FOUR senior marines have avoided jail for failing to stop junior ranks hitting each other’s backsides with a 2ft strap known as ‘Big Red’. Sergeants Richard Melia and Ian Spence and Corporals Robert Wake and John Arnett all pleaded guilty to four counts of failing to perform their public duty on October 28, 2014. Yesterday […]
Your correspondent who as a Wren was caned over her knickers had it easy (Letters, January 29). In the 1940s, it was a daily routine for cadets at the Royal Naval School in Portsmouth to be beaten on their bare buttocks. Once, for carelessly discharging a clip of live ammunition, the commanding officer gave me 30 […]
May I recommend that the Army instructors who cannot enforce discipline because they fear being accused of bullying (News, January 15) adopt the system used at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, when I served there in the 1920s? Cadet captains administered a “tick” for any breach of discipline, such as being late on parade or […]
Click to enlarge CANING of boy sailors has been abolished as a Navy punishment. This was revealed in a Commons answer yesterday. Mr. Gerry Reynolds, Minister of Defence (Administration), told Mr. Harry Howarth (Lab., Wellingborough): “Caning has been accepted for many years as one form of discipline of juniors in the Royal Navy. “It has […]
By David Roxan Click to enlarge FIERCE controversy has been aroused by the revelation that 69 boys in the Royal Navy were caned during the past 12 months. The boys were given up to 12 strokes on the buttocks with a cane for offences ranging from stealing to being absent from duty. The Royal Navy […]