Troubled Water: Race, Mutiny, and Bravery on the USS Kitty Hawk

by Gregory A. Freeman

Overview

The gripping account of the riot aboard the USS Kitty Hawk—and the first mutiny in U.S. Naval history

In 1972, the United States was embroiled in an unpopular war in Vietnam, and the USS Kitty Hawk was headed to her station in the Gulf of Tonkin. Its five thousand men, cooped up for the longest at-sea tour of the war, rioted—or, as Troubled Water suggests, mutinied. Disturbingly, the lines were drawn racially, black against white. By the time order was restored, careers were in tatters. Although the incident became a turning point for race relations in the Navy, this story remained buried within U.S. Navy archives for decades.

With action pulled straight from a high-seas thriller, Gregory A. Freeman uses eyewitness accounts and a careful and unprecedented examination of the navy's records to refute the official story of the incident, make a convincing case for the U.S. navy's first mutiny, and shed new light on this seminal event in American history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230103399
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/09/2010
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Gregory A. Freeman is an award-winning writer with more than 25 years of experience in journalism and historical nonfiction. He has won over two dozen awards for his writing, including the coveted Sigma Delta Chi Award for Excellence from the Society of Professional Journalists. His books include Troubled Water, The Forgotten 500, and the acclaimed Sailors to the End.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Seal the Hatch

A New Captain

A New XO

America at Sea

A Long, Difficult Journey

The Dap Fight

Sailing into Troubled Water

A Raised Fist

They're Going to Kill Us All!

It's Really Happening

This is Mutiny!

Captain, I Am Scared to Death

He is a Brother!

By a Higher Authority

Plain Criminals

Editorial Reviews

Even though the U.S. government continues to deny it, Gregory Freeman has dug out the true hidden story of the first mutiny in the history of the U.S. Navy. You'll enjoy this high seas thriller.” —James Bradley, author of Flags of Our Fathers, Flyboys, and The Imperial Cruise

“This is a real nail-biter, a genuine page-turner. Just when you thought you had heard everything about carrier operations during the Vietnam War, here is the story of the mutiny that the US Navy didn't want you to know about. Page, by agonizing page, you are below deck as everything unravels and everything you thought you knew proves to be wrong. It's always exciting to read a book that provides new or overlooked information about events you thought were set in stone within the historical record, but in Troubled Water, Gregory Freeman not only tells you about it, he takes you there — aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, as mutineers gradually alter the course of an American warship from measured precision to chaos and anarchy.” —Bill Yenne, Author of Aces High, the Heroic Saga of the Two Top-Scoring American Aces of WWII. and Rising Sons: The Japanese-American GIs Who Fought for the US in WWII

“Gregory Freeman is a master of riveting and thoughtful examinations of military sagas that no one else has the courage to take on. Troubled Water is his finest book in a distinguished career.” —Gregg Olsen, author of Heart of Ice and A Wicked Snow

From the Publisher

The remarkable story of the closest thing ever to a mutiny aboard a U.S. Navy vessel. In 1972, nearly 250 days into its deployment in Vietnam, the Kitty Hawk's 5,000-man crew (295 of them African-American) faced the danger and stress of wartime, during an era when widespread drug use, growing antiwar sentiment and a nascent black-power movement exacerbated tensions. On Oct. 12, following yet another announcement that the ship would delay its return to home base in San Diego, a contingent of black sailors, many recruited under a Navy initiative designed to increase opportunity, spilled out of their berths and began beating white shipmates with broomsticks, pipes and chains. By the time the violence was quelled, medics had treated more than 50 people, three injured seriously enough to be evacuated from the ship via helicopter. Were the rioting sailors attempting to seize the captain and take over? In what amounts almost to a real-life version of Herman Melville's Benito Cereno, Freeman (The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II, 2007, etc.) makes clear that, no matter the impressions of the officers aboard or the conclusions of a later official investigation, many of the crew believed they were witnessing a mutiny. Efficiently establishing the ship's atmosphere of seething anger and recounting numerous, racially charged shipboard fights-and one spectacular nightclub brawl during a brief stopover in the Philippines-Freeman focuses on the five worst hours of violence. He also examines the heroic role played by the ship's black executive officer, Benjamin Cloud, whose unorthodox strategy for ending the riot put him at oddswith the captain, but likely saved the ship. Though no lives were lost, the Kitty Hawk incident short-circuited the careers of the captain and Cloud, led to criminal charges against 29 sailors and inspired numerous service reforms designed to prevent similar disasters. A sharp re-creation of a bloody episode that became "a turning point for race relations in the Navy."First printing of 50,000. Agent: Mel Berger/William Morris Agency

Kirkus Reviews