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The CAINE Musings: sixty years later...
The CAINE Mutiny ended with Lt. Willis S. Keith, the last captain of the USS CAINE, watching a Navy victory parade marching down New York's Fifth Avenue after having made up his mind he was going to marry May Wynn.
For those who survive war, ordinary life resumes and goes on. So what DID happen to the main characters in this classic tale of men versus the sea, each other, and themselves? What follows is my speculation about those people, and what they did once the original story was done. (DISCLAIMER: what follows is strictly speculative and is solely the opinion of this writer. It is not to be interpreted as definitive, and in no way is to be taken as the official opinion of Mr. Herman Wouk, the legal author. The characters in what follows (except for speculative spouses and children) are the copyrighted intellectual property of Mr. Wouk, and are only borrowed as part of this intellectual exercise.)
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LT Barney Greenwald (USNR) received clearance to fly again not long after the court-martial. He rejoined his squadron and shot down two more Japanese aircraft before the war ended, bringing his total to four. After his release he went back to Albuquerque and resumed his legal work on behalf of Indians, receiving honors from the Navajo, Hopi and Apache tribes for his efforts. He died in 1994.
LCDR Jack Challee (USNR) wanted to stay in the Navy after the war was over. But his failure to win what should have been an open-and-shut case weighed against him with the JAG Corps ‘brass’. He returned to civilian life, became a successful prosecutor, and eventually was elected Attorney-General of a Midwestern state. He retired from public life in 1982, and died in 1989. It was rumored that losing the Maryk case left him with a deeply-ingrained bias against Jews: however, Barney Greenwald did come to his funeral.
As Greenwald had predicted at the dinner, the court-martial verdict was soundly and vehemently disapproved by ComTwelve, the convening authority. LT Steve Maryk (USNR) could not be tried again on the charge of ‘conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline’ (the Constitutional protection against double jeopardy also applies within the military justice system), but his career in the regular Navy was over before it ever began. On November 16, 1955 he was on a friend’s fishing boat off the California coast when it was caught in a violent storm. No one saw him go overboard, and no trace of him was ever found: it was ruled an ‘accident of the sea’ and he was declared legally dead in 1962. His son, Steve Jr. (b. 1950) earned an appointment to Annapolis, graduated with high honors in the Class of ‘72, and enjoyed a Navy career which culminated with retirement as a rear admiral (upper half).
LTJG Paynter, LTJG Harding, ENS Jorgensen and ENS Voles (all USNR) were transferred to other ships and commands in an effort to disperse the bitterness of the Queeg period. But LT Thomas Keefer (USNR) – who wanted off the CAINE almost as much as life itself – not only remained aboard, but eventually became captain. He was in command when the old minesweeper faced its second great crisis: a Kamikaze strike off Okinawa. Wounded and in shock, he jumped overboard in a sudden impulse of panic. Multitudes, Multitudes was published after the war: it was a great critical and financial success. But writer’s block rooted in his act of seeming cowardice kept him from following up on that success. Making a living as a scriptwriter for the movies (and later for television), his life deteriorated into a cycle of broken marriages, bouts with the bottle, and extended stays in VA hospitals... all of which ended with his sudden death in 1966.
Dear Willie,
If you are reading this letter, I am finally at peace. The accompanying package contains my earthly remains. I ask you, as a shipmate and as a friend, to please pour them into the Atlantic Ocean – anywhere in the Atlantic Ocean – at your earliest convenience. There are two good reasons why I did not have myself dispersed in the Pacific Ocean. The first is that the Pacific, together with the CAINE, joined together to turn my life into the burning, sinking wreckage it has been these past years. The second reason is more important, though: after what happened that day off Okinawa, I am not worthy to be laid to rest in the same ocean as Roland and the others who died heroically. Thank you, and God bless you. Your shipmate and dear friend, Tom
LT Willis Keith (USNR) carried out the novelist’s wishes. “Willie” eventually received a letter of reprimand for his ‘wholehearted’ support of Maryk’s actions, but was also awarded a Bronze Star for his part in saving the CAINE after the Kamikaze hit. He assumed command when Keefer was released on points, brought the old ship through a typhoon even worse than that of 19 December, and sailed her through the Panama Canal to Bayonne, NJ for her date with the shipbreakers. After his release he went back to school, married May Wynn (Marie Minotti), earned his doctorate, found a teaching position at a small Northeastern college, began raising a family – in short, he lived the post-war American dream. But turmoil, trouble and tragedy awaited. First-born Willis Jr. (1948-1968) joined the Navy just out of high school, became one of the first Navy SEALs, and was killed in Vietnam. Second son Steven Thomas (b. 1953) fled to Canada to avoid the draft (despite being exempt as a ‘sole surviving son’). The second daughter, Janet (1955-1975) went to Florida to attend college, and was killed in a collision with a drunken driver during ‘spring break’ in Fort Lauderdale. When the Carter draft amnesty took effect, Steven returned to the US to rejoin his parents and sisters Mary (b. 1950) and Lorina (b. 1957). When Dr. Keith retired in 1990, he and Mrs. Keith moved to a seniors’ community in the Phoenix, AZ area. Both are alive as of this writing.
As a result of his harrowing experiences on the CAINE (coupled with his marital problems), GM2 John Stilwell (USN) suffered a complete mental breakdown. Psychiatric treatment failed to restore his mental health: he remained in VA care until his death in 1971.
LCDR William DeVriess ’33 (USN) received a promotion to CDR - and a Fletcher-class destroyer - less than a month after being detached from the CAINE. At Leyte Gulf he helped screen the 'jeep carriers' of Taffy 3 from the big guns of Kurita’s Center Force, then helped chase the Japanese back through San Bernardino Strait. For his heroism that day he was awarded the Navy Cross. In early 1945 he was frocked to CAPT and given command of a Baltimore-class heavy cruiser, which saw action off Okinawa and Japan and was present in Tokyo Bay at the Japanese surrender. After the war he reverted to CDR, but was permanently re-promoted in 1946. He commanded an Iowa-class battleship during the last part of the Korean conflict, received rear admiral’s stars in 1955, held several flag-level assignments, and retired as a vice admiral in 1963. He took special interest in the career of Steve Maryk, Jr., providing advice and assistance to the son of his former subordinate up until his death in 2002. (In an acknowledgement of how wrong he’d been in his judgement of his first captain, Willie Keith made a point of coming to the funeral.)
Despite the clean bill of health he received from the psychiatric board, LCDR Philip Queeg ’36 (USN) never returned to sea duty. After Maryk’s acquittal he was quietly ‘shipped off’ to the Navy Supply Depot in Stuber Forks, IA, where he served as XO for the remainder of the war. While there, the wartime selection board for the Naval Academy Class of ‘36 passed him over for promotion to CDR. The first post-war selection board for that Class quickly did the same: under the Navy’s ‘up-or-out’ policy he was finally ‘beached’ in 1948. His wife (whose father had been a distinguished Navy officer) had a rough time dealing with the end of her husband’s naval career, his repeated failures at adjusting to civilian life, and his maddening refusal to accept even a small measure of responsibility for the setbacks that had occurred in his life. On April 25, 1954 she left their three children with a family friend, then went home and began packing, figuring to be done and gone before he got home from work. But he arrived home early, fired from his latest job. When he demanded to know what she was doing, she courageously told him she was leaving him and taking the children with her. The policemen who responded to the ‘disturbing the peace’ call found Queeg in a threadbare easy chair in the living room, dishevelled and disoriented, with blood on his hands and clothes and muttering “one-eight-zero” over and over. A bloody baseball bat lay on the uncarpeted floor. A search of the house turned up Mrs. Queeg’s savagely-beaten body. Extensive psychiatric evaluation found Queeg mentally unfit to stand trial. He was remanded to a state forensics facility for treatment, where he remained confined until his death (caused by a massive coronary thrombosis) in 1956 at the age of 42. His in-laws went to court to prevent his burial alongside their murdered daughter, and won the case. Eventually, his ashes were interred at a VA cemetery in another state.
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