SS Columbia Eagle incident

Columbia Eagle The Columbia Eagle was a Victory-type cargo ship constructed by Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation of Portland, Oregon in 1945 for the U.S. Navy and originally christened . She was designed to carry all types of dry supplies and munitions throughout the Pacific theater during World War II. SS Pierre Victory survived three separate kamikaze attacks by the Japanese in 1945. After World War II the Pierre Victory was converted to a livestock ship, also called a Seagoing cowboys ship. Pierre Victory made 6 trips with 780 horses on each trip to war-torn Poland and Greece. SS Pierre Victory served as merchant marine ship supplying goods for the Korean War. Like most of the ships of the Victory-type, Pierre Victory was decommissioned after the war and then sold to a commercial shipping company. In 1968, she was purchased by the Columbia Steamship Company, renamed Columbia Eagle and contracted out to the Military Sea Transportation Service for the purpose of hauling supplies and ammunition to Southeast Asian ports in South Vietnam and Thailand during the Vietnam War. Because Columbia Eagle was a U.S. flagged ship, she was a part of the Merchant Marine fleet and therefore eligible under government contracting rules to haul military supplies to the war zone. Clyde William McKay, Jr. Clyde McKay was born on 20 May 1944 near Hemet, California. His father was in the military then and often had duty away from the family. While a teenager, he suffered a misdiagnosed bowel obstruction and was seriously ill for a year. Because of this, he lost a year in school. He never finished high school, and decided to join the merchant marine. McKay received his merchant marine documents on 23 October 1963 and joined the Seafarers International Union shortly thereafter. Alvin Leonard Glatkowski Alvin Glatkowski was born on 11 September 1949 in Augusta, Georgia. His father was also in the military at the time of his birth but shortly after Glatkowski was born, his father abandoned the family. His mother married a Navy third-class machinist mate named Ralph Hagan when Glatkowski was three. Hagan was abusive to Glatkowski when he was home, but was often on duty or cruises and Glatkowski learned to be independent at an early age. As a teenager, Glatkowski assumed the role of head of the household when Hagan was at sea and this made Hagan very angry when he returned home. He often took out his frustrations on Glatkowski violently, which led him to leave home at sixteen. Glatkowski went to New York and enrolled in the Seafarers Harry Lundeberg School of Seamanship operated by the Seafarers International Union. Lundeberg School teaches the skills needed to get deck, engine and steward jobs on merchant marine ships. On 17 April 1967, Glatkowski received his merchant mariner papers stating he was eligible for entry-level jobs on U.S.-flagged ships. ==Timeline of the mutiny==

McKay and Glatkowski had been considering the operation for some time but had little in the way of a plan with the exception of bringing a gun on board. On 14 March 1970, McKay and Glatkowski used guns they had smuggled aboard to seize control of their ship, SS Columbia Eagle, in the first armed mutiny aboard an American ship in 150 years. The ship had been sailing on a Department of Defense supply charter carrying Napalm to the U.S. Air Force bases in Thailand for use in the Vietnam War. McKay and Glatowski had planned their action to ensure that they would involve the fewest possible crew, knowing full well that they were risking their freedom if not their lives. With only 13 crewmen remaining aboard besides the mutineers, they sailed into Cambodian waters, where they assumed they would be welcomed as heroes. They anchored within the territorial limit claimed by Cambodia on the afternoon of 15 March. At 09:51 on 16 March, Denver anchored from the coast in the Gulf of Siam, remaining outside Cambodian waters. Mellon joined shortly thereafter with Commander, Amphibious Squadron Seven, as the senior officer present. Two CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters landed on Denver from bases in South Vietnam to assist in visual surveillance. Meanwhile, the mutineers had turned the ship over to Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk's government, declared themselves anti-war revolutionaries, and been granted asylum. ==Status==

McKay and Glatkowski were held by the post-coup Cambodian government for several months after their capture. A United Press International newspaper interview from August 1970 describes them as living under guard in "a rusting World War II landing ship moored in the Mekong River," regularly using marijuana supplied by their guards, and making statements supporting the Manson Family and violent overthrow of the United States government. Both claimed they supported Students for a Democratic Society. McKay said to a reporter: We are sympathetic with the Asian people and, while I'm not an authority on the war in Vietnam I respect the opinions of people who were authorities like Bertrand Russell and Jean Paul Sartre who said the war in Asia was genocide and I intend to carry on my actions against the American Government. Glatkowski After months of imprisonment Glatowski was released and, after seeking asylum at the Chinese and USSR embassies, he turned himself in at a US Embassy in Phnom Penh and was extradited to the United States to face trial. He was charged with mutiny, kidnapping, assault and neglect of duty. On 2 March 1971 Glatkowski pled guilty in a Los Angeles District Court to mutiny and assault. United States federal judge Manuel Real heard the testimony of four psychiatrists; three of the psychiatrists reported that Glatkowski was currently sane and was sane at the time of the mutiny incident. Glatowski was sentenced to 6 months to 10 years in Federal prison and served nearly eight of the ten years when mandatorily released from Lompoc, California federal prison. and sought out the Khmer Rouge. He was officially declared accounted for on 6 June 2003, with a Date of Loss on 4 November 1970, the day he was declared AWOL. In a Penthouse magazine article entitled "The Last Mutineer," co-authors Richard Linnett and Roberto Loiederman of the book "The Eagle Mutiny" described human remains brought from Cambodia in 1991 and positively identified as Clyde McKay's at the U.S. Navy's Central Identification Laboratory - Hawaii (CILHI). The remains were subsequently cremated and the ashes buried by his family in their cemetery plot in Hemet, California, where McKay had spent his youth. == References ==