Deserting your ship

[tracyc]

Hi Everyone.

If someone deserted their post on a ship (like not returning). What would their punishment be. They would of been missing about 2-3 days before the ship sailed from port.

Any help would be welcomed.
Thanks
Tracy 

[suttontrust]

Are we talking about the Royal Navy or the merchant service?  In the Navy the punishment for desertion (assuming that you were caught or "recovered") was usually confinement to the cells for a number of days or weeks.  If you weren't caught before the ship sailed, you were on the run and could be court martialled if they ever did catch up with you.  It wasn't unusual for a sailor to go missing in port, and when we look at the records now it's difficult to know whether it was a genuine attempt to desert, or just a failure to return after a drunken spree.  My father deserted or "ran" in South Africa in 1928, but we'll never know whether he meant to make a new life in South Africa or just didn't rejoin his ship in time.  He was kept on in the navy long enough to crew a ship back to England and then discharged.

[YvonneR]

Hi Tracy

I wonder, are you are talking about US records?

The reason I ask is because I know that you have had queries on the US boards.

I have found entries for my father over the last few days in the updated passenger lists, which has been fantastic for me. Well I digress  back to the point, I have a US merchant marine document of my father's and it bugged me for a long time because I knew that he was in the US Army and in fact I have his discharge papers.

What I have found out is that he worked on the ships from 1946/1947 and could only do so if he had the merchant marine document. He did this to be able to get back to England as my Mom who lived with him in New Jersey for six months in 1946, became home sick and returned to England on the pretence that she was just going home for a visit. Dad, who obviously didn't have the money, had to travel the world working and in June 1947 when he arrived here in the UK, he is shown  on the passenger list as "Deserted, Southampton, England".

There were no legal consequences from this, he had worked his way to be with his wife and although he was "engaged" for two months, his "desertion" was two weeks short of this.

Hope this helps a little if your research is US and if not, hope you find it mildly interesting.

Best wishes

Agnes

[tracyc]

Thank you to you both. It did accure to me that it might be a drunken spree suttontrust but at that time there might of been another reason. You see he'd met a girl who quite possibly was giving birth or getting the baby baptized at the time. His or not i don't know. He was from England and she from New York, they eventually married. The baby who was born at that time doesn't talk about his childhood and both parents are now dead. There is alot of secrecy in the family and a few questions they want answered. I just thought that this may of been the reason for deserting. He did go back to working on the ships so he wasn't fully discharged i just thought he may have been put in prison or kept from going home on leave or something. And Agnes you are right about the US records. What a complicated place the US is. It's like a merrry go round on the census records.

Thank you both again
Tracy