As part of Workers World’s coverage marking the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Vietnam on April 30, 1975, we publish Part 1 of Al Glatkowski’s story told to Workers World managing editor John Catalinotto. It concerns a March 1970 direct action he and Clyde McKay took to stop U.S. bombs from slaughtering women, children and all peoples of Indochina.

We were on the SS Columbia Eagle sailing in the South China Sea, headed toward the Gulf of Thailand. I knew we might be killed in the action, me and Clyde McKay. Even if we succeeded, we could spend our lives, or be killed, in prison.

I was 20 years old. My son was due to be born soon. I needed a minute or two by myself. Right across the passageway from the forecastle was the head. I went in, pissed, threw some water on my face and combed my hair with my fingers, looked in the mirror, and I asked myself: “Well, Al, are you ready for this?”

We had already cleaned our guns. They were in my room across the passageway on the merchant ship carrying thousands of napalm bombs to U.S. air bases in Thailand. Napalm that would burn women and children. We signed onto this ship to stop the slaughter. With that thought I knew I was ready.

I crossed back across the hall to my room. McKay was sitting on my bunk. I pulled the night curtain down as we made one last check of the pistols. I stuck my pistol in my waistband, and he put his in a leather folder with a zipper. We looked at each other and said, “Let’s move.”

 We went to the passageway, up the ship’s ladder topside to the next deck and on the next ladder up, when McKay stopped, turned around, looked down at me and said, “Listen, you got a child coming. Nobody knows that you’re involved. You can tell them that I forced you to do this.”

And I said, “No, you don’t get it. We’re both in this. And it’s my plan. Let’s go.”

I was captain’s steward. When I knocked, he asked me to enter. I said, “Captain, we got something we have to talk to you about.”

He asked, “What’s this about?”

From the corner where he set up, McKay pulled out his gun and said, “We’re taking over the ship.”

The captain goes, “Whoa, what’s going on?”

I said, “There’s no time to talk. You have to get on the phone and announce that there’s a bomb on board the ship, it’s got a timer, and it will detonate shortly, and they must abandon ship.”

McKay covered the captain with his pistol. We had to take some prisoners: the radio operator, the chief mate, who I considered the most dangerous, and the chief engineer. All officers. You don’t want to capture the [rank-and-file] guys, because they’re the workers. The officers command the ship and give us orders.

Noonday report

We waited for the radio operator to deliver the noonday report. All vessels at sea report at noon exactly where they’re located on the ship’s charts and then to the ship’s log. It’s been done since the days of sailing vessels.

I knew Morse code and could hear the radio operator, who was my friend, transmitting this report. After it was sent, we would have 24 hours. I knew there was a ship close behind us, the SS Rappahannock, that was supposed to pass us. That meant the lifeboats would be picked up, and the rescue would keep the Rappahannock from catching up to us.

Then the big chief mate, who towered over me and outweighed us both, took two steps straight at us. He looked like a football tackle, his arms out wide.

No one knew I was armed. I pulled my gun out from behind me, pointed it right into his face and said, “Sit your ass back down there, motherf—er, or I’ll blow you through the bulkhead, because I have no time to f–k around.” His eyes got big and he sat down.

The captain picked up the phone. He did as we asked him. To the word.

Abandon ship

We put the ship in dead slow, with just enough engine to make way. The order to abandon ship meant everybody had to go to their lifeboat stations, except the people on duty in the engine room and on the bridge and the helm and lookout. I remember there were more than 40 in the crew on the ship and most got into the two main lifeboats.

McKay was holding his pistol on the four officers. I went out, my gun drawn. I looked to see who was getting into lifeboats and who wasn’t.

Those on deck called the captain’s office: “Do we cut loose or do we hold on to the line to the ship?” The captain told him to cut loose. “There’s another vessel coming up soon,” he said. “You have your flare guns to signal with. You’ll be rescued.” The boats were cut loose.

Only the captain was armed. He had a pistol in his safe. Later I secured that gun.

The path to mutiny

You must be wondering how we ended up hijacking a munitions ship. Both McKay and I were from military families. His father and my stepfather were military lifers.

When I was young, I was a pacifist. I could describe me and my friends as pacifist hippies.

In 1966, I used to go to anti-war demonstrations in Norfolk [Virginia] and in Washington, D.C., and later in New York City when I was in Merchant Marine school at the Brooklyn Navy Yards. I heard stories from my friends and from veterans who had been in Vietnam that the soldiers were killing women and children. I couldn’t believe them. That’s not how the U.S. military was supposed to be.

But I had to see everything myself, with my own eyes. So in 1967 I decided to go to Vietnam aboard a Merchant Marine vessel. We signed articles of shipping, and we sailed. The vessel was an MSTS vessel, Military Sea and Transport Service. We were civilians on old Victory Ships and Liberty Ships from World War II that were pulled out of mothballs and sent over as fast as they could. They couldn’t find crews fast enough.

When we hit the beach shortly after Christmas, I would explore. They wouldn’t keep the ships in port overnight, as they might be blown up and sunk. If I didn’t make it back in time, I would just stay ashore.

One night I stayed in a hootch with soldiers who were being sent back home. Only enlisted men. The officers wouldn’t come near the tent, because, honestly, they were afraid of being fragged, that is, killed by the troops.

The soldiers told me what was bothering them, what was on their minds because of all the people they had killed, just slaughtered, men, women and children. It was a free kill. If they just thought someone was an enemy, they could kill them. I heard these stories from the f—king foot soldiers themselves.

After my return from Vietnam in January 1968, I then believed all the stories I had questioned earlier. I was totally against the war. And I was guilty of bringing bombs there myself. I kept thinking, how can I stop these f–king bombs from getting to Vietnam, from killing the kids?

My hippie friends rejected me, because I went to the war. They weren’t Marxists. They were hippies. They understood little. I said, “Listen, if you really want to stop this war, you have to go to where the bombs are made, where they’re stored, and deal with them.” After I said that, they didn’t want to talk to me anymore.

At that time, I also faced the draft. I tried to get Conscientious Objector status, and I made plans about going to Canada. I met Clyde McKay. He was five years older than me and was just as anti-war.

In December 1969, a merchant ship called the SS Badger State carrying bombs for the Vietnam war was caught in a storm in the North Pacific. It sank. Many sailors speculated that it had been sabotaged.

The Badger State sinking gave us the idea about seizing a ship. McKay and I planned to get posted to the same ship. There were some other anti-war sailors on the SS Columbia Eagle, but we were the only ones in on the plan.

Cambodia, March 1970 – a revolutionary hijacking

On March 14, we carried out our revolutionary hijacking. That’s what we called it. We had now captured the bridge. We had a skeleton crew of about a dozen, enough to operate the ship for a short period.

I had the second mate show me our position on the charts. This gave me the general direction and everything. The engines kicked back in and we maintained our route.

The radio operator couldn’t use the equipment without our hearing him. We demanded  radio silence for two days. I followed the radar immediately to see if there were any other ships around. The first the world heard of this action was when the crew was rescued by the Rappahannock.

McKay didn’t have that experience of working on the deck. I had enjoyed being at sea and traveling. I learned what was done in each of the departments, planning to choose one for a career. I don’t think McKay had ever looked at a radar or at charts. He worked in the engine room.

 Maybe some of the officers in the skeleton crew believed we had no bomb. But they couldn’t be sure. We knew that Cambodia was neutral, as was its leader, Prince [Norodom] Sihanouk. McKay and I started discussing heading to Cambodia. The U.S. dropped napalm bombs there and in Laos and Vietnam.

We dropped anchor in shallower water near Sihanoukville, where we started dumping ballast so we wouldn’t run aground. We sent a message asking for political asylum and that the Cambodian government retain the vessel SS Columbia Eagle for the duration of the Indochinese War. We wanted to stop the bombs from going to the U.S. air bases. That was our main concern.

We were greatly thrilled that Sihanouk accepted those two things — political asylum and holding the ship for the duration.

We and the rest of the crew boarded a plane and flew to Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Arriving there, McKay and I felt totally relieved that there was a possibility that we would be safe and could continue to live, even if it’s not in the United States. We were thinking about Sweden.

What happened next turned everything upside down.

Part 2 covers the coup in Cambodia, Glatkowski’s struggle within Lompoc maximum security prison in California and his involvement with anti-war organizations of veterans since his release. Catalinotto is the author of “Turn the Guns Around: Mutinies, Soldier Revolts and Revolutions.”

Glatkowski recommends listening to these shorter versions of the story told in song. 1: Ballad of the Columbia Eagle −− David Kovics  2: Deep Water, R.J. Phillips Band