History Literature / HMSLeviathan

This novel of the [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships Royal Navy]] in peacetime, something of a tragi-comedy, was written by ex-Navy officer John Winton and was published in 1967. It is set in a time where Great Britain might still be able - just about - to call herself a world power with genuinely global reach, but the last of Empire is ebbing fast. The British government, perhaps in a fit of hubris, has commissioned the largest warship ever built for the Royal Navy - the truly massive aircraft carrier HMS Leviathan. With nearly two thousand crewmen aboard, it is almost a floating city, or at least a small town with its own airport. The snag is, it is so Herculanean a prospect that its first shakedown cruise proved to be a humiliating failure marked by disasters and ill-feeling. It may be too much for one Captain to completely administer and call his own, a massive white elephant that nobody can make work.

* TheEngineer: Commander(E) who keeps his head down, stays out of the office politics in the wardroom, and focuses on the million-and-one things necessary to keep the ship running.

* AcePilot: Even on the ground as Commander(A), Dubonnet co-ordinates the movements of up to eighty aircraft and helicopters with panache and ease. Markready watches him directing air operations in the Air Wing's control island and is greatly impressed.martinet Commander Markready.
* TheEngineer: Commander(E) who keeps his head down, stays out of the office politics in the wardroom, and focuses on

* CaptainSmoothAndSergeantRough: The affable and somewhat easy-going Captain [=McTeague=] and his deputy, their teamwork and contrasting styles keeping the ship running.

This novel of the [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships Royal Navy]] in peacetime, something of a tragi-comedy, was written by ex-Navy officer John Winton and was published in 1967. It is set in a time where Great Britain might still be able - just about - to call herself a world power with genuinely global reach, but the last of Empire is ebbing fast. The British government, perhaps in a fit of hubris, has commsssioned the largest warship ever built for the Royal Navy - the truly massive aircraft carrier HMS Leviathan. With nearly two thousand crewmen aboard, it is almost a floating city, or at least a small town with its own airport. The snag is, it is so Herculanean a prospect that its first shakedown cruise proved to be a humiliating failure marked by disasters and ill-feeling. It may be too much for one Captain to completely administer and call his own, a massive white elephant that nobody can make work.

* PassedOverPromotion: The officer complement of a troubled ship become discontented, demoralised and restless that two promotion lists have been issued by the Admiralty - and both have completely missed any recognition or promotion for Leviathan's officers. The ship's chaplain remarks, as Easter is approaching, that at least we now know the true meaning of Passover. The CollectiveGroan and LamePunReaction go some way to restoring good spirits. Being passed over for promotion is also foreshadowing what eventually happens to Markready as he finally fails on board the ship - he eventually receives a face-saving promotion but this it the expense of his knowing he will never go to sea again and the rest of his service before retirement will be shore-based.

* CaptainSmoothAndSergeantRough: The affable and somewhat easy-going Captain [=McTeague=] and his deputy, the keeping the ship running.

* AcePilot: Even on the ground as Commander(A), Dubonnet co-ordinates the movements of up to eighty aircraft and helicopters with panache and ease. Markready watches him directing air operations in the Air Wing's control island and is greatly impressed.

* CaptainSmoothAndSergeantRough: The affable and somewhat easy-going Captain [=McTeague=] and his deputy, the martinet Commander Markready.
* TheEngineer: Commander(E) who keeps his head down, stays out of the office politics in the wardroom, and focuses on keeping the ship running.

-->''"Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord? Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he make many pleas to you? Will he speak to you soft words? Will he make a covenant with you to take him for your servant forever? Will you play with him as with a bird, or will you put him on a leash for your girls?"''
-->-- ''Literature/TheBible'' ([[Literature/BookOfJob Job 41]])

-->-- ''Literature/TheBible'' (Job 41)

* CaptainCrash: Sub-Lieutenant Stiggins, a pilot who manages to crash more than one multi-million pound jet aircraft, taking himself with it on his last crash.

* ButtMonkey: Lieutenant Bird and Sub-Lieutenant Stiggins, who both fall foul of the wrath of Bob Markready. Stibbins in particular is humiliated by Markready to the point where his mental health is tipped over the edge.

* ButtMonkey: Lieutenant Bird and Sub-Lieutenant Stibbins, who both fall foul of the wrath of Bob Markready. Stibbins in particular is humiliated by Markready to the point where his mental health is tipped over the edge.
* CaptainCrash: Sub-Lieutenant Stibbins, a pilot who manages to crash more than one multi-million pound jet aircraft, taking himself with it on his last crash.

* EnsignNewbie: Quite a lot of the new generation of young officers, Bird and Stibbins especially. Markready notes with distaste that practically all of them are on [[LoweredRecruitingStandards short-service commissions]] of two or three years - as if they are playing at being Royal Navy officers and are not prepared to fully commit themselves.

* CaptainSmoothAndSergeantRough: The affable and somewhat easy-going Captain McTeague and his deputy, the martinet Commander Markready.

This novel of the Royal Navy in peacetime, something of a tragi-comedy, was written by ex-Navy officer John Winton and was published in 1967. It is set in a time where Great Britain might still be able - just about - to call herself a world power with genuinely global reach, but the last of Empire is ebbing fast. The British government, perhaps in a fit of hubris, has commsssioned the largest warship ever built for the Royal Navy - the truly massive aircraft carrier HMS Leviathan. With nearly two thousand crewmen aboard, it is almost a floating city, or at least a small town with its own airport. The snag is, it is so Herculanean a prospect that its first shakedown cruise proved to be a humiliating failure marked by disasters and ill-feeling. It may be too much for one Captain to completely administer and call his own, a massive white elephant that nobody can make work.
Enter Commander Robert Markready, an old-school career Navy officer, who is tasked, as ship's commander and second only to the Captain, with gelling together those two thousand men, getting them to a peak of efficiency, and making Leviathan into a ship, and a ship's company, to be proud of. He sets about his task with a mixture of his long Navy experience, and some astute persuasion and diplomacy - but also a tendency not to truly understand people, and to get things dead wrong in his one-to-one dealings with people. He discovers there are two Royal Navies. The one he joined in the late 1930's and fought [=WW2=] in. And the new Navy of the 1960's, which inevitably reflects the socially more liberal, questionong and permissive [[TheSixties 1960]]'s. An old-time "fish-head" with no previous service in carriers, Markready realises too late that his utter inability to understand pilots and aircrew, and the way he progressively alienates young pilots of TheSixties' generation with his TheThirties outlook and wartime understanding of the Navy, is going to destroy both his seagoing career and his future prospects in the navy.

Enter Commander Robert Markready, an old-school career Navy officer, who is tasked, as ship's commander and second only to the Captain, with gelling together those two thousand men, getting them to a peak of efficiency, and making Leviathan into a ship, and a ship's company, to be proud of. He sets about his task with a mixture of his long Navy experiece, some astute persuasion and diplomacy, but also a tenency not to truly understand people and to get things dead wrong in his one-to-one dealings with people. He discovers there are two Royal Navies. The one he joined in the late 1930's and fought [=WW2=] in. And the new Navy of the 1960's, which inevitably reflects the socially more liberal, questionong and permissive [[TheSixties 1960]]'s. An old-time "fish-head" with no previous service in carriers, Markready realises too late that his utter inability to understand pilots and aircrew, and the way he progressively alienates young pilots of TheSixties' generation with his TheThirties outlook and wartime understanding of the Navy, is going to destroy both his seagoing career and his future prospects in the navy.

!!Ahoy! Tropes on the quarterdeck!