian outbreaks were soon renewed. Though each was suppressed with bloody brutality, by the middle of the century as many as a hundred such disturbances were reported annually.
Alexander II, wiser than his predecessors, realized the need for reform. The serfs were freed in 1861, and the system of government by autocracy was modified. All power remained in the hands of the Tsar and the rich landowners, administered by a strong bureaucracy of officials and supported by the Orthodox Church, but elected county assemblies and town councils were authorized. These steps were not, however, enough. When Alexander II’s flirtation with liberalism was brought to an end by his assassination in 1881, his successor had to deal with more than country disturbances. The beginnings of industry in Russia had produced a concentration of factory workers in the cities. There were serious strikes in St. Petersburg and elsewhere in 1882 and again in 1895 and 1896. The people had no other way of demanding relief from want as well as oppression, for those who held the power and the wealth paid wages below subsistence level.
Thus Nicholas II, the last Tsar, inherited widespread revolutionary activity when he came to the throne in 1895. But he ignored it. A man of weak will dominated by the Tsaritsa, he plunged Russia into an unpopular war with Japan, the people believing that it had been instigated by the ruling few for their own aggrandizement. The result in 1905, when the war proved militarily disastrous, was a wave of strikes accompanied by a nation-wide peasant revolt. In the ships of the Black Sea Fleet, the almost illiterate crews nourished a bitter hatred of their officers under whom they suffered a harsh discipline that allowed for no understanding between wardroom and lower deck. Playing no part in the Russo- Japanese war, demoralized by inactivity in the face of the news of the fall of Port Arthur and the destruction of the Baltic Fleet at Tsushima, they were fertile soil for the seeds of revolution which flourished among the dockyard workers at Sevastopol. Subversive cells were established in every vessel, their avowed aim to stir up unrest. An attempted mutiny in 1904 had been quickly suppressed, but the ring leaders had escaped detection, leaving the clandestine cells to continue their seditious work.
In the latter half of June 1905, Admiral Chukhnin, Commander-in-Chief, Black Sea Fleet, ordered his ships to Tendrovo Bay for gunnery practices, before he himself went off on a visit to St. Petersburg. On 25 June (by the Western calendar; until after the Revolution the Russian calendar lagged by thirteen days), the battleship Kniaz Potemkin Tavrichesky. Captain First Rank Golikov, accompanied by torpedo boat No. 267, Lieutenant Klodt von Jurgensburg, left Sevastopol in advance of the main body of the fleet. The Potemkin (for short), named after Catherine the Great’s favorite minister, was of 12,600 tons, a handsome, well-proportioned vessel for her time, with three funnels. Built at Nikolaiev and completed as recently as 1903, she had an armament of four 12-inch guns in two twin turrets, sixteen 6-inch guns and fourteen 12-pounders. Triple expansion reciprocating engines gave her a speed of eighteen knots.
Unfortunately, on 27 June, the sea was too rough for target practice. The Potemkin had to remain at anchor in Tendrovo Bay, giving her crew no more to do than the routine tasks of ship maintenance—and to concern themselves with their mid-day meal, for word had spread round the ship that the meat from which their bortsch was being prepared was bad. When the cooks reported that it was alive with maggots, Chief Surgeon Smirnov made a superficial inspection and announced, “Those are not worms but flies’ eggs; they’ll wash off with vinegar. The meat is fit to eat.” This edict did not satisfy a discontented crew, but since the regulations allowed no complaints, they could do no more than refuse to eat the food.
The executive officer, Captain Second Rank (i.e. Commander) Gilyarovsky reported this to his captain, who promptly cleared the lower deck. Addressing his crew, Golikov reminded them that refusal to eat their dinner amounted to disobedience. He then ordered those now willing to eat their bortsch to starboard and those who still refused to port. When the great majority went to port, Golikov decided on strong measures to check mass indiscipline. Some sixty of the malcontents were placed under arrest, and Gilyarovsky was instructed to deal with them in accordance with the custom of the Imperial Russian Navy, where disobedience was summarily punished by throwing a tarpaulin over a man and shooting him in front of his shipmates.
The assembled ship’s company watched in sullen silence while a canvas awning was thrown over their comrades. All knew that it meant a sentence of death. But when Gilyarovsky commanded the guard to fire, no trigger was pulled. Gilyarovsky then reacted by naming one of the guards, Able Seaman Omelchuk, and ordering him to shoot, but this order also was disobeyed. Acting on impulse, the frustrated commander seized a weapon from one of the guards and shot Omelchuk, seriously wounding him. This act transformed disobedience into mutiny. Members of the ship’s revolutionary committee, led by Able Seaman Matushenko, grabbed the guards’ rifles and opened fire, killing Gilyarovsky and several officers. While other members of the ship’s company were obtaining arms, a number of officers tried to escape by diving overboard, but they were fired on in the water, so that few reached torpedo boat No. 267 safely. Some, however, managed to join their captain in his cabin below.
The whole crew of the Potemkin, some 700 men, supported Matushenko, either willingly or through intimidation. Golikov tried to deal with this situation by scuttling his ship. But the officers charged with the task were intercepted by the mutineers and two attempts failed. To forestall any further interference with their revolt, they decided to arrest their captain. Golikov tried to escape to the torpedo boat, but before he could dive overboard he was shot down and his corpse thrown into the sea. The remaining officers were then locked in their cabins except for Chief Surgeon Smirnov who, not surprisingly, made an unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide. The mutineers finished the job for him.
Aboard No. 267 Lieutenant Klodt, lacking the advantage of wireless, decided to proceed to Sevastopol and report the affair to Vice Admiral Kruger, Admiral Chukhnin’s second-in-command. But as soon as he weighed anchor, the mutineers manned the battleship’s guns and fired several warning rounds over the torpedo boat, forcing her to return to her berth with a three-inch shell through her funnel.
Under Matushenko’s leadership, the Potemkin's crew elected a committee of twenty to run the vessel, to control the considerable sum of money available in the paymaster’s safe (some 30,000 rubles—approximately $12,000) and to conduct negotiations with outside authorities. Fired with revolutionary zeal, they pictured the battleship as being in the forefront of a new fight for the freedom for which the Russian people yearned. They composed, for example, this proclamation: “A decisive struggle has begun against the Russian Government, and we hereby inform the Foreign Powers thereof. We consider it our duty to declare that we give a complete guarantee of inviolability to foreign ships navigating the Black Sea and to the foreign ports thereof.”
Realizing that they lacked the ability to navigate the ship, the committee persuaded Midshipman Alexiev, the assistant navigating officer, to undertake this task. (Two junior engineer officers similarly agreed to co-operate with the mutineers.) Alexiev was instructed to steam the Potemkin to the commercial port of Odessa where, as the battleship’s crew knew, revolt was already rife among the workers. Oppressed by the authorities, paid meager wages by the owners of the factories, they had been angered by the news of “Bloody Sunday.” (In January, the workmen of St. Petersburg had marched to the Winter Palace to appeal to the Tsar to alleviate their sufferings. This peaceful demonstration—the men were accompanied by their wives and children and led by Father Gapon and other priests of the Orthodox Church—had been met by rifle fire from a detachment of troops and forced to disperse leaving many dead and wounded lying in the great square in front of the Winter Palace.) Moreover, Russia’s economy had been strained by the disastrous war with Japan. The factories were dismissing their employees; some had closed altogether.
On 25 June, with the specter of hunger stalking the streets, delegates from the various factories and workshops in Odessa met to declare a general strike. The police, having information that the delegates included members of the local Socialist revolutionary committee, arrested them all. They found a letter indicating an intention to murder a police officer, a threat which was confirmed next day when two men were arrested near the police station, armed and carrying a document sentencing the police officer to death. A ban was then placed on public gatherings; nevertheless, on 27 June, angry workers filled the streets, while wealthy residents stayed at home behind locked doors and shuttered windows. Late that night into this incipient revolution steamed the Potemkin, the red flag at her gaff, torpedo boat No. 267 in company.
The battleship’s mutinous crew was assured of a sympathetic reception; nevertheless. to achieve maximum effect, they planned to bury the victim of Gilyarovsky’s shot with appropriate honors. Early on the 28th, a boat conveyed the body of Able Seaman Omelchuk across the bay, “two hands upon the breast and labour done,” to quote the Russian proverb—but a purpose still to serve. In the harbor it was carried ashore and laid on a bier near the foot of the wide flight of marble steps leading up the cliff to the town. (On a visit to Odessa in 1954, I was able to see for myself that these famous steps are still there, now paralleled by a funicular.) One mutineer was left to guard the corpse. The rest of the boat’s crew set out on a variety of missions. Some went to buy provisions; others seized two small steamers laden with coal (the Potemkin needed to replenish with both); two delivered letters from the battleship’s committee. One appealed to the garrison to lay down their arms rather than support the police in their struggle against the workers. The other was addressed to the French Consul, to be passed to the civil authorities in case there was any interference with Omelchuk’s corpse or with the men sent ashore to obtain supplies, “there will be a bombardment of the town from all guns. The crew warn the public of this; in case of firing being necessary, we advise those who do not wish to take part in the revolt to leave the town. We are expecting the assistance of several men-of-war from Sevastopol.”
The news that the Potemkin was in the hands of mutineers spread rapidly through Odessa. If there were any who did not believe it, they had only to read the inscription on the bier at the foot of the steps:
“Men of Odessa! Here lies the body of Gregory Omelchuk, a sailor brutally killed by the captain of the battleship Kniaz Potemkin Tavrichesky for saying ‘The bortsch is bad.’ Let us make the sign of the Cross and say ‘Peace to his soul.’ Help us to avenge his murder. Death to our oppressors. Hurrah for freedom! Crew of Kniaz Potemkin: one for all and all for one.”
But there was no doubt of the people’s reaction to the mutinous warship. Many boats carried food out to her. Those of her crew who came ashore were treated as heroes. The authorities hesitated as to the best action to take; a threat to bombard the town with 12-inch guns could not be treated lightly. They had, further, more than the battleship to worry them. Strikers assembled near Gehn’s works had replied to orders to disperse by throwing stones at the police. When a sotnia (100) of Cossacks was called, workmen opened fire on them from the roofs of buildings. The officer-in-charge was wounded, but the Cossacks returned the fire with a volley that killed two workmen. News of this affray spread; barricades were thrown up in the streets by angry workers and there were further incidents. A man named Mordka Zypkin was arrested when about to throw a bomb at troops bivouacked in Cathedral Square. There were battles between the workers and the police, two trams were overturned, and at least one policeman was killed. That afternoon members of the Odessa revolutionary committee visited the Potemkin and assured them that the workers of Odessa were on their side. They added the encouraging, but incorrect, information that the rest of the Black Sea Fleet had mutinied at Sevastopol. There is some evidence that a number of women also boarded the battleship and remained there, becoming a subsequent cause for dissension among the mutineers.
A naval supply vessel, the Viekha, entered the bay. Her captain hastened aboard the battleship to pay his official call on Captain Golikov. All unsuspecting, he was met by Matushenko and stripped by the mutineers of his uniform, and his officers were summoned to the Potemkin and similarly treated. All were then put ashore, except for three, two of whom elected to throw in their lot with the mutineers rather than face the Odessa mob, and Surgeon Golenko who considered his duty to the sick to override other considerations.
That same afternoon arrangements were made for Omelchuk’s funeral to take place on the next day. But by this time the authorities had acquired the courage to take firm action against the rebel populace. A Cossack regiment was ordered to disperse the crowd from around the bier so that the police could take away a body which had become a symbol of the people’s resistance. Marching from their barracks, the troops found the streets leading to the port blocked by a mob who would not give way to them. They opened fire and the mob went berserk, indulging in an orgy of looting and arson, ransacking shops and setting houses on fire. Down by the harbor they pillaged warehouses and vessels lying at the wharves and, drunk from the contents of broached casks, they threw the goods into the sea. “With nightfall,” said the official communique, “fires broke out which soon attained alarming proportions. Almost the whole area of the port was enveloped in flames, for the mob would not allow the firemen to extinguish the conflagration. . . . In the conflagration perished not a few of the rioters and plunderers, who had drunk themselves into a state of stupor.”
The Governor called out more troops, the Chief of Police ordered his men to use machine guns against the crowds and in time, sheer weight of force began to tell. The stones and cudgels of a mob, however numerous, cannot long prevail against disciplined men with swords and firearms. The workers and their wives began to retreat. From streets whose gutters ran with the blood of their companions who had either been shot by the police or hacked to pieces by the Cossack swords, they tried to scatter. But the police had thrown a cordon around that part of the town which lies near the port. There was no escape for the confused throng; they could only retreat to the harbor by way of the single flight of wide steps down the cliffs.
Relentlessly the Cossacks pressed the mob back and soon the town was clear of disorder except for a crowd of nearly ten thousand who surged around Omelchuk’s bier and up the steps. The troops formed line across the top of the steps and fixed bayonets, then began to advance downwards with a steady tread. The brutality of the Tsar’s troops was thus opposed against the savagery of a mob who counted the Tartars among their forebears, and the mob suffered for it. Hundreds lost their lives, shot, bayoneted, trampled to death or drowned, as the Cossacks descended the steps, forcing the crowd to give way from around Omelchuk’s corpse, pressing it back on to the jetties and into the harbor. The mutinous crew of the battleship Potemkin, whose arrival had encouraged the riots that led to this tragedy, did nothing but watch from their floating grandstand in the bay the smoky glow of the burning town and listen to the crackling of the flames, the shots of the police, and the angry protests and agonized screams of the mob.
Dawn on 29 June revealed a port half destroyed, the city’s streets littered with the corpses of the dead, and the gray marble of the Odessa Steps red with blood. Nevertheless, in the words of the official communique, “none of the representatives of foreign powers suffered, each of the eighteen consulates being guarded by troops.” Nor were there any casualties in the foreign merchant ships in the port, several of which had been asked by consuls to stand by to embark foreign subjects should the need arise.
A small number of seamen landed to find Omelchuk’s body still on its bier. The magnitude of the rioting on the previous evening had given the police other things to worry about. Placing a guard around it, some of the sailors climbed the steps to arrange the funeral. They were arrested but not held for long. Conscious of the temper of the people, the Governor feared a further riot in sympathy with the captives. In return for landing nine of their detained officers, he granted Matushenko permission to bury the dead seaman with the proviso that the escort should be limited to twelve men from the battleship. However, on their return from the grave, this party clashed with the police who killed three and arrested four of them. The Potemkin retaliated by firing three blank rounds and then two live ones, one of which failed to burst, while the other damaged a house. This evidence that the mutineers would not hesitate to bombard the town, was sufficient to bring about the release of the arrested men.
News of the mutiny soon reached both St. Petersburg and Sevastopol. Admiral Chukhnin hurried south by train. Vice Admiral Kruger, his second-in-command, sailed with Rear Admiral Vichnevesky’s squadron comprised of the battleships Rostislav, the George Pobedonosets (George the Conqueror) the Dvenadsat Apostolov (Seven Apostles), and the Sinope, plus a flotilla of torpedo boats, with orders to summon the mutineers to surrender and, if they refused, to sink their ship. Expecting them to arrive during the night of the 29th, the Potemkin cleared for action and burned searchlights as a precaution against surprise attack. But Krüger’s force did not appear off Odessa until 0700 on the 30th.
A peremptory signal to the Potemkin ordering the ship to surrender was countered with an invitation to the admiral to come on board to parley. The mutineers guaranteed Krüger’s personal safety, but they planned to hold him as a hostage. Though Krüger did not fall into this trap, he hesitated to enforce surrender. Matushenko persuaded the Potemkin's committee that there must be good reason for this. The admiral was uncertain of the loyalty of the crews of his squadron should they be ordered to open fire on their own countrymen. If the Potemkin were to weigh anchor and stand boldly out towards the investing force, it was likely that its men would be persuaded to join the mutiny.
So, flying the red flag, the battleship steamed out to meet the Black Sea Squadron, her crew at action stations ready if necessary to die in the cause of freedom from tyranny. But they were met with cheers, not gunfire, and the George Pobedonosets signalled that she wished to support the mutiny. Thereupon Admiral Krüger ordered his force to retire to Sevastopol. “Why they (the admirals) abstained from opening fire and attempting to destroy the Potemkin according to the Emperor of Russia’s order, is a matter of the greatest interest, but for the present remains obscure,” says a contemporary report. The Potemkin went back to Odessa Bay, with the George Pobedonosets following astern. On arrival the latter’s captain, Goosevich, and his officers were put ashore.
Five ships of the Black Sea Fleet were now in open mutiny; the two battleships, torpedo boat No. 267 and two supply vessels, the Viekha and the Smely, and, to judge by Admiral Krüger’s retreat, the Potemkin's committee expected the mutiny to spread. At Sevastopol Krüger immobilized his ships’ engines and sent their crews on leave. At Odessa the George Pobedonosets failed to share the Potemkin's resolution and her crew wavered. When, next day, the Potemkin's committee ordered the mutinous force to sail, both battleships weighed anchor, but while the Potemkin proceeded seaward, the George Pobedonosets struck the red flag and steamed into Odessa harbor. There her hesitant crew submitted to the garrison commander and asked for the return of their officers. Governor Karangesov promptly went on board and arrested sixty-seven ringleaders who were court-martialed. Captain Goosevich and his second-in-command were subsequently relieved and compulsorily retired.
(I cannot confirm a story to the effect that Matushenko, the unchallenged leader of the mutineers and their most effective agitator, having lost his voice from so much speaking during the last three days, was unable to board the George Pobedonosets to rally her crew; that instead the Potemkin's committee sent Surgeon Golenko of the Viekha and that he persuaded the crew of the George Pobedonosets that the Potemkin was being kept in subjection by a mere handful of men whose tyranny was worse than that which they had suffered under their officers.)
There were two reasons for the Potemkin’s departure from Odessa—military activity, guns and ammunition being made ready to counter any attempt by the battleship to carry out her threat to bombard the town, and resolute steps by the civil authorities to prevent further supplies from reaching the Potemkin. Fuel and provisions being essential if the committee’s dream of acting as the spearhead of a revolution was to become a reality, it was decided to seek them in a foreign port. So the Potemkin, accompanied by No. 267, set course for Constanza in Romania. En route they met the transport Pruth, flying the red flag, but seeing no value in her support—she was unarmed—they advised her to return to Sevastopol. She did so and forty-two of her crew were subsequently court-martialed and sentenced to death or long periods of imprisonment.
The Potemkin reached Constanza on 2 July, saluting that country’s flag on anchoring a mile to seaward of the harbor. She was boarded by the captain of the Romanian cruiser Elizabeta, of whom the mutineers asked permission to buy fuel and provisions. This request was telegraphed to Bucharest. While this was being considered by the government, the Potemkin’s crew made an unsuccessful attempt to suborn the Russian gunboat Psesouape which was in port. A more direct attempt to enlist the Psesouape’s support, made next morning by No. 267 entering the harbor, was foiled by the Elizabeta which opened fire on the torpedo boat.
The Romanian Government decided to refuse all supplies and to intern the mutinous ships, but to allow their crews to land, their freedom and safety guaranteed. (There was then no extradition treaty in force between Russia and Romania.) This was a generous offer, but the mutineers were unwilling to surrender their ships, so they weighed anchor and stood out to sea again.
The Turkish Government, alarmed at the prospect of the Potemkin appearing in the Bosphorus, mined it and issued orders to its batteries that the battleship was to be denied passage of the Straits. The mutineers, however, steamed northwards to Feodosia on the east coast of the Crimea where the Potemkin anchored on 7 July. The mayor agreed to send provisions but denied the battleship coal. The mutineers replied with an ultimatum; the town would be bombarded unless fuel had been supplied by eleven o’clock the next morning. The mayor responded by evacuating the town. At dawn the mutineers observed the population taking to the hills, so they sent parties to seize the three colliers lying in the roadstead and tow them out to the Potemkin. They had not allowed, however, for the loyalty of the 600-man garrison who met the battleship’s parties with rifle fire and forced them to retire.
This defeat persuaded the crew that their mutiny was doomed. Leaving Feodosia on 6 July, the Potemkin returned to Constanza on the 7th. “The reappearance of these unwelcome visitors . . . off the promontory where the Casino is situated, and where a banquet was being held in honour of the Prime Minister, produced . . . great consternation among the inhabitants and authorities . . . who were well aware of their defenceless condition ... in the event of a bombardment by the crew of the Potemkin, rendered desperate by want of provisions and fuel. On this occasion, however, the committee of sailors in command of the mutinied ironclad . . . gave themselves up, as well as the vessel, to the Romanian authorities.”
The last sentence of this contemporary report is not quite true. Some of the mutineers elected to return to Sevastopol in No. 267 which did not surrender to the Romanian authorities. But the majority landed and dispersed to Bucharest and other European towns to disappear into oblivion. Matushenko was last heard of in Geneva. The Times correspondent reported, “I have just paid a visit to the surrendered battleship. I found everything on board in a state of wild disorder. . . . The officers’ cabins especially have been pillaged, everything worth taking having been removed. There are bloodstains everywhere. . . .”
On 9 July Rear Admiral Pisarevsky arrived with the battleships Sinope and Chesma. The flag of the Imperial Russian Navy was restored to the Potemkin and the Romanian authorities were thanked for her safe return. She was then towed back to Sevastopol.
Of the mutineers who returned to Russia in No. 267, three were sentenced to death and fifty-two to long term imprisonment. And in August Vice Admiral Kruger and Rear Admiral Vichnevesky were both compulsorily retired for a reason succinctly expressed by the Turkish newspaper Ikdom: “The events at Odessa are more shameful than the defeat of Tsushima. . . . The conduct of the admirals is . . . reprehensible. Probably the admirals knew that these men would not obey if ordered to fire on the rebel ship, but . . . this is no excuse. . . . Admiral Krüger, instead of acting thus, showed weakness, and was consequently able to do nothing. By his cowardice he allowed the rebel crews to work their will.” There was a greater truth in the same newspaper’s more general comment on the affair: “The Naval administration is rotten to the core. Officers and men are destitute of the qualities of the soldier [sic].”
Thus with scarcely a whimper, certainly with no exultant howl of revolutionary triumph, ended the Potemkin mutiny. What should have been no more than a minor—but none the less disgraceful—naval episode has become a landmark in the history of the Russian Revolution. The thousands who died on the Odessa steps that night in June 1905 are remembered as martyrs in the Communist cause. As for the Potemkin, her name was soon discreetly changed to Pantelimon and she survived until the Revolution. She subsequently became the Boretz za Svobodu and was destroyed with other ships at Sevastopol on 25 April 1919 to prevent her falling into the hands of the Bolsheviks, there being neither crew nor fuel to steam her elsewhere.
A graduate of the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, Captain Bennett saw extensive duty in World War II in communications billets. From 1953–55 he was British Naval Attache in Moscow and from 1956—58 he served as Chief Staff Officer (Plans) to NATO CinC, Channel. He retired from active duty in 1958 and is now Marshal of the City of London. He was the winner of the Gold Medal in the annual essay competition of the Royal United Service Institution in 1934, 1942, and 1943. Under the pseudonym “Sea-lion” he has written a number of novels and has also written radio scripts for the BBC.
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DUE NORTH
Contributed by Captain Carl H. Amme, Jr., USN
Piloting his ship down a narrow channel, the Captain asked the JOOD, a World War II “Ninety-day Wonder,” “How’s your head?”
The young ensign swallowed and attempted to look a little more alive. “Fine, sir. Those aspirins did the trick.”
(The Naval Institute will pay $5.00 for each anecdote accepted for publication in the Proceedings.)