De Vriess

De Vriess is the Caine’s former captain, whose brief appearances in the record establish a practical, demanding style of leadership and mark a measure of Willie Keith’s growth. He is recalled as having recognized Keith’s early immaturity while expecting him to improve, and as having encouraged watch officers to sleep when they could. Later, other officers use De Vriess’s own early command experience as a benchmark for Keith’s qualifications, while Keith’s departure from the ship repeats a phrase associated with De Vriess two years earlier.

Identity and Command

De Vriess appears chiefly through what other officers remember about him, rather than through an extended account of his own service. He had commanded the Caine before the events involving Keith’s later development, and his leadership is presented through two concrete practices: correcting a green officer and allowing watch officers to take needed rest. These details do not amount to a complete portrait of his command, but together they distinguish a captain who demanded improvement from one who treated sleep as a practical necessity for safe ship handling.

His standard is clearest in Maryk’s recollection of Keith’s first days aboard the Caine. Maryk remembers Keith as a baby-faced, careless ensign who sulked when De Vriess reprimanded him. In Maryk’s view, De Vriess saw through that immaturity: he expected the young officer to become useful after receiving a forceful correction. The recollection presents discipline not as an end in itself, but as a means of bringing an inexperienced officer toward competence. It also gives De Vriess a role in Keith’s early formation without suggesting that Keith’s later reliability came from a single episode or from De Vriess alone.

Keith’s Development Under His Example

The contrast between Keith at the beginning of his Caine service and Keith later in the war is made visible in a small shipboard task. When weather warnings needed to be plotted, Keith worried that he would be kept at decoding and routine duties while typhoons threatened at sea. Maryk nevertheless trusted him to plot the warnings reliably. Keith returned with the work completed, and Maryk took pleasure in seeing a junior officer reach for responsibility. The moment connects De Vriess’s earlier judgment of Keith with a later, observable sign of professional growth: the once-careless ensign had become someone his executive officer could trust with a consequential assignment.

Maryk’s memory of De Vriess also gives the scene a generational dimension. The progress belongs to Keith, but it is understood partly through the captain who had dealt with him at the start. De Vriess had identified the gap between Keith’s outward confidence and his actual inexperience; Maryk now sees the junior officer becoming more dependable. The narrative therefore makes De Vriess an early point of reference in Keith’s development, even though the later scene belongs to Keith and Maryk rather than to a meeting with the former captain.

Watch Officers and Rest

During testimony about shipboard routines, De Vriess is associated with a permissive approach to daytime sleep for officers of the deck. Asked whether he restricted their sleeping during the day, the witness answers that he did not. Instead, De Vriess urged them to take sleep when it was available, explaining the practical concern that a tired officer should not be left to conn the ship in a foggy state. His policy, as recalled in court, treats rest as part of maintaining effective watchstanding rather than as a privilege to be withheld for its own sake.

The surrounding testimony supplies limited but useful context. Night general quarters occurred perhaps a couple of times in a typical week, and the witness says no officers of the deck died from overstrain. These facts do not establish that De Vriess’s approach eliminated fatigue, nor do they prove that his policy alone accounted for the outcome. They do show how the recollection of his practice is offered in a discussion of the demands placed on watch officers: frequent interruptions were part of the routine, and De Vriess responded by encouraging officers to sleep when circumstances allowed.

Command Experience and Farewell

After the war, Thomas Keefer argues that Keith is qualified to take command of the Caine. His comparison turns on De Vriess’s own appointment: Keefer says Keith has more qualification than De Vriess had when De Vriess first received the ship. He treats Keith’s two years of wartime cruising as unusually substantial experience, contrasts it with peacetime service, and says he had already endorsed Keith in the June roster of officers. This is Keefer’s assessment, not an independent account of De Vriess’s record, but it makes the former captain a concrete measure in the debate over Keith’s readiness.

The comparison does not imply that De Vriess was unqualified or that the two officers’ careers were identical. Its force lies in the precedent: De Vriess had once taken command with less experience than Keefer believes Keith now possesses. In a Navy facing a rapid postwar release of personnel, that precedent supports Keefer’s proposal that Keith should assume command rather than wait for the usual administrative process. De Vriess’s earlier career thus becomes relevant again at the moment Keith’s own service is approaching its end.

When Keith leaves the Caine, he calls it the happiest moment of his life, echoing words De Vriess had spoken upon leaving the ship two years earlier. The repetition links their departures without making their feelings identical: Keith is glum, and the journey with his mother continues in silence for nearly an hour. His attention turns to May Wynn, whom he has tried to locate, and he tells his mother that he wrote proposing marriage in June but received no answer. De Vriess’s remembered phrase consequently sits beside Keith’s unresolved private future. Across these brief references, he remains a former captain whose example and words persist after his own departure, shaping how others understand both Keith’s development and the passage of command.