The Caine Mutiny

By Herman Wouk

Winner of Pulitzer Prize in fiction for 1952.

This story centers on young Willie Keith who enlists in the Navy because he doesn't want to end up in the Army. Willie is a dilettante. A smart, well-educated man from a background of wealth and privilege, Willie prefers to spend his time playing piano in seedy New York night clubs than hold down a real job. But with the war, Willie has to face the facts that he could be drafted and end up in the Army. To escape that fate, he joins the Navy. His first assignment is at headquarters on Hawaii, a cushy, easy job that enables Willie to take up, once again, playing piano and amusing the local admiral. But then the fun ends and Willie is assigned to a minesweeper, an old World War I battleship called the Caine.
The Caine is pretty much a rust bucket and on its last legs but the Navy still has some use for the old battleship. Whether it is hauling targets for practice shots, providing escort service, moving troops around, or minesweeping, the old ship has a vital role to play in the war. Willie is not to happy with his new assignment and he especially doesn't approve of the ship's captain whom he regards as lax and sloppy and on whom he blames the dilapidated condition of the vessel and the ragtag appearance of the crew.
So when the captain is assigned to a new post, Willie is pleased to see the new captain, Queeg, believes in running a tight ship. But as time passes and the new captain seems less than competent, some of the crew begin to believe their captain is not playing with a full deck.
I am not a fan of war stories but this is not really a war story. It is more a study of bad leader and the effect of his poor decisions upon the people who depended on his leadership. It is kind of a long story, but very readable. An interesting side note to the story is the on again, off again romance between Willie and a young night club singer from the wrong side of the tracks (as Willie's mom sees it).

This is another time and another place and people then were perhaps not as aware of mental illness as most people are today. They were too quick to label Queeg as mentally ill when he was probably just stupid, cowardly, nitpicking and rigid. Even at the point where the mutiny occurred, Queeg was not raving or irrational. At most, one could say he was petrified with fear as the ship faced raging seas during a typhoon. I guess the worse one could say about Queeg was that he was incompetent and one wonders how such a poor seaman rose to the position of captain.
This is an interesting and engaging story and a fascinating picture of life on a Navy ship and is well worth reading.

Review from Kirkus Reviews.