Troubled Water

by Gregory A. Freeman

  At another point in the evening Allen saw medics bring in an unconscious, naked young white man, bleeding from head wounds and severely bruised. It was John Callahan, the man who was beaten in the shower and left to crawl on his own to sick bay.

  Travers, the sailor who offered to answer the phone in the sick bay to avoid worse violence, did what he could to help out. He didn’t know much about first aid so mostly he tried to stay out of the way, especially when the patients started fighting. Many of the injured were still angry and combative as they were being treated, insulting the white corpsmen who were tending their wounds. Then they would jump off the table and run back to fight again.

  During a lull in the action, Travers found himself looking down at a young white sailor on a stretcher, sporting the biggest shiner he had ever seen. The man’s eye looked like a huge purple plum with eyelashes. Travers recognized him as the ship’s cobbler. The Kitty Hawk was one of the last Navy ships to have someone dedicated to shoe repair, and this guy had been working alone at his little shoe repair station when a crowd of black sailors set upon him. The man had been taken by surprise and the rioters pushed his work cabinet over on top of him, a corpsman told Travers. The man was unconscious and the medics weren’t tending to him, which worried Travers. He also noticed that a Marine, Corporal Robert L. Anderson, had been brought in, aided by a lieutenant. Anderson was sporting a pretty bad gash over his eyebrow, the product of his beating in the hangar bay. Though a little woozy, Anderson was still in fighting mode.

  “If you see anybody come in here with a bite on him, let me know,” he said to the corpsmen. “I did it and I’m looking for that guy.”

  NICHOLAS CARLUCCI, THE MARINE commander, was supervising his men in carrying out their primary goal of preventing sabotage, as the captain ordered. He was ready to send his men to any hot spots on the ship as soon as he got the order from the captain, but as midnight approached that order hadn’t come, and previous encounters with the captain and the XO made it clear that they didn’t want the Marines moving out in force. But as the night wore on and more people passed the word that the sick bay was under siege, individual Marines started to realize they were needed and they couldn’t resist trying to help. After dutifully logging in his experience on the mess deck in which rioters tried to take his sidearm, Corporal Anthony Avina made his way to the sick bay. So did the white Lance Corporal Joseph A. Brock, who arrived with a black sailor who needed medical attention; the man had run into the wing of a jet while trying to get away after assaulting Brock, who already had been attacked with a hammer and a pipe.

  Avina showed up first and found the sick bay was busy and hectic, the corpsmen trying to do their jobs in trying circumstances. Brock showed up soon after. He and Avina conferred and decided they would take up defensive positions in front of the two hatches to the sick bay, strong points that might help them fight off the rioting sailors even though they were certain to be outnumbered. They were tested almost immediately. About a dozen black sailors came charging down the passageway toward Avina, armed with chains, fire hose nozzles, four-by-fours; one even had a knife that looked to be at least fourteen inches long. At first Avina tried to talk to them, ordering them to stop, showing his baton and trying to “talk to them the way they talk,” as he would later say, telling them to “Play it cool. Just play it cool.” He had no choice but to try reasoning with them because he and Brock were seriously outnumbered. The black men stopped short of the Marine but jeered and taunted him. “Come on, hit me with your nightstick!” one yelled, then they attacked. Avina did his best to fend off the men with only his nightstick, knowing that he might make things worse by drawing his pistol. Besides, the Marines didn’t carry weapons with a round chambered, so it would probably take him three seconds to draw the weapon, pull the lever back, and slide a round into the chamber. Maybe he’d get off one round before the mob took the weapon away.

  The sailors mobbed him in the close quarters of the passageway and wrested Avina’s baton away as he tried to protect his pistol. Brock tried to help but was also overwhelmed. Once the rioters got Avina’s baton, they pushed him aside and rushed the sick bay, where the medics were ready to be attacked again.

  “That’s the one over there!” the black men shouted, and Avina realized they had come looking for someone in particular. This was the first time he saw that his fellow Marine Anderson was in the sick bay. The black sailors went right for Anderson and proceeded to beat him viciously, although the other Marines and corpsmen did what they could to defend him and Anderson himself put up a good fight, swinging a green oxygen bottle at a black sailor who was threatening him with a broomstick. Before he could make contact with the oxygen bottle, another sailor hit Anderson from behind with a four-by-four and he went down, where he was pummeled by at least two more men. After he took several more blows, another black sailor grabbed him under the arms and lifted him to his feet, then shoved him toward the hatch.

  “Get out of here!” the man shouted at Anderson. “Just go!”

  Anderson stumbled down the passageway on his own, away from the sick bay, but he was stopped soon by a corpsman who ushered him into another compartment used for aviation medicine, the specialized medical care provided to the ship’s fliers. There he was treated for his injuries.

  The crowd went elsewhere, leaving the corpsmen and the two Marine defenders to regroup. Soon two more Marines joined Avina and Brock in defending the two hatches. The Marines were tired, bloodied, and overwhelmed, but they also were determined to protect the sick bay.

  “Just guard that door and don’t let anybody through!” Avina called to Brock and his partner. “Nobody but medical personnel gets through!”

  The defenders didn’t have to wait long. Brock saw a large mob of black sailors waving weapons. Oh my god, they look like a lynch mob. Brock looked back at Avina.

  “They are taking over! We can’t stop them!” Brock shouted. Then he took off for the nearest guard shack, where he could call for more manpower. He got through to the Marine compartment and told them more help was needed in sick bay. Then he dropped the phone and raced back to his position. By the time he returned, Brock saw that most of the mob had headed in another direction, leaving only a few stragglers to curse the Marines and make halfhearted attempts at breaking through to the sick bay. The Marines would carry on like this for hours, fighting off assaults on the medics and the wounded.

  CLOUD, STILL DESPERATE to stop the violence from escalating, praying that he could ratchet the animosity down before either the blacks or the whites, the rioters or the Marines, did something irreversible, was on his way to the sick bay about 11:20 P.M. when he passed by his office, the scene of the previous meeting with the ringleaders. He noticed that three black sailors were there, all armed with chains and pipes. The XO stopped and asked them what they were doing, and they told him they were looking for First Sergeant Binkley, the Marine who had led the reaction force to the hangar deck. They considered him most responsible for the beatings that had taken place; besides, they hadn’t liked him even before tonight. Cloud knew who Binkley was, and he knew that—rightly or wrongly—many of the black sailors regarded him as the “Bull Connor” of the Marines on the Kitty Hawk, a reference to the Birmingham, Alabama, official notorious for using fire hoses and police dogs on black protestors.

  “What do you want with Binkley?” the XO asked.

  “We’re going to kill him,” one of the men said. Just like that. Very matter-of-factly: We’re going to kill him.

  Good god, when is this going to end? Cloud thought. He told the men they weren’t going to do any such thing, ordering them to get to his office and wait for him. The men grumbled but complied, and Cloud called the ship’s legal office. When someone answered, the XO gave him clear orders.

  “Get somebody out there and find First Sergeant Binkley! Find him right now and bring him to my office. Personally escort him to my office! Do you understand?”

  The sailor on the other end acknowledge
d and Cloud hung up. If they’re out for Binkley, then I need to keep him nearby. If he’s with me, maybe I can keep him from being assaulted.

  Then Cloud tried to talk some sense into the three assassin wannabes. He didn’t have much of a chance before a chief aviation ordnanceman, Charles M. Johnson, showed up with a young black sailor in tow. Johnson was the lead criminal investigator on the Kitty Hawk and worked with Cloud on disciplinary matters. The black sailor had been detained by a Marine for being with a violent group and he was crying hysterically, seemingly terrified. The Marine had given the detainee over to Johnson and the legal officer was hoping Cloud could do something with him. Cloud saw that the handcuffs on the man were so tight that they were drawing blood. The XO ordered the chief to release the cuffs. Johnson was trying to do that but couldn’t find the right key: he had something more important on his mind. But then Binkley showed up, escorted by Captain Carlucci. As soon as the black sailors saw Binkley, they leapt toward him and started screaming obscenities, threatening to kill him right there.

  Binkley and Carlucci held back. Cloud tried to settle the men: three wanting to kill Binkley on the spot, two Marines restraining themselves from fighting back, a chief eager to say something, and a hysterical sailor handcuffed and sobbing on the floor. Cloud ordered Binkley to sit down at one end of the office and told Johnson to stand in front of him. Then he ordered the angry black sailors to the opposite side of the room.

  “Stop it! Just calm down! Nobody’s going to kill anybody here!” Cloud told them.

  When Cloud paused to take a breath, the legal officer spoke up. He had been stopped on the way to the XO’s stateroom by a young corpsman with tears in his eyes, begging for help in the sick bay. Johnson blurted out the urgent message as soon as he saw an opening.

  “XO, they are killing people down in the sick bay!” he said. “Will you come down there and see if you can quiet down the situation?”

  Only then did Cloud realize how shaken the chief looked. Johnson was flustered for several reasons. In addition to the frightening message from the corpsman, he had been assaulted himself that day, surrounded by a sea of black faces and threatened with death. After that he had seen more assaults. He also felt guilty because he realized now that he should have told the XO about some scuttlebutt and ominous reports he’d heard around the ship over the previous twentyfour hours. On at least three different occasions, white sailors had reported to Johnson that black men had told them, “You are not going to sleep tonight.” He also got a report from a department head that a black sailor had stepped into a berthing compartment full of white sailors and screamed, “You fucked the niggers, you fucked the Indians, you fucked the Chicanos for 300 years, and tonight you are going to pay for it!” When an officer told him to settle down and go to bed, the black sailor had responded, “I answer to a higher authority.”

  Johnson realized that if he had passed on that information, the captain and XO might have been able to prevent the violence. Instead, the ship was going crazy. Johnson felt partly responsible for not preventing it.

  “They are killing people! Come see what you can do about it!” he pleaded.

  Cloud had already heard one report of trouble in the sick bay and now Johnson’s report made that situation seem even more urgent, so once again he would have to leave one hot spot for a worse situation elsewhere. He ordered the legal officer to keep the black sailors there in his office. Then he turned to Binkley.

  “You’re coming with me,” he said, looking intently in the Marine’s eyes. “You stay with me at all times. You are never to leave my side for any reason? Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” the Marine responded. He had no idea if he was under arrest, being protected, or asked to bodyguard the XO.

  The black sailors left in the XO’s stateroom with Johnson looked at him and realized he couldn’t hold them there, so they pushed past him and ran out. Johnson managed to hang on to the handcuffed prisoner, and he got the right handcuff key from a passing Marine. Johnson took the man along as he chased after the other sailors. After making a couple of turns, Johnson found himself before a large group of angry black sailors who started heaping abuse on the only white face around. Fearing another beating, Johnson handed the handcuff key to a black first-class petty officer standing nearby.

  “Get these handcuffs off this man,” he told him. “We don’t need him in this crowd showing what the Marines did to him with these handcuffs on his wrists.”

  Then Johnson quietly backed away from the crowd and ran for his life.

  CLOUD APPROACHED THE SICK BAY about 11:30 P.M. and could hear the commotion as he got closer. At the open hatchway that led down to the sick bay, four chief petty officers were standing around. When Cloud approached and saw the scene, he realized that he shouldn’t take Binkley into that mess. He’d only be a hot target for the black sailors. So he told Binkley to stay with the chiefs and ordered them not to let the Marine leave.

  Cloud hurried down the ladder and to the sick bay, astounded and appalled at what he was seeing. In the sick bay?

  The few Marines defending the sick bay were just pushing back another assault by a crowd of black sailors, and the XO’s appearance seemed to have a calming effect. The black sailors stopped shoving forward, and Cloud was able to enter. He could see that this was only a lull in the chaos. The sick bay was full of injured sailors, black and white, corpsmen and doctors busily moving from one table to another, and the whole place looked like a hurricane had come through. Supplies were scattered everywhere, gear was torn off the walls, blood was sprayed around; it was a total mess. But the violence stopped when he arrived. That was a good sign. Maybe I’m making some progress here. Cloud started looking for a doctor, someone in charge who could give him a report, but his attention was diverted to a man coming down the passageway from the aft portion of the ship, shouting. As the white sailor got closer, Cloud and the others in the sick bay could hear what he was yelling.

  “They got the captain! They got the captain!”

  The man ran on by, and everyone in the sick bay paused what they were doing for a second to look around the room at each other. They got the captain? This is really a mutiny?

  Cloud raced into the passageway, heading aft, in the direction the man had come from. The last time he had seen the captain, Townsend was in the hangar bay surrounded by angry black sailors. Cloud was regretting leaving the captain alone with them like that. What have they done? he thought. This is crazy.

  Cloud raced through the ship. As he passed by the personnel office, he came upon a chief who looked terrified. He locked eyes with the XO and said, “They got the captain! They killed the captain! Oh my god!”

  Cloud couldn’t believe what he was hearing. They’ve killed the captain! These crazy fools are taking over the ship! They’ve killed Townsend! Cloud’s heart was pounding and his mind was racing. He’d never been more stressed or scared in his life. No mission over the jungles, no antiaircraft fire had ever heightened his senses like this. The captain of a United States aircraft carrier has been killed by his own men? How can that be? What should I do?

  Cloud’s mind blazed through all the scenarios, all the options, all his training. They don’t really teach commanders what to do in this situation, but Cloud was determined to seize control back from the rioters, to stop this bloody insurrection before it went any further. Cloud believed that this whole crisis was instigated by a confrontation between the Marines and the black sailors, so he once again thought that separating the two groups was a top priority. Whatever the reason for the riot, whatever criminal charges might have to be brought later, right now the task was to stop the violent confrontations. And if the captain had been killed—My god, could that really be true?—then he was now in command of the Kitty Hawk. Clearly, he had to act.

  From where he stood, Cloud realized he could make it to damage control central in a hurry. It was almost straight down a few levels, and damage control had access to the 1MC circuit that could
deliver a shipwide message. He raced down the ladders and bolted into the damage control compartment, startling the engineering officer and the sailors standing watch there. At 11:35 P.M. Cloud grabbed the microphone for the 1MC and began talking to the crew.

  “This is the executive officer speaking. May I have the attention of every Kitty Hawk crew member? This is an emergency,” Cloud said, in a shaky voice that alarmed the sailors who had had little information during the riots. This sounded like the executive officer was in a panic. “Do not listen to what anybody else tells you. I want you to do exactly as I tell you. I ask you, I implore you, I order you, to stop what you are doing! All black brothers proceed immediately to the after mess deck. Every member of the United States Marine Corps proceed to the forecastle immediately. This is an emergency!”

  Cloud’s goal was to separate the black sailors and the Marines. He thought most of the rioters were already in the aft area, and he figured they would be willing to return to the mess deck, the scene of their earlier successful negotiations. Sending the Marines to the forecastle would put them some distance from the black sailors and minimize the confrontations. This stopgap measure would slow the riot and give him a chance to talk to the black sailors again. Cloud had to stop these constant blowups, these repeated confrontations that happened after he and the captain thought they had everything under control.

  Cloud’s address over the 1MC did not have the calming effect he intended. Even though rioting had been going on for more than three hours at this point, many men on the ship were so isolated that they had not even known there was a problem, and suddenly the XO came on the horn sounding like he was scared to death and begging his “black brothers” to get away from the Marines. Those who were already in hiding or had been assaulted took no solace in hearing that the Kitty Hawk’s upper command was rattled and telling the Marines to retreat. To the rioting black sailors, the XO’s address was proof that they were making headway, that they had the Kitty Hawk command on the run and that the Marines were being told to stand down.