I'm especially interested in the Anglo-American world, but would love to hear if there are similar notions in other countries.
The Newport scandal (1919) is an interesting portrait, and also nicely ties into the history of the 'YMCA' culture/reputation. This certainly impacted naval procedure, practices and culture for a century to come.
For a more historical glimpse at homosexuality in the military, there's plenty to read on ancient Greece and Roman armies (and navies undoubtedly), rich in heroic stories including the "Sacred Band of Thebes", formed from pairs of male lovers.
Good reads:
In my off-the-cuff opinion, sticking a few hundred men alone in ANY cramped living condition, for months on end... the outcome seems to be fairly...expected.
The specific context of the quote "Rum Sodomy and the lash" is attributed to Winston Churchill, who in 1911 became First Lord of the Admiralty of the British Navy. Now Winston was a civilian who had no prior history of naval service, and once he was in power he started to make some drastic reforms to the navy, of which most important was converting the ships of the British Navy to burning oil for fuel as opposed to coal. Now on top of these reforms Winston was not well liked by some of the most senior admirals and captains in the navy, they felt he was a civilian interloper who was trampling all over the British Naval Tradition. When confronted, Winston responded with his usual tact: "Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash."
How much of what Winston described as Britain's Naval Tradition is true is hard to say, because at the time being gay was taboo among most of society in the early 1900s, and at that point in history nobody was coming out waving the rainbow flag. Which is not to say that gay people weren't serving in the British navy at the time, but the popular notion that British navy ships were hotbeds of homosexual behavior is largely chalked up to Winston Churchill's remarks on the subject.
Source: Dreadnought by Robert K. Massie
The Swedish American Line (1915 - 1975) became a freezone for, mostly gay men, when homosexuality was still a crime in sweden (until 1944, still seen as a psychological disturbance until 1979). Some say that 100 of 180 people working on the ships where homosexuals (from sociologist Arne Nilssons book ”Såna - på Amerikabåtarna) This was apparently widely known by the the ship-owner, but not known by the public
Trials of the early-nineteenth century relating to sodomy in the navy contain lurid and historically unprecedentedly well-catalogued details of homosexual practices. These public court-martials would have helped instil the connection between homosexuality and the navy in the public consciousness. However, as the passage by Gilbert quoted below indicates, a reputation for sodomy can pre-date public court-martialling and is therefore not dependent on it. The essay though does not specify as to the extent and range of the Africaine's reputation - is it just among seamen, say, or the wider public?
The following passages are taken from the book Gay Warriors: A Documentary History from the Ancient World to the Present (2002):
Record keeping, particularly judicial record keeping, improved substantially from the late eighteenth century onward. This is nowhere more apparent than in the transcripts of Royal Navy sodomy trials. Accounts of proceedings from the Napoleonic wars onward contain far more information than is found in the documents from earlier cases.
B.R. Burg
On February 1, 1816, Captain Edward Rodney of the Africaine hanged four members of the ship’s crew for buggery. At the same time, two others were punished for “uncleanness,” a catchall term for all sexually deviant behavior.... The Africaine had a reputation as a “man-fucking ship” long before evidence of sodomitic practices came to the attention of Captain Rodney, who was the youngest son of the famous English Admiral George Rodney. There were several reports of “uncleanness” on the ship early in 1815 and, on one occasion, two seamen were punished for “lying on a chest together one night.” Until September, however, there was not sufficient evidence to justify a court-martial trial. In that month, while the ship was sailing home from the East Indies, a seaman named James Green was told by a shipmate, Dominico Gadize, who was later implicated himself, that Raphael Seraco and William Dane committed “unnatural acts,” and on the basis of this information, Green decided to keep watch on these seamen in the future.
Arthur N. Gilbert