After barely surviving a series of misadventures that earn him the highest number of demerits in his class, Keith is commissioned as an ensign in the Naval Reserve and assigned to the destroyer minesweeper U.S.S.

While on leave, Keith sees May Wynn — who is now working on achieving her degree at Hunter College, in addition to continuing to perform as a singer — and they spend a romantic weekend together in Yosemite.

As the Caine begins its missions in the Pacific under his command, Queeg begins to lose the respect of the crew and the loyalty of the wardroom through a series of increasingly unusual incidents — including running over and severing the cable to a valuable towed gunnery target, which he blames on John Stilwell, the helmsman — that reveal his cowardice, paranoia, and inability to accept responsibility.

Queeg becomes increasingly isolated from the other officers, who come to dread his rages and unreasonable demands, which often entail loss of leave privileges and, at one low point, a 48-hour moratorium on drinking water while the ship is sweltering near the equator.

Keith realizes that De Vriess was a far more competent, effective, and fair-minded leader, and inwardly regrets his original, naive judgements of both captains.

Instead, Queeg orders the crew to throw over a yellow dye marker to mark the spot, and hastily directs the Caine away from the battle area.

When Queeg's pet theory is finally decisively flouted, he disappears into his cabin, leaving the ship in executive officer Lieutenant Stephen Maryk's hands for days.

At the height of the storm, Queeg's paralysis convinces Maryk that he must relieve the captain of command in order to prevent the loss of the ship.

Keefer panics and orders the ship abandoned, but Keith remains aboard and calmly rescues the situation by heroically dousing the fires.

He receives a Bronze Star Medal for his actions following the kamikaze explosion, and a letter of reprimand for his part in supporting the unlawful relief of Queeg.

The findings of the court-martial are overturned after a review by higher naval authorities, but Keith, in retrospect, agrees that their actions were legally unjustified and probably unnecessary.

He discovers she is in musical and romantic partnership with a popular bandleader, has dyed her hair, and is now performing under her real name, Marie Minotti.

In November 1842, the Somers was the scene of the only recorded conspiracy to mutiny in U.S. naval history when three members of the crew — a midshipman, a boatswain's mate, and a seaman — were clapped in irons and subsequently hanged for planning a takeover of the vessel.

As executive officer of the Southard, Wouk was recommended to captain the ship home to the United States at the end of the war before it was beached at Okinawa in September 1945, during Typhoon Louise.

[3][4][5] The novel also describes the fictional Caine as having been struck by a kamikaze, which caused relatively minor damage, while Keefer was in command during the Battle of Lingayen Gulf.

While supporting the efforts of the minesweepers and underwater demolition teams, another Clemson-class destroyer, the USS Kane, served in the Marshall Islands and at Saipan in the Marianas at the same time as Wouk's ship Zane.

[11] In 1954, Columbia Pictures released the film The Caine Mutiny, starring Humphrey Bogart as Queeg in a widely acclaimed performance[12] that earned him the third and final Academy Award nomination of his career.

After the novel's success, Wouk adapted the court-martial sequence into a full-length, two-act Broadway play, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial.

[13] Directed by Charles Laughton, it was a success on the stage in 1954, opening five months before the release of the film and starring Lloyd Nolan as Queeg, John Hodiak as Maryk, and Henry Fonda as Greenwald.

At Ying's invitation, Charlton Heston directed the translated play in a successful run at the Beijing People's Art Theatre, opening on October 18, 1988.