Advent Calendar Day 12: The Marines: Who They Are and What They Do

[esteven]

Sharpiefan made an interesting and picspam-heavy post which has to do with Marines.

This entry is an essay and pics. Not all the screencaps are from M&C, though they illustrate my points. (I hope!)

Pray have more than a look :)

Comments

[rifleman_s]

Thank you so much for that - it's always great to learn more.

I was especially interested in this:

"The Marines lived aft of the seamen and forard of the gunroom or wardroom: directly between the sailors and the officers. This was a visual demarcation of territory and a deterrent to mutineers - as far as I have yet discovered, the only single-ship mutinies that succeeded were ones where there were no Marines aboard (as in the Bounty) or where the Marines were eliminated or otherwise put out of action (as in the Hermione..."

Although I knew their 'quarters' were separate from the seamen, I hadn't quite realised this exact fact which, of course, makes perfect sense.

But it was a great use of pictures to emphasise the text - thanks again for the illumination!

[ext_245474]

I'm glad you liked it; I've been doing some serious research on the Marines recently, and it's one thing to 'know' something, and quite another to experience it (even as removed as I am, some 200 years after the fact).

The separate messing arrangements don't really get shown onscreen at any point that I can bring to mind, but there's a hammock plan from HMS Bedford that shows this demarcation very clearly indeed - copy http://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLib/329/media-329944/large.jpg into your browser to see it (LJ doesn't allow OpenIDs to post live links, unfortunately).