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{{trope}}
{{quote|''To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with firing all about,''
''Is nothing so bad when you've cover to 'and, an' leave an' likin' to shout;''
''But to stand an' be still to the Birken'ead drill''
''is a damn tough bullet to chew,''
''An' they done it, the Jollies -- 'Er Majesty's Jollies --''
''soldier an' sailor too!''
''Their work was done when it 'adn't begun; they was younger nor me an' you;''
''Their choice it was plain between drownin' in 'eaps''
''an' bein' mopped by the screw,''
''So they stood an' was still to the Birken'ead drill, soldier an' sailor too!''
|'''Soldier an' Sailor Too''' by [[Rudyard Kipling]]}}
A maritime tradition that if a ship is sinking, the Captain should remain aboard it, or at least [[The Men First|be the last one to escape]]. This can also extend to other crewmen, usually so they can oversee and direct passengers onto the lifeboats first. The latter often goes hand in hand with [[Men Are the Expendable Gender|"Women and children first"]] (leading to jokes where adult men dress in drag or like children). A common twist in comedic works is for the captain to [[You Are in Command Now|appoint someone else captain]] and let ''them'' go down with the ship. Sometimes the new captain then uses the "promotion" to reassign the old captain as captain, often going back and forth repeatedly.
Originally came about because of maritime salvage laws - if the ship was abandoned by all the crew but didn't sink, anyone who got on board could claim the ship and contents as salvage. So a senior officer had to remain until it was clear that the ship really was going to sink (or at least be the last to leave) to prevent embarrassing losses of cargo and/or repairable ships.
In many cases, the captain goes down with the ship because he would [[Dirty Coward|face major disgrace if he didn't]]
Because, of course, [[Space Is an Ocean]] this also applies to starship captains. Even though [[2-D Space|there's no (literal) "down" for them to go]]...
{{examples}}▼
Has nothing to do with [[Shipping]].
== Anime & Manga ==▼
* {{spoiler|[[Disappeared Dad|Clyde Harlaown]]}} in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha As]]'', who remained in the [[Cool Starship|Hestia]] when the [[Artifact of Doom|Book of Darkness]] started taking control of the ship's systems so that he can ensure that all of his surviving crew members escape. Once he was sure that everyone else had evacuated, [[Heroic Sacrifice|he asked for the ship accompanying them to open fire on the Hestia]], as the Book of Darkness had already taken over the Hestia's weapon systems by that time and was going to fire first if they don't.▼
* Brutally averted in [[Mobile Suit Gundam 00]]: {{spoiler|Christina tricks Feldt into joining Sumeragi and Ian Vashti in a support craft moments before the Ptolemaios is destroyed.}}▼
* Played straight in [[Gundam Seed]] and [[Gundam Seed Destiny]] by {{spoiler|Natarle, who goes down with the [[Evil Counterpart|Dominion]] in a case of [[Taking You with Me]], and Captain Todaka, who goes down with ORB's flagship carrier when he (deliberately) leads it to ruin and is killed by Shinn in the Impulse.}} ▼
{{deathtrope}}
▲{{examples}}
▲*
▲* Brutally averted in [[Mobile Suit Gundam 00]]:
▲* Played straight in ''[[Gundam Seed]]'' and ''[[Gundam Seed Destiny]]'' by
* Played with in ''[[Starship Operators]]'' in that it's {{spoiler|the highest-ranking officer aboard, not the captain}} who stays with the ship that makes a suicide run.
==
* The French-Belgian comic ''[[Les Tuniques Bleues]]'' has an album containing two subversions to this:
** First, when a boat Chesterfield and Blutch are sailors on gets sunk, they are outraced by the captain swiming to the safety of a lifeboat.
** When a later ship gets sunk, the captain stayed on board till the end, and the sailors all salute their captain's bravery... Only for the following shot showing the captain sitting at the bottom of the sea, sighing: "I couldn't tell them I can't swim!"
== Film ==
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* Played with in ''[[Spaceballs]]''. When Dark Helmet, Colonel Sandurz and President Skroob are standing in front of the last escape pod, President Skroob says: "Well boys, it's a beautiful ship. I think you should go down with it."
* ''[[Titanic]]'' is full of this. Apart from the captain himself there's the band who remain on deck (which actually happened in [[Real Life]]) and anyone who took the orders of "women and children first out" to heart.
** [[A Night to Remember]] showed this as well. Captain Smith himself is last seen walking onto the bridge (presumably deciding to go down with the ship). Both films also showed the band which played as the ship sank, and a few passengers who ''intentionally'' stay aboard for one reason or another. There's even a sub-plot about a young married couple who initially want to stay behind just so they can remain together, but are talked out of it by Thomas Andrews, the architect who ironically went down with the ship himself.
* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: Dead Man's Chest''. The Kraken destroys the Black Pearl with Captain Jack Sparrow
{{quote|
* Used in ''[[Kind Hearts and Coronets]]'': "...all hands were saved, save one. Admiral Lord Horatio D'Ascoyne, obstinate to the last, insisted on going down with his ship."
** The ship sank because [[What an Idiot!|he didn't know starboard from port]].
* In ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'', [[You Are in Command Now|newly-promoted Captain]] George Kirk goes down with his ship. He uses his last words [[Tear Jerker|to tell his wife he loves her.]]
* In ''[[The Perfect Storm]]'', this happens with
** To be fair,
* A tragic version of this happens in a flashback scene in ''[[Pandorum]]'', describing the greatest disaster in space (
▲== Live Action TV ==
* The ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' sketch [http://www.montypython.net/scripts/ww1.php "World War 1"] has a ship captain announcing "women and children first!", then we see that the captain and crew are all dressed as women and children... and other costumes, which forces the captain to change the announcement to "women, children, Red Indians, spacemen, and a sort of idealized version of complete Renaissance Men first!"
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' invokes this trope a few times in S3. I'm not sure whether this falls squarely under this trope{{verify}} since no immediate crisis is
* In the [[Pilot Movie]] of ''[[Star Trek:
** Happens to Sisko again with the ''U.S.S. Defiant'' as it's being blasted to scrap. He's the last one on the bridge after calling for the crew to abandon ship, and probably the last one off before the Dominion finish the job.
** Subverted hard in The Original Series episode "The Doomsday Machine". Commodore Decker evacuates all of the crew of the ''U.S.S. Constellation'', remaining aboard because the captain is the "last man to leave the ship". The planet killer knocks out the ''Constellation'' transporters, then begins devouring the planet her crew had taken refuge on.
{{quote|
* In ''[[Firefly]]'' when Serenity is crippled Mal sends the rest of the crew off in the shuttles and stays on board. He claims this is because someone might hear their distress signal, but Inara at least assumes that he's doing this. In the end the crew, who had little better chances of survival in the shuttles in any case, come back to join him.
* [[Discussed Trope|Discussed]] in the ''[[Babylon 5]]'' episode ''Babylon Squared''. The last remaining crew members of
** Shortly before that, in the same episode, the man who ''is'' in command there had just taken off to get to the shuttles himself, but only after [[The Men First|seeing the rest of his crew off]] and imploring Sinclair and Garibaldi to get going rather than
* In ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', in "The Last Man", an alternate reality Carter rams a Wraith Hiveship with the Phoenix, a much smaller 304 Battlecruiser. The Phoenix not only destroys the Hiveship, but two more are destroyed when they get caught in the blast of the first. It is unknown whether Carter meant to go down with the ship, or whether she intended to beam down to the planet below but couldn't because the transporters were knocked out.
** It may be relevant, however, that yet another alternate reality Carter [[I Surrender, Suckers|blew herself and the Jaffa who'd just captured her]] "straight to hell" with a grenade.
* This almost happens to Captain Jack Harkness at the end of the two-part episode of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' that introduced him. He uses his ship to capture a German bomb about to kills the Doctor and Rose. Unfortunately, the bomb has already started the explosion sequence, and the only thing keeping it from exploding is a stasis field. However, the bomb ''is'' exploding slowly. Already in space, Jack orders the ship to jettison the bomb, only to receive the reply that this will cause the bomb to explode while inside the ship. Realizing it's over, he pours himself a glass of champagne and prepares to die in style. Then the Doctor shows up in the TARDIS to ruin the moment and saving the [[Lovable Rogue]].
** This happens with the captain of the space cruiser liner ''Titanic'' in "Voyage of the Damned". However, in this case, the captain is the one who causes its collision with meteors, having been paid to do so to care for his family. He stays on the bridge and dies during the impact. However, the Doctor manages to save the ship (but not
* In [[The Muppet Show]], Statler mentions that he was on the Titanic, to which Waldorf remarks that he still has the dress he (Statler) wore to get off.
* Subverted by Victor Henry in ''[[The Winds of War and War and Remembrance|War and Remembrance]]''. When his cruiser is sunk in the [[World War 2|Battle of Tassofarango]] he is ''one of'' the last off because he has to destroy coding equipment, and [[A Father to His Men|search for trapped sailors.]] He has [[Combat Pragmatist|no intention]] of drowning [[Honor Before Reason|to make a point.]]
== Literature ==
* The poem "Soldier an' Sailor Too" written by [[Rudyard Kipling]] as noted above. Although, unlike in Kipling's account, the soldiers who died aboard ''Birkenhead'' '''weren't''' Marines, but Army troops being transported to a new assignment.
* Joseph Conrad's uber-depressing short story ''The End of the Tether'' was about a Captain who went down with his ship, but that was entirely for the life insurance.
* In Golding's ''[[To The Ends Of The Earth]]'' trilogy (a great satire, deconstructing many sea tropes) we get this for poor
* A variation happens in [[Mikhail Akhmanov]]'s ''[[Arrivals From the Dark|Fighters of Danveyt]]'', when the novel's protagonist finds himself in a no-win situation with a much more powerful enemy ship. He orders the ship's semi-sentient computer to eject the two other crewmembers (who are sealed in personal pods) and sets a collison course for the enemy's [[Antimatter]] gun. The ship decides to alter the plan slightly by ejecting the captain as well a few seconds before the collision. The collision results in the loss of containment for the [[Antimatter]] and the destruction of both ships. The protagonist wakes up a week later having barely survived the blast.
* Averted by [[Dirty Coward|Admiral Trigit]] in ''[[X Wing Series|Wraith Squadron]]''. His fleeing his damaged but still combat-capable Star Destroyer prompts the beginnings of
* Invoked in [[Robert Westall]]'s ''[[The Machine Gunners]]'' with Nicky Nichol's dad, who went down with his ship when it was torpedoed.
* ''[[Dale Brown]]''s Sky Masters, the Chinese Admiral fails to invade Mindanao, and his ship gets struck by the Americans satellite. With his ship sinking he decides to sink with the ship and shoot himself, because even if he lives, he'll get court martialed, and executed by his superiors.
* Played very straight by Captain Jack Aubrey of the ''[[Master and Commander]]'' saga. In the book "Desolation Island", the HMS Leopard springs a very large leak and is in danger of sinking. Captain Aubrey lets the men bring out the boats and gives his First Lieutenant dispatches for the authorities, while he himself prepares to go down with the ship. The situation eventually improves, thankfully.
* A twist in [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]' [[John Carter of Mars|Martian]] novels: traditionally, a (flying) ship caught in a hopeless battle can't surrender until ''the captain'' abandons
* In ''Tomorrow War'' (the first book of the series) by Alexander Zorich, the protagonist [[Eager Young Space Cadet]] volunteered into fleet sent to the joint operation with another faction against some tough aliens who dropped into human space while [[
{{quote|An important detail: all life shuttles were in place.
It's unlikely that three, even if very strong, explosions destroyed all the crew of a battleship to the last man. Remembering the Concordian mores, it was easier to believe that space navy men remained at their stations and continued the battle to the end. To the last sip of air, to the last spasm of stiffening muscles.
Interesting, did they kill [[
== Music ==
* Steeleye Span song - "Let Her Go Down".
{{quote|
To the bottom of an angry sea
And with his dying breath we all heard him say
Just the fortunes of a sailor
* Gordon Lightfoot's ''The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald''
== Video Games ==
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* [[My Country, Right or Wrong|Recurring antagonist]] Admiral Amagi is assumed to go down with his ship the last time the player meets him in ''[[Naval Ops|Warship Gunner 2]]''.
* Occurs in ''[[Free Space]]'' when the ''Galatea'' is destroyed by the ''Lucifer''. The ''Galatea'' launches escape pods, which you are charged with defending, but the the mission debriefing states that the Captain stayed behind and went down with his ship.
* ''[[Tron 2.0]]'' played it straight with
* A cross between this and [[Taking You with Me]] in ''[[Starlancer]]'' with the captain of your first carrier evacuating the crew and then proceeding to [[Ramming Always Works|ram the ship]] into the Coalition flagship, killing the guy who orchestrated the sneak attack at Fort Kennedy at the beginning of the war. The Coalition admiral realizes what his old acquaintance is planning too late to prevent the collision.
== Western Animation ==
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* An episode of ''[[Futurama]]'' parodies Titanic, using both the "adult men dressing as women and children" (specifically The Professor expressing his relief at not needing to be dressed as a child when they find that there's enough life pods) and [[Fake Ultimate Hero|Zap Branigan]] making Kif the new captain (interestingly, this leads to Kif [[Meet Cute|meeting Amy for the first time]] and thus their romance over the series).
* A variant in the pilot episode of ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers|Galaxy Rangers]]''. Eliza orders the escape pod with her children to blast off, stranding her on the captured ship. While her kids make it to safety and the [[Ambadassador]] family friends manage to rescue her husband, this left her to face a [[Fate Worse Than Death]].
== Real Life ==
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[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]
[[Category:Tropes At Sea]]
[[Category:Heroic
[[Category:Seaborne and Submersible Vehicles]]
[[Category:Choosing Death]]
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