Mutiny by Ruse

As the S.S. Columbia Eagle plowed through the calm waters of the Gulf of Siam, the emergency whistle shrieked the signal that all seafarers dread: "Abandon ship!"

The merchant seamen did not have to be urged twice. In the Eagle's hold were 4,525 tons of explosives, a mixed load of 500-lb. and 750-lb. preassembled napalm bombs consigned to U.S. Air Force units in Thailand. Secured on deck were 50 tons of live detonators. While the men, some in their skivvies, were tearing at the lifeboat covers and at work on the davits, Second Mate Robert Stevenson called to the bridge: "Is this for real?" Third Mate Herbert Gunn shouted down: "Cast off and stand clear. There's a live bomb aboard!"

Lucky Castoffs. Two lifeboats were launched and 24 crewmen tumbled into them. Only one boat had a functioning motor, so a line was passed to the other, and they pulled off a safe distance, about a mile from the ship. Inexplicably, no other boats joined them, which meant that 15 men were still aboard, including Captain Donald Swann. An hour passed. Then the astonished men in the lifeboats saw smoke belch from the Eagle's stack, and the freighter took off at its top speed of about 19 knots. Some thought it had to be a bad joke. Only a few surmised the real truth: the Columbia Eagle had been taken over by mutineers; the abandon-ship signal had been a ruse.

The castoffs were lucky. They had plenty of food and water and, though they lacked a radio, they were in the middle of a trade route. Further, they knew that somewhere behind them was the S.S. Rappahannock, another bomb-laden freighter also bound for Thailand. As night fell, they spotted the lights of the Rappahannock, fired off five flares, and were eventually picked up.

Misty Motives. The Rappahannock tried all that night and next morning to make radio contact with the Columbia Eagle, but it was not until afternoon that the Eagle finally acknowledged. The radio operator said that the Eagle had been hijacked by two crew members, one of whom was then standing with a gun at the operator's head. What the mutineers intended, the operator did not know. A later message said that the pair "stated from the beginning that if the Cambodian government would not seize the vessel, they would scuttle it." The radioman gave the names of the hijackers: Clyde W. McKay, 25, of Escondido, Calif., and Alvin L. Glatkowski, 20, of Long Beach, Calif.

Last week, 24 hours after the takeover, the Eagle steamed into Cambodian territorial waters safe from the pursuing U.S. Coast Guard cutter Mellon, which had been ordered by Admiral John Hyland, commander of the Pacific Fleet, to observe her movements. Just before the coup d'etat against Prince Norodom Sihanouk (see WORLD), Cambodia granted political asylum to McKay and Glatkowski. At week's end, the Eagle rode at anchor off Sihanoukville, still in Cambodian custody.

The communications and transportation freeze caused by the coup left much of the mystery intact. While their motives were misty, the alleged mutineers had much in common besides their home state. Both had servicemen fathers. Each of their mothers was divorced and had remarried another serviceman. McKay's mother, Mrs. Franklin Cave, refused to believe the story of the mutiny, saying: "That's the silliest thing I ever heard."

Familial opinion on Glatkowski was divided. His stepfather, Ralph Hagan, a retired Navy man, described Glatkowski as a "hippie-yippie who hated the police, the war in Viet Nam and the United States." In Long Beach Alvin's young wife, Florence, an expectant mother, maintained that "Alvin was not a hippie. He wore his hair moderately long. He didn't like the Viet Nam War and all that, but he could never have done what they say he did."

Interviewed by Keyes Beech of the Chicago Daily News, the rescued crewmen on the Rappahannock hooted at reports that McKay and Glatkowski might have acted out of political motives. One said that neither of them could tell "Marx from Lenin." The majority opinion was that both were high on pot, as they had been all through the voyage.

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