Captain and Chief officer are overlapping terms, formal or informal, for the commander of a military unit, the commander of a ship, airplane, spacecraft, or other vessel, or the commander of a port, fire department or police department, election precinct, etc. Captain is a military rank in armies, navies, coast guards, etc., typically at the level of an officer commanding a company of infantry, a ship, or a battery of artillery, or similar distinct unit. Chief officer may be used interchangeably with captain in some situations, as when a Captain-ranked Navy officer is serving as the commander of a ship. The terms also may be used as an informal or honorary title for persons in similar commanding roles. In mining (esp. Cornish), it is an honorific given the superintendent or manager of a mine.

The term "captain" derives from katepánō (Greek: κατεπάνω, lit. "[the one] placed at the top", or " the topmost") which was used as title for a senior Byzantine military rank and office. The word was Latinized as capetanus/catepan, and its meaning seems to have merged with that of the Italian "capitaneus" (which derives from the Latin word "caput", meaning head). This hybridized term gave rise to the English language term captain and its equivalents in other languages (Capitan, Kapitan, Kapitän, El Capitan, Il Capitano, Kapudan Pasha etc.)

The Captain (French:Le capitan) is a 1946 French historical adventure film directed by Robert Vernay and starring Pierre Renoir, Claude Génia and Jean Pâqui. It was based on a novel by Michel Zévaco. The film's sets were designed by René Renoux. It is a swashbuckler set in the reign of Louis XIII.

Cast

The Captain is a 1967 novel by Dutch writer Jan de Hartog. It is a sequel of a sort to his 1940 book Captain Jan, though not having the same characters as the earlier book.

Plot summary

The frame story has Martinus Harinxma, a senior tugboat captain home after a long voyage, catching up on correspondence. He opens a letter from a young man who is the son of a Canadian naval officer killed aboard Harinxma's ship during escort duty during Second World War. In the letter, the son asks the Captain, "How was my father killed, and what was he really like?" As he begins to write the boy, Harinxma is forced to remember, and re-live the events surrounding the Canadian officer's time aboard his ship, and his eventual death.

In 1940 Harinxma, then a young tugboat officer, escapes to Britain. The Kwel company has managed to get away much of its fleet and personnel, one jump ahead of the advancing Germans, and sets up to continue operations from London. Harinxma gets his first command, at an earlier age and under much more difficult conditions than he would otherwise have had.