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Old 05-05-06, 04:18 PM   #6
iambecomelife
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DeepSix
I don't know if I'd agree that such a decision is made out of a sense of "misguided" honor. Honor itself is a good thing. I would say that a captain might take it to an extreme for a personal reason. The captain is ultimately responsible for his ship. While no one (not nowadays) would expect him to go down with it, I can see how some captains might feel losing a ship was an ultimate failure they wouldn't want to live with (This is not altogether different from people who would rather die than spend life hooked up to a machine.). There was a time when the loss of a ship would have hung over them and affected their career in the service, their position in society, and especially their practical ability to gain the confidence of future crews.

At least some men have chosen drowning over capture: John Cromwell, a submarine division commander in the Pacific, chose to go down with Sculpin because, according to survivors, he felt he "knew too much" about Ultra (codebreaking intelligence) and about the invasion plans for Tarawa. He feared the Japanese would torture him and extract that information. Several other men also decided to go down with the boat, and each had a personal reason no one will know - could be honor, or wounds, or confusion.
IIRC one of the other men was a planesman whose error had contributed to the Sculpin's sinking. When it was clear the boat was lost he was too ashamed to save himself.
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