For the first (1935) film of the novel, see Brown on Resolution (film)

Brown on Resolution (film)

Brown on Resolution is a 1935 film adaptation of the CS Forester novel Brown on Resolution. The plot is centred on the illegitimate son of a British naval officer singlehandedly bringing about the downfall of a German battleship during World War I...

. For the second (1953) film, see Sailor of the King

Sailor of the King

Sailor of the King is a 1953 war film based on the novel Brown on Resolution by C. S. Forester and filmed in the Mediterranean Sea...

.

Brown on Resolution is a 1929 nautical novel written by CS Forester. It is set during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. The hero of the novel, seaman Brown, is the sole able-bodied survivor of a sunken British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 warship

Warship

A warship is a ship that is built and primarily intended for combat. Warships are usually built in a completely different way from merchant ships. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster and more maneuvrable than merchant ships...

, who is able single-handedly to discomfit its attacker, a German

German Empire

The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

 cruiser

Cruiser

A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundreds of years, and has had different meanings throughout this period...

, long enough to ensure its destruction by its pursuers. The title is similar to the titles of legal textbooks, implying that the qualities shown by Brown are the epitome of "Resolution".

Plot

The novel opens with Brown, wounded and dying, on Resolution Island. The story is then told in flashback

Flashback (narrative)

Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...

.

The first part of the story tells of Brown's birth, as a result of a liaison between his mother, Agatha Brown, and a Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 officer, Lt Cdr Richard Saville Samarez. It describes his upbringing, with Agatha as a single mother in Edwardian England, and her instilling into him of a sense of duty to the Navy and to his country. As soon as he is old enough, Brown joins the Navy, and on the eve of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 is serving on the (fictitious) cruiser HMS Charybdis in the Pacific.

In the second half of the story Charybdis is sunk by the German cruiser Ziethen on a raiding mission in the central Pacific, and Brown, with 2 or 3 wounded men, is picked up by the raider. As the Ziethen was damaged in the exchange, her captain plans to pull into an isolated Pacific anchorage to try to repair his vessel. In the novel, he chooses (fictitious) Resolution Island, in the Galápagos Islands

Galápagos Islands

The Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...

. The resourceful Brown escapes, steals a rifle and a small amount of ammunition, and makes his way ashore. Her captain having already careened his vessel, the vessel's main battery could not be brought to bear on Brown, and he was able to pick off exposed crew-members who are trying to repair her punctured hull plates. In Forester's description Resolution is an impenetrable tangle of scrub and thorn bushes, making it difficult for shore parties to run the hero to ground.

Brown is eventually mortally wounded by a lucky German shot. He never learns that his actions delayed the repairs long enough to ensure that the German vessel fails to escape her British pursuers. Ironically, the senior British naval officer of the force which sinks Ziethen and benefits from Brown's action, is none other than Saville Samarez, Brown's father, although they do not know of each other.

Historical background

As so often with Forester's novels, the action takes place against a background of carefully researched historical fact. During the early part of the Great War, Germany had a small squadron of modern vessels in the Far East

German East Asia Squadron

The German East Asia Squadron was a German Navy cruiser squadron which operated mainly in the Pacific Ocean between the 1870s and 1914...

. When war was declared, the larger vessels of the squadron set out to return to Europe. The light cruisers, , and , on detached duty, rejoined after brief periods of raiding, while SMS Emden was detached to serve as a commerce raider. The fictional Ziethen is supposed to be on a similar mission.
Most of the German squadron was eventually destroyed at the Battle of the Falkland Islands

Battle of the Falkland Islands

The Battle of the Falkland Islands was a British naval victory over the Imperial German Navy on 8 December 1914 during the First World War in the South Atlantic...

, but the British eventually found SMS Dresden anchored and essentially non-operational at an isolated Pacific island.

Parallels in Forester's work

This novel has some parallels to Forester's Death to the French

Death to the French

Death to the French is a 1932 novel of the Peninsular War during the Napoleonic Wars, written by C. S. Forester, the author of the Horatio Hornblower novels...

. In both novels the hero is an enlisted man, cut off, and acting alone. In both, the protagonist's dogged and surprisingly effective actions stem from instinctive shrewdness rather than conscious planning.

Film versions

The novel had been filmed twice. John Mills

John Mills

Sir John Mills CBE , born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills, was an English actor who made more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades.-Life and career:...

 played the title role in the 1935 version, called Brown on Resolution

Brown on Resolution (film)

Brown on Resolution is a 1935 film adaptation of the CS Forester novel Brown on Resolution. The plot is centred on the illegitimate son of a British naval officer singlehandedly bringing about the downfall of a German battleship during World War I...

. The 1953 version which starred Jeffrey Hunter as Brown, was called Single-handed in the US and Sailor of the King

Sailor of the King

Sailor of the King is a 1953 war film based on the novel Brown on Resolution by C. S. Forester and filmed in the Mediterranean Sea...

in the UK, and was set during the Second World War.