SS Columbia Eagle incident

The SS Columbia Eagle incident refers to a mutiny that occurred aboard the U.S. flagged merchant vessel Columbia Eagle in March 1970 when two crewmembers seized the vessel with the threat of a bomb and forced the master to sail to Cambodia. The ship was under contract with the Military Sea Transportation Service to carry napalm bombs to be used by the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War and was originally bound for Sattahip, Thailand. During the mutiny, 24 of the crew were forced into two lifeboats and set adrift in the Gulf of Thailand while the remainder of the crew were forced to take the ship to a bay near Sihanoukville, Cambodia. The two mutineers requested political asylum from the Cambodian government which was initially granted but they were later arrested and jailed. Columbia Eagle was returned to U.S. control in April 1970.

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 Pierre Victory. She was designed to carry all types of dry supplies and munitions to both the European and Pacific theaters of World War II. Like most of the ships of the Victory-type, Pierre Victory was decommissioned after the war and either mothballed or sold to commercial shipping companies. 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 and therefore eligible under government contracting rules to haul military supplies to the war zone.

Clyde McKay was born on 20 May 1944 near Hemet, California. His father was in the military at the time 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 and 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.

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