Blog Mirror: May 11, 1984: "The Natural" Premieres

 

May 11, 1984: "The Natural" Premieres

Thursday, October 12, 1972. The USS Kitty Hawk Incident.

A giant brawl, characterized by the Navy as a race riot, broke out on the USS Kitty Hawk. The event had to be subdued by the Marines.

Kitty Hawk in 1975.

The incident, which happened off of the Vietnamese coast, was emblematic of the increasing disintegration of the late Vietnam War military, something forgotten in the "thank you for your service" era we live in today.  Some elements of the U.S. Army were effectively combat ineffective by this time due to moral reasons, and the chaos had spread to the Navy. As part of the overall picture in the military in general, racial tension has become high in an era which saw the first large scale incorporation of black servicemen service wide, even though integration of the services had commenced in 1948.  The generally poorer education of African Americans contributed to that, as they were assigned to less desirable military duties.

The Navy had traditionally been almost all white up until this time, save for certain positions like mess stewards that had been assigned to racial minorities.  While this very much changed during the Vietnam War, the Kitty Hawk itself only had a 7%  African American population.  It was nonetheless tense as the volunteer African American sailors sought to break color boundaries.  Added to this, the Navy had dropped recruiting standards during the very late Vietnam War as the risk of being drafted decreased and the military fell into disdain.  Part of this saw an effort to recruit sailors for career training purposes, but this had the accidental impact of recruiting those who had been educationally disadvantaged.  This dropped the overall effectiveness of the Navy's junior enlisted ranks.

The Kitty Hawk had been experiencing rising racial tensions for weeks. On this day, black Airman Apprentice Terry Avinger went to the mess deck and requested two sandwiches, which a white mess cook refused to give him.  Avinger reached across the food line and took a second one, which resulted in a shouting match which rapidly escalated.  Avinger reported the situation to his bunkmates and urged reprisals which resulted in an African American violent reaction.  Ultimately, the Marines intervened and restored a sense of calm, but the matter was not defused until African American/Native American XO Ben Cloud intervened and talked the rioters down.  Prior to this, the Marine Corps detachment, which was commanded by a black officer, was prepared to simply storm the quarters occupied by the rioters.  This ended Cloud's carrier, perhaps in part as he thought it prudent to give the Black Power Salute to the rioting party to show his unity with their complaints.  With that, the ship returned to war duty.

Six weeks later, twenty-seven black sailors were arrested and charged with due to the incident, twenty-one of whom requested trials.  No white sailors were arrested.  Cloud testified in the trial that the Marines had acted to enforce orders to break up parties of three or more sailors only on black sailors.

Four sailors were convicted of rioting.  Fourteen were convicted of assault.  Four were found not guilty of all charges.  Five sailors had the charges against them dropped.

Cloud.

Cloud, whose intervention had defused the situation, had effectively sacrificed his career under the odd informal rules that existed in the Navy.  He was not in command of the vessel, and by some accounts the situation that gave rise to the incident was due in part to the ineffectiveness on the situation giving rise to it exhibited by the actual commander of the vessel, although it has been noted that he coordinated with Cloud's suggested approach, which he was reluctant to try at first.  Had Cloud not intervened, chances are high that the Marines would have killed some of the sailors involved, which likely would have ended the career of the vessel's commander.  Cloud went on to a career as a commercial aviator.

Avinger, who had a rough childhood and who was 18 at the time of the incident, had a string of disciplinary infractions prior to this incident and ended up in the brig due to it.  Indeed, he'd nearly been separated from the Navy in basic training, and only received his apprentice assignment after writing the vessel's commander requesting a second chance due to a different disciplinary event.  He was discharged from the Navy in 1973.  He was incarcerated twice between 1973 and 1984, at which time he used his jail time to study for a new career, becoming an alcohol and drug councillor. In that capacity, he ended up working for Amtrak.  He later expressed remorse for what had occurred.

It's sometimes noted that the U.S. Navy has never had a mutiny.  If that's true, it's at least arguable that it never had one, as it refused to recognize this event as one.