Mutiny on the HMS Hermione

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There was a point early in my Marine Corps career where I was assigned to a recon team.

and we were being put through a pre-deployment training program that lasted about 12 weeks.

If you're radio recon listening, it was the rip.

Long story short, after multiple field exercises, pieces of gear going missing, long patrols, sleepless nights, and all the BS that we had to put up with, we got the sense that our platoon leadership were complete idiots, particularly one staff NCO, our lieutenant, and the sergeant they had put in charge of our team.

Like when one of the expensive antennas for our radios went missing, and the lieutenant was screaming at all of us about it and come to find out, he eventually found it in his bag and then planted it in one of our bags, someone told us that they saw him do it, and blamed us for not finding it.

We got punished for that.

We did what he said.

We ran all the way to the other side of the training area and back, but we knew what was up.

And when they said we could use the roads during an E ⁇ E, an escape and evasion movement.

And then we were told to E ⁇ E at one one point, and our sergeant then says, let's just go in a straight line through the training area and avoid the roads.

And then our patrol, that should have taken 30 minutes of light jogging on the road, took six hours of walking through jungle.

The leather on my left boot was so waterlogged at that point that my foot tore right through it, and I was essentially barefoot for half the patrol.

And then when we finally got to the evacuation point at 1 a.m., our staff NCO said, oh, you guys decided to take a nap, huh?

That movement should have taken 30 minutes.

And then he made us do another four hours of patrolling as punishment.

And our sergeant, our team leader, didn't ever voice up that, hey, I'm the one who told them to go through the jungle, not take the roads.

For eight weeks, they blamed everyone but themselves for things that went wrong.

They never listened to us, punished us seemingly without cause.

And at one point, even the staff NCO challenges me to a fight when he thought I said something that I never actually said.

Tensions were high, and he just flipped his lid, grabs me by the neck, and starts throttling me.

We were never the kind of guys to quit when things got hard.

We were fine, honestly, with being miserable.

But these three guys,

they couldn't pour water out of a boot if you printed the instructions on the heel.

And then we find out this whole training program was actually a complete waste of time because they they had been lying to us about the upcoming deployment.

We weren't going anywhere.

Basically, they were just planning to haze us for 12 weeks for the hell of it.

So one night after finding that out, five of us, excluding our sixth man, the team leader, because we didn't like him, got together and had a whispered conversation about quitting this program.

If we quit altogether, then they would have to at least listen to us.

Well, someone overheard the conversation, conversation.

I think probably our team leader.

He then tattled on us, and our lieutenant was just super pissed, threatening us with non-judicial punishments.

And our company first sergeant got called in, and he just started screaming at us about insubordination.

And

at that point, we just gave up even trying to get out of this and just did what we were told.

But I still do not respect any of those three men to this day.

Which brings me to my point.

The military is a high-stress environment, always has been.

And all it takes to push a man past the edge is one bad leader.

Guys will put up with the nonsense for a while, but there comes a point when it's too much.

This is one of those stories, but this is one where people died.

This is the story of the HMS Hermione, the bloodiest mutiny in Royal Navy history.

I'm Luke Lamana,

and this is Wartime Stories.

Ah, the hell with this.

I've been scrubbing and mopping for how long now it don't make a bit of difference.

I'd keep your voice down if I was you.

Let's you want the new captain giving you a right flogging.

Aye.

But Piggy's got a wee bit of a temper, you know?

Ah, he don't look so tough.

Got the face of a bait, that one.

You remember a few years back?

The Yanks getting all up in arms about one of our own roughing up one of the ship's masters.

Hey, it was our new captain that done the roughing.

Aye, he's young, but he's got the face of a devil, that one.

Bollocks.

What's his story then?

Towards the end of the 18th century, the world was in a very interesting place.

The French Revolution of 1789 had thrown the world into total chaos.

The French people rebelled and murdered their own royal family, and people all over Europe were beginning to challenge the monarchies that had ruled over them for hundreds of years.

Of course, you can't have a revolution without war, and as the British Empire and its allies attempted to contain the French Revolution and its ideals, it wasn't long before the fighting in Europe went global.

By February 10th, 1797, the islands and seas of the West Indies, better known as the Caribbean, had become a battleground.

Britain, France, and Spain were fighting for control of the region.

With privateers joining the fray and a revolution on Haiti happening at the same time, it was one of the most dangerous regions on Earth outside of war-torn Europe.

But for the men of the 36th gun frigate, HMS Hermione, it was just another day in the Royal Navy.

Docked in Jamaica's Port Royal, the crew of around 180 men were busy preparing their ship for the next assignment.

They'd be patrolling the waters of the Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, a popular route for Spanish privateers.

Some of the newer crewmen were excited about the coming action and all the potential spoils of war, but others weren't as enthusiastic.

The Hermione had a new captain.

He was young, only in his late 20s, but he already had quite a reputation in the Navy, and it wasn't a good one.

His name was Captain Hugh Pickett.

Hugh Pickett was born into a prominent military family on September 5th, 1769, in Patchell, Staffordshire, England.

He began his military career at a very young age.

As the second son of Admiral Hugh Pickett, the younger Hugh, then in his early teens, first served alongside his father aboard the HMS Jupiter as it sailed for the West Indies.

Beginning as an Admiral's servant, Piggett's rise through the ranks was incredibly quick.

In just two years, he had become a junior officer, known in the Navy as a midshipman.

By 1790, he had received his first officer's commission as the acting fifth lieutenant of the 74-gun HMS Colossus.

Four years later, Piggett, at just 25 years old, was given his first command as captain of the sloop HMS Swan.

This was practically unheard of.

In the late 1700s, it took many, many years for a young officer to become a captain.

Even then, their service record had to meet incredibly high standards set by the Royal Navy.

Most officers didn't achieve the rank of captain until at least their early to mid-30s, and this was in a time where they began their careers as literal children.

In short, you had to be the best of the best.

For Pickett to achieve all of this by his mid-20s, it seemed like he had the makings of an incredible sailor and leader.

On paper, his service record was impressive.

He'd served aboard some of the Navy's biggest warships, and had sailed all over North America and the West Indies.

But the truth was, Pickett didn't have to work nearly as hard as other officers for his success.

He was the beneficiary of military nepotism.

His admiral father used his connections within the Navy and British government to basically fast-track his son to the top.

Pickett had at least passed for lieutenant on his own merit.

It was reasonable to assume he was at least somewhat competent.

But with his new and demanding role as a ship captain, Piggett's poorly developed leadership skills did not float by unnoticed by his crew.

Not long after becoming captain of the HMS Swan in May of 1794, Captain Piggett's ship collided with a merchant vessel named Canada while sailing in the English Channel.

Perhaps his father's influence helped keep the incident from being well documented.

The details of the collision and the damage to the ships isn't very clear.

Royal Navy records, which are usually found to be very detailed and cover hundreds of years, barely mention it.

So to be fair, it's not very clear what happened.

Maybe the two ships collided in a dense fog, or, as Piggett later claimed, it was entirely the fault of the other ship's navigator.

But either way, while some captains might have been relieved of their duty after destroying a ship or suffering at least some kind of formal punishment, Pickett continued in his service completely unscathed.

Following its repairs, that same year, Pickett sailed the Swan west towards Haiti.

There, alongside other Royal Navy vessels, he and his crew participated in the successful capture of Port-au-Prince.

After commanding the small sloop, the HMS Swan, for less than a year, Pickett was once again offered a promotion.

He was given command of a much larger vessel, the 32-gun frigate HMS Success, in September of 1794.

Around this time, Pickett, though competent he was well known to be an amiable and level-headed man, had a shift in his overall demeanor.

He became,

well, there's no other word for it, brutal.

Maybe the stress of his duties, his insufficiency as a leader, and the pressure of having to live up to the expectations of his family name finally got to him.

Or maybe he was just a kind of insufferable man-child who thought that his father's influence would let him get away with anything.

It's not an uncommon experience in military life to have a fresh, baby-faced officer show up to a new command, fresh out of officer school, and start to talk down to the enlisted ranks, even though he's the new guy, and they've been on the job for years.

Maybe that's what happened here with Piggott.

Now commander of a ship that was manned by battle-hardened men who had far more seafaring experience under their belts, maybe he felt the need to immediately establish the pecking order.

and maybe he got carried away with it.

I learned this mistake myself, but poor leadership is is often marked by a man resorting to shouting and violence, thinking that is what will earn him respect.

Bad leaders don't like to listen.

They tell you what to do and how to do it.

In the military, experience would tell me they are often the kind of men who are supremely concerned only for their own welfare.

They have no respect for the men under their charge.

And the feeling eventually goes both ways.

Whatever Pigott's reasoning was, the crew of the HMS Success was not fond of their new captain's personal brand of cruelty, not least because he was placed in a position of authority over them and was supposed to be looking out for them, not abusing them.

Hey, it's Luke, the host of Wartime Stories.

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Eight

nine

ten

eleven

12!

The life of an average Royal Navy sailor was harsh and unforgiving.

Naval officers definitely had their own kinds of hardships, but they also got to enjoy certain perks that came with being of a higher rank and social class.

It was different for enlisted sailors.

Their days were long, and despite their skilled labor, their food, drink, and pay was incredibly insubstantial, especially when compared to what was enjoyed by men aboard other non-military vessels.

Sailors were also subject to strict levels of military discipline.

One common form of punishment was flogging.

A sailor would be restrained over the ship's gangway and whipped a number of times across the back.

The number of lashes was ordered based on the severity of their offense.

Now, sailors were not exactly strangers to poor conduct.

They got drunk, started fights, talked back to their commanding officers, and wound up in trouble on a regular basis.

These are war-fighting men, after all.

For the crew of HMS Success, flogging was nothing new.

Not that they were receiving floggings often, but they weren't unheard of.

But when Piggott took command of the HMS Success, he took corporal punishment far beyond what was necessary.

Piggett repeatedly demonstrated an explosive temper.

He ruled over his men like a tyrant.

Within the first year, he had ordered a staggering 85 floggings, meaning that half of his crew had been lashed at one point or another.

What's more, his crew started to realize something.

It was almost as if their captain enjoyed terrorizing them.

Flogging was one of the more extreme forms of punishment, but Piggott seemed to consider it reasonable to use it on his men for even minor offenses.

In April of 1795, a sailor was given 24 lashes for trying to incite mutiny, which was a serious crime.

But three other men also received 24 lashes, and their crime was being found drunk on the job.

Hardly a comparable offense.

Although the military has admittedly become less brutal over the years, in a conventional military setting, There are structures in place to prevent this kind of wanton abuse.

If an officer or senior enlisted man is doing something unbefitting of their rank, their subordinates can report it, going over their head, so to speak.

But Piggott saw to it that his crew had no one to report to, other than himself.

Piggett had surrounded himself with officers who either didn't care about his harsh treatment of the sailors or actively encouraged the whippings.

Like any conniving despot, Piggott had also managed to secure the loyalty of some of the lower ranks in exchange for immunity from floggings or other special favors.

The rest of the crew were then robbed of the ability to even speak freely among themselves.

Any badmouthing of their captain might be overheard and reported, and if they were caught, it meant flogging.

These bootlicking sailors on Piggott's leash were no less hated by their fellow crewmen.

Aside from the growing hatred of most of his crew, it wasn't long before Pickett's hot temper and lack of skill created even larger problems for him.

In July of 1795, while sailing just off the Dominican coast, Pickett once again collided with another ship.

This time, it was an American-flagged merchant vessel called the Mercury.

Like with a Canada collision, the details aren't well documented, but we do know that after the ships made contact, Piggett ordered the Mercury to stop and prepare to be boarded.

He then crossed decks and took with him a detachment of Royal Marines.

Piggett was furious and got into a heated argument with the American ship's captain, accusing him of deliberately putting both of their ships in danger.

We don't know exactly what the American captain said, but he clearly had a very different opinion of what had just happened, and he wasn't afraid to let this hot-headed English captain know about it.

Now, remember, Pigot had basically been handed everything in his life.

He wasn't used to not getting his way.

It's hard to tell what he was hoping to get out of this interaction.

Possibly, he wanted to keep up his tough facade in front of his men and not lose face, or he was just trying to pass off the blame for yet another massive mistake.

But when the Mercury's captain refused to back down, Pigot's anger reached a boiling point, and he did something rather shocking.

He ordered that the American captain be restrained, stripped to the waist, and flogged.

Naturally, this enraged the Mercury's crew, who were unarmed, and were held back by the armed Royal Marines.

When the Mercury returned to port, news about what had happened quickly spread.

And when the American press caught wind that a Royal Navy captain had unlawfully restrained and assaulted an American captain, the entire country went into an uproar.

The American Revolution had ended just over a decade before this.

British and American relations had remained tense, and Piggett's emotional outburst only made these tensions worse.

With American newspapers comparing Captain Piggett to villains like Nero, Robespierre, and Blackbeard, King George III ordered the Admiralty to launch a formal inquiry into Pickett's conduct.

The king already had his hands full in Europe, and the last thing he needed was another war breaking out with the Americans.

Piggett was relieved of his command of the HMS success and spent the better part of the next year on dry land as the investigation into the incident and his conduct was made.

But it appears that in the end, Pigget was once again able to leverage his family's influence.

During the formal hearing, he was given permission to call only his most faithful officers to testify on his behalf.

All it took for Piggett to be fully acquitted acquitted by the naval judiciary was to make a simple apology.

Once again, Piggett managed to escape punishment unscathed.

His crew might have hated him, but his public reputation was still intact.

If anything, the experience seemed to make Piggett only more confident that he could do whatever he wanted.

Far from being humbled by his mistakes, Soon enough, Piggett was rewarded with another command.

This time, he was assigned to the 36-gun frigate, HMS Hermione.

He brought some friends with him, 24 of his most trusted men, who had served with him on the HMS Success.

Taking command of his new ship on February 1st, 1797, Captain Pigott was first given orders to sail for the Mona Passage, between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

There, alongside other Royal Navy vessels, the Hermione would patrol for Spanish privateers.

It was during this time that Piggett experienced his greatest battlefield success.

Under his command, his small flotilla managed to sink or capture nine privateering vessels in what became known as the Battle of Jean-Rebel.

Of course, their success was the result of the combined efforts of the collective crewmen working together.

But if anyone read Pigott's official report that was submitted to the Admiralty,

they would get the impression he did all of the work himself.

Never once did Piggott mention the contributions of other captains or the heroic actions of his own crew.

Another trait typical of a bad leader, a man who takes all of the credit and none of the blame.

One man who really stood out in the Battle of Jean Rebelle was a young midshipman by the name of David O'Brien Casey.

Only 19 years old, the Irishman was an experienced sailor and in many ways the complete opposite of Piggot.

He was well-spoken and composed, but never hesitated to get his hands dirty, especially when the fighting started.

All of this made Casey popular and well-respected by many of his fellow crew aboard the Hermione.

Unfortunately, even his outstanding conduct and likability wouldn't save Casey from the wrath of Captain Hugh Piggott.

In mid-September of 1797, the Hermione was underway.

David O'Brien Casey was seated at his position at the ship's main top.

Down below, the rest of the crew was going about their duties, and Captain Piggett was prowling around the deck.

Nobody tried catching his gaze.

Piggett had already demonstrated to his latest crew what kind of leader he was.

His beady eyes scanned the ship, looking for even the slightest mistake that he could reprimand.

He then noticed that one of the sails had not been properly tied down.

This was the responsibility of one of the men under under Casey's command.

Piggett immediately demanded that the young midshipman explain himself.

Being a far better example of leadership than Piggett was, Casey immediately apologized for the poorly tied sail and accepted full responsibility for the error.

But an apology wasn't enough for Piggett.

The account of what happened next was recorded in David Casey's journal.

He instantly launched out in the most abusive and unofficer-like language, calling me a damned lubber,

a scoundrel, a worthless, good-for-nothing fellow, that I never did anything right, and other severe expressions.

Following Pickett's outburst, Casey was then ordered below decks, where he remained until about 8 p.m.

that evening.

Then, he was summoned to the captain's cabin.

Enter!

Report as ordered, sir.

Yes.

Terrible business that was today, Mr.

Casey.

Terrible.

I expected more from you, though I suppose the real mistake was expecting anything of worth from a petty.

Sir, again, I apologize and take full responsibility.

I say you could speak.

Tomorrow morning, the crew will gather on the quarter deck, where they will find you

on your knees, begging my forgiveness.

Is that clear, Mr.

Casey?

Sir.

If I did not go down on my knees the following morning publicly on the quarter deck, he would flog me most severely and

in the most degrading way possible.

Casey might have been a humble man, but he refused to be humiliated by Piggott.

Unfortunately, Piggett made good on his threat.

The following morning, Hermione's crew watched as the young midshipman was flogged by the captain himself.

To add insult to injury, Piggett then announced he was stripping Casey of his rank and demoting him.

Within less than a year since he first took command of the HMS Hermione, Captain Piggett's conduct had turned the ship into a pressure cooker.

Most of the crew had already been flogged for one reason or another.

One poor sailor, a man named Michael Shetty, had been flogged on five separate occasions.

The men were at their breaking point.

After the humiliation of their midshipman David Casey, there was a shift in the crew's demeanor.

Whispers of mutiny began to spread.

But the crew knew that any attempt at peaceful protest would likely be met with violence by their captain and the kowtowing officers who sided with him.

So, for the time being, they swallowed their anger and decided to keep their heads down.

This would last only about a week.

When out at sea on September 20th, HMS Hermione was struck by a sudden squall.

Piggott ordered the topsails be reined in.

The topmen, working high above on the ship's masts, quickly got to work as the ship was being rocked by the strong winds.

But the men didn't work fast enough for Piggett.

In his frustration, he declared that the last man to make it down from the sails would be flogged.

Hearing this, the young sailors working in the masts high overhead scrambled to complete their tasks.

But then, as they attempted to scramble down the ship's rigging, three of the top men lost their footing.

They fell from a height of more than 50 feet.

crumpling onto the deck below.

The crew rushed to help, but it was already too late.

The three men were dead.

The crew looked to their captain.

They knew the men had died to avoid being flogged.

They weren't negligent.

They were scared.

The crew was sickened by the complete lack of expression on Piggett's face.

He showed absolutely no remorse or concern for the three men now lying on the deck.

Instead, Piggett scoffed and gave the order to simply throw the lubbers overboard.

He wouldn't even give the men a proper burial at sea.

Those who tried to argue against his orders were flogged.

As the storm raged, the crew had no choice but to lift the bodies of the three sailors off the deck and carry them to the railing.

They were then unceremoniously dumped over the side.

The squall passed.

The men went to work scrubbing their friends' blood off the deck.

They finished just before sunset and turned into their sleeping quarters, or at least some of them did.

While half the crew slept soundly in their hammocks, a group of about 18 men gathered on the ship's forward deck.

They passed around bottles of stolen rum while they talked in hushed, angry tones about their captain.

Pickett's crew was now certain about something.

Their captain was no captain.

They weren't even sure if he was human.

The rum gave them all the courage they needed.

The The men decided they would split into three groups.

One would head for the ship's armory.

Another would go up to the main deck.

The larger group would head directly to Captain Pigott's cabin.

There was a single Marine standing guard in front of the captain's private cabin.

The mob of sailors quickly overpowered him before storming inside.

catching Pigget just as he was getting out of bed.

The dagger he then brandished at them was almost symbolic of his own leadership.

Small, weak, and useless.

He begged the men for mercy.

They showed him as much as he had, knocking him to the floor and pummeling him with their fists, boots, and knives.

Captain Pigget, now ragged and bloody, screamed for mercy and was then hurled out of his cabin window.

He fell, screaming, into the ocean below.

From there, all hell broke loose.

As the captain was being beaten and thrown overboard, most of Hermione's crew were completely oblivious, fast asleep in their hammocks.

But David O'Brien Casey recalled the scene as the mutineers then began rampaging through the ship.

With a wild, indescribable noise and shouting, no resistance being made in any quarter, the ship was instantly in possession of the mutineers, and the captain, second, and third lieutenant, and a midshipman at once murdered in the most savage and cruel manner.

The party that attacked the captain knocked down the sentry at the door and attacked the captain as he jumped out of bed, all taking a cut or stab at him according to the weapons they were armed with.

It was a total bloodbath.

The officers were caught off guard, and those who weren't immediately murdered were restrained and brought to the captain's cabin.

Even the junior midshipmen weren't spared.

One was just 14, but he was known to be a bit of a snitch.

By this point, everyone was awake and their reactions to the sudden mutiny were quite mixed.

Many were enthusiastic and eagerly joined in on the rampage.

Others, shocked by the level of unhinged violence, stayed out of it.

But regardless of their stance, the entire crew was now complicit in the mutiny.

Even if they weren't directly involved with the violence, they weren't trying to stop the mutineers who were now calling the shots.

Guiding the Hermione away from other nearby Royal Navy vessels, the crew then gathered on the deck and organized what can only be described as a kangaroo court.

One by one, the surviving officers were dragged before the crew, who then debated on whether or not to kill them.

During these heated arguments, it became clear that the mutineers were more or less divided into two groups.

On one side were the extremists, who, staggering from copious amounts of rum, wanted to kill anyone wearing an officer's uniform.

On the other side were the more level-headed, sober men, who wanted to avoid any further bloodshed.

Despite their protests, the calmer men weren't able to prevent the drunken ones from carrying out a number of executions.

One of the men killed was the ship's Marine commander, Lieutenant McIntosh.

The man was already dying of yellow fever, but that didn't stop the bloodthirsty mob from dragging him out of bed, stabbing him to death, and hurling his body overboard.

Even David O'Brien Casey, who was well-liked by many, wasn't completely safe.

The officers were brought on deck as their fate was decided.

Some were wounded and thrown overboard, and others thrown over, unhurt.

The language, noise, and scene altogether was horrible and not to be described.

My life was repeatedly debated.

I was afterwards told by my friends that I was twice or thrice condemned and on the point of suffering, and that it was with the greatest difficulty I was saved.

Two or three of them always kept near me as a protecting guard and removed me occasionally from place to place for more certain safety.

When all was said and done, the mutineers had murdered ten more of their officers and midshipmen.

Some of them, such as the ship's navigator, surgeon's mate, and chief carpenter, were spared, given their unique skill sets.

When the heat of of the situation had finally worn off and cooler heads prevailed, the crew of the Hermione were then faced with another major issue.

They were no longer Royal Navy sailors, they were outlaws and murderers, and even those without actual blood on their hands were every bit as guilty.

They could never return to England or anywhere under the British flag.

So they struck their colors and set course for the port of La Guera in Venezuela, which was then under the control of Spain.

The crew of the HMS Hermione ultimately sold the ship to the Spanish military.

Each man was given $25.

They were also offered a place in the Spanish colonial army, or otherwise offered employment.

in refitting the ship for Spanish service.

Many of the men felt by that point they had enough of the Navy life.

After promising to never discuss what they'd done, the crew went their separate ways.

Many of them eventually found their way north into the United States, where now, under new identities, they put their skills to use on various fishing and merchant vessels.

Meanwhile, after spending a few months in Spanish captivity, the Hermione's surviving officers were returned safely to the British authorities during a prisoner swap.

It didn't take long for the news of the rebellion to reach the British Admiralty.

Mutinies were not unheard of in the the Royal Navy.

In 1797 alone, the Spithead and Noor mutinies saw hundreds of sailors band together to protest the Navy's terrible working conditions, poor pay, harsh discipline, and lack of shore leave.

The sailors of Spithead were actually successful at getting the Admiralty to the negotiating table.

But these were peaceful and organized protests.

What happened aboard the HMS Hermione was completely different and set a dangerous precedent for the entire Navy.

They They couldn't just let the incident pass by unchecked.

So the British Navy launched a worldwide manhunt to find the mutineers and return them to England to stand trial.

They also sought to recover their lost ship from the Spanish Armada.

The British would eventually recapture the Hermione two years later during a raid of Puerto Cobello in Venezuela, but most of the ship's crew would escape being hanged.

Of the roughly 180 men aboard, only 33 of the ship's original British crew were captured and tried for their part in the mutiny.

24 of them would be put to death, with the others either being pardoned or sent to prison.

The Navy High Command's main goal was to punish the mutineers, but it became clear through the testimony of both the crewmen and surviving officers that the primary cause of the mutiny was Captain Piggott and his unnecessary cruelty.

The mutiny on HMS Hermione highlighted the dangers of the unchecked authority a commanding officer held when at sea and led to widespread calls for social reform within the Royal Navy, this eventually did result in better oversight and regulation of corporal punishment aboard ships, which helped lay the groundwork of more modern and fair disciplinary codes, one of which was the removal of flogging.

In spite of Captain Piggett's stripping of his rank, David O'Brien Casey would eventually become a full lieutenant and go on to enjoy a long and decorated career in the Royal Navy.

His reputation is still held in high regards.

The same cannot be said for the name Hugh Piggett.

To this day, he is known as one of the Royal Navy's cruelest and most incompetent captains.

Now, I wasn't there.

I wasn't flogged by the man.

So whether or not he deserved to be beaten, stabbed, and thrown out of his own cabin window into shark-infested waters isn't really for me to say.

God will judge Hugh Pigott for himself.

His crew simply arranged the appointment.

But what I do know is this.

I've known a few incompetent leaders in the military, and Captain Hugh Piggott sounds every bit like the kind of man who causes good men to leave the military and say they are happy they left.

It's rarely ever the work we had to do, or even the miserable conditions.

We laugh about those.

But it's always the terrible leaders that we got stuck with who made our lives unbearable.

And some days, I think throwing them out of a window might have crossed our minds.

Wartime Stories is created and hosted by me, Luke Lamana.

Executive produced by Mr.

Ballin, Nick Witters, and Zach Levitt.

Written by Jake Howard and myself.

Audio editing and sound design by me, Luke Lamana, and Alex Carpenter.

Additional editing by Davin Intag and Jordan Stiddum.

Research by me, Jake Howard, Evan Beamer, and Camille Callahan.

Mixed and mastered by Brendan Kane.

Production supervision by Jeremy Bone.

Production coordination by Avery Siegel.

Additional production support by Brooklyn Gooden.

Artwork by Jessica Clogson-Kiner, Robin Vane, and Picada.

If you'd like to get in touch or share share your own story, you can email me at info at wartimestories.com.

Thank you so much for listening to Wartime Stories.