For the second time in a month, a U.S. Navy vessel experienced a mutiny.
In this instance, 132 mostly black sailors of the USS Constellation refused to leave the mess deck in protest over announcements made the day prior that sailors would be discharged, including five with less than honorable discharges, all of whom were black.
The story of the mutiny and what led up to it is somewhat involved. The ship's home port was San Diego. In 1971 the ship had been the target of an effort by the Concerned Officers Movement which resulted in a straw vote in the city that it not redeploy to Southeast Asia. Of course, a city cannot vote in any binding way upon such a thing. Nonetheless, a lot of military personnel voted in the straw poll and were opposed to redeployment. This resulted in a Stop Our Ship movement.
When the ship did deploy in 1971 nine crewmen went AWOL and took refuge in a Catholic Church, acquiring the term the "Connie Nine". They were arrested, charged and the latter honorably discharged from the Navy.
In 1972, back in San Diego, the ship reported that it had 250 more men than it needed or could house, resulting in the discharges. The remaining discharges were to be honorable and were to be men culled because their enlistments would expire while the ship was deployed, but this turned into a rumor that black sailors were being discharged. This led to the passive uprising.
While the Navy officially does not regard this as a mutiny, it fairly clearly fits at least a loose definition of one and, moreover, serves as an example on how the US military was becoming unglued in the later stages of the Vietnam War.
No comments:
Post a Comment