Men Against the Sea

James Norman Hall & Charles Nordhoff
Boston, Little, Brown, 1934
Captain Bligh is my hero. I know: you’re likely reading that statement and assuming that I’ve gone off the deep end. Captain Bligh, a hero?! But I’m not alone in saying that.So says Thomas Ledward, Acting Surgeon of HMS Bounty and the other loyal seamen put off the Bounty by the mutineers, when they took control of the ship on 28 April 1789. While the mutineers had enough scruples not to execute Bligh and those who remained loyal to him, the only alternative they had was to set them adrift in the ship’s launch, designed to hold about a half dozen men for short trips.Cast away in the middle of the sea, Bligh and those who went with him (18 altogether) in the launch, had little in the way of food or equipment. It was quite unlikely any would survive for long.