Court-martial three types: Special, Summary, and General. In Herman Melville's novella "Billy Budd" (first published 1924), the title character is convicted at a drumhead court-martial of striking and killing his superior officer on board HMS "Indomitable", is sentenced to death, and is hanged. The novella has been adapted for the stage, film and television; notably in Benjamin Britten's 1951 opera "Billy Budd". In C. S. Forester's 1938 novel "Flying Colours", Captain Horatio Hornblower is court-martialed for the loss of HMS "Sutherland". He is "most honourably acquitted". Court-martial A court-martial or court martial (plural "courts-martial" or "courts martial", as "martial" is a
HMS Polyphemus (1881) lighting. This was adopted by the Royal Navy in 1882 following a fatal electrocution aboard HMS "Inflexible", which had an 800-volt circuit. The vessel was fitted with a flying deck which housed the bridge and machine guns. It was designed so that if the vessel sank it would float off as two seaworthy rafts. HMS "Polyphemus" served with the Mediterranean Fleet. She was paid off at Chatham Dockyard in January 1900. In April 1902 she was employed as tender to HMS "Defiance", torpedo school at Devonport. In 1885 the ship undertook a simulated attack on a fleet at anchor at