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 Indomitable (1907) directly. Therefore, Milne stationed "Inflexible" and "Indefatigable" at the northern exit of the Strait of Messina, still expecting the Germans to break out to the west where they could attack French troop transports, the light cruiser at the southern exit and sent "Indomitable" to recoal at Bizerte where she was better positioned to react to a German sortie into the Western Mediterranean. The Germans sortied from Messina on 6 August and headed east, towards Constantinople, trailed by "Gloucester". Milne, still expecting Rear Admiral Wilhelm Souchon to turn west, kept the battlecruisers at Malta until shortly after midnight on 8 August