The Revolting Dominions: A Short History of Mutiny

[kookaburra]

A ship at lease is a distant world in herself and consideration of the protracted and distant operations of the fleet units of the Navy must place great power, responsibility and trust in the hands of those leaders chosen for command.
--Joseph Conrad


I had always found that the style of leadership that accorded best with my own inclinations and operational efficiency was one of treating subordinates with consideration and respect. I had not found that a ‘tight ship’ had to be an ‘uptight ship.’ - Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, USN

Welcome to A Short History of Mutiny.


Throughout the first half of the 20th Century, when two world wars were fought, there appears to have been a significant incidence of mutiny both in the Royal Navy and its off-shoots in the newly emerging navies of at least four Dominions.

If fact virtually none of these upheavals fitted the Hollywood sterotype of mutiny, with the violent overthrow of a ship's command and its seizure, such as had occured on HMS Bounty in 1789, and HMS Hermoine - the worst individual ship case of all - in 1797 (see next post).

In the main the incidents of the C20th were incidents arising from industrial matters such as pay and conditions, and while for a short time several of these had paralysed whole fleets (such as that at Invergordon in 1931) they were generally resolved peacefully and comparatively quickly.

At times wider political events had a bearing on the disturbances, such as the marked sympathy for the Russian Revolution which infected the lower decks of Royal Navy ships, and significantly hampered the operations of the Baltic Fleet in 1918-19.

This was a new era when the common man everywhere was finding finding an industrial voice, and a new sense of their rights, which would soon clash with the old traditions of the Senior Service, and require new and more modern forms of fleet management.

In the independently governed Dominions, such as Canada, particularly, but also Australia, the rising sense of national pride and independence would bring men into conflict with inherited Royal Navy traditions, and sometimes directly with the attitudes of the RN officer class towards them.

And finally in this first post, a first Dominion Navy example of mutiny, one brought about by the much more vast sweep of historical events. The end of the Raj, and ...

THE ROYAL INDIAN NAVY

A little preliminary story. At the end of 1992, based in New Delhi, I took a few hours off in Lucknow to wander through the grounds and ruins of the old British Residency, the scene, of course, of the most famous and prolonged siege of Indian Mutiny of 1857, or the First War of Independence, as Indian people call it.

As it happens, I was on my way to what, unexpectedly, would prove to be another epic and tragic event, the destruction by Hindu zealots of the 1528 Babri Mosque at the holy city of Ayodhya, which unleashed the worst wave of communal rioting and killing across the entire subcontinent since Independence, closing down the entire region for more than a week.

There was no hint of this as I picked my way among the still pock-marked ruins of the long old thick-walled hospital building at the Residency. In fact, although there is a small museum and pleasant gardens there, there was almost noone else around - an extraordinary thing, bringing an immense sense of relief and momentary peace, in ever-crowded India.

The siege at Lucknow is the subject of countless western books, perhaps the most popular in recent decades being J.G. Farrell's fictionalized account, 'The Siege of Krishnapur.' Later, in an old bookshop in Gurgoan, I found a rare set of what I think is the best and most authoritative account of all, of the whole period - Lord Roberts's 'Forty One Years in India.'

The point is, no-one in India discusses, or bothers to remember much the Mutiny of 1857, a struggle they didn't win.


Not so the the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny of February 1946, a much lesser event, but one which played a signal role in the country's successful demand for Independence, which was gained, along with Partition, in August the following year.


This is skimming, but Mahatma Gandhi's 'Quit India' movement - and the defections to Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army during the latter stages of WW11 - had already sapped the will of the postwar Attlee Government, in technically bankrupt Britain, to hold on. The mutiny in the RIN may have been the final straw.

It began in Bombay on February 18, 1946, at the RIN's signal training base, HMIS Talwar, and the spark - if a further spark was needed - was a gratuitous insult delivered to an Indian naval rating by a British naval officer (identified in a the surviving Indian strike leader's account below as a Commander King).

India had operated only eight ships during WW11, and
the RIN was the most conservatively run of its armed forces, dominated by white British officers, with comparatively few Indians advanced up the chain of command. The highest-ranked Indian officers in 1946 were lieutenant commanders.

At HMIS Talwar, the situation was already affected by the seething 'Quit India' sentiments flowing through the country, when a visiting British officer chose to slap down an Indian rating who dared to point out some administrative problem to him.

In an interview with the Tribune newspaper in India five years ago, former Petty Officer (telegraphist) Madan Singh described what followed. He said:

There had been a current of deep-rooted discontent simmering underneath the surface calm which erupted on February18, almost like a volcano. The beginning was made by H.M.I.S. (His Majesty’s Indian Ship) ‘Talwar,’ a seashore establishment for training wireless operators. This ship’s ratings were better educated as compared to the other Naval Ratings of R.I.N. The egotistical attitude of the officers, particularly the British who were predominant, was further fuelled by the off-the-cuff remarks of the newly arrived Commander King on a routine visit… He had commented that Indian Ratings were sons of Indian bitches. When we protested through the official channel we were threatened. The service conditions were pathetic, particularly in contrast to the English Ratings. The last straw on the camel’s back was the breakfast unfit for consumption served to us on February 18. Almost spontaneously, we had shouted in unison "No food no work." By the evening, all semblance of authority… had collapsed. A strike committee was elected with M.S. Khan as the president and I as the vice-president. An impartial man, Khan was totally free of any trace of parochialism or bigotry.


Strikes began on shore, then on ships in port, and soon spread to military establishment across India. , The Flag Officer at Bombay, Rear Admiral Sir Arthur Rattray, soon found the situation was beyond his control, as messages were being sent to Indian ships as far afield at Aden and Bahrain to mutiny.

At least 10,000 lower ranks were involved and 56 ships from frigate size down were affected (Wikipedia has much higher figures) and it is believed some 236 people were killed and several thousand injured during the associated street disturbances in Bombay alone, and at least one salvo was fired from a mutineer’s warship at Castle Barracks.

In Karachi, disturbances spread from the sloop HMIS Hindustan to shore establishments, and was eventually suppressed there by the Black Watch, but the situation as a whole was beyond Britain's control.

In the aftermath of the mutiny, and over the months leading to Independence, the Navy warships had their weapons rendered ineffective by the removal of breach-locks, and they were placed under armed guard by land forces


Chris Madsen, the author of the Indian chapter in the book, Naval Mutinies of the Twentieth Century Madsen, writes that an Indian-dominated Board of Inquiry later targeted suspected racism and deep administrative problems in the service, but warns that in the volatile political situation, its finding can not be relied upon by historians.

One point Madsen does make, however, was that the British Navy response, was ‘paternalistic and condescending.’ He says: “Senior British naval officers continued to believe and act as if Indians could not be entrusted with the operation of an effective navy. To them, the mutiny itself was a sign of immaturity and inexperience.”

.

Well, they say it takes 50 years (or 100 years?) to build a Navy.

Segue to today, 65 years later. India operates the fourth or fifth largest Navy in the world, with - according to Wikipedia - 156 ships in commission and 35 under construction, including a 37,000 ton domestically built aircraft carrier. Its plans are to have three aircraft carriers and three nuclear submarines in service by 2015.

It is by some considerable degree larger than the Royal Navy which spawned it. As best I can ascertain, the RN today has 89 ships, including some 30 surface combatants and 13 submarines, four of them being nuclear.


Note, For some reason, four or five websites on the Indian Navy Mutiny carry photographs of HMAS Sydney (1) in tropical comouflage, and misidentified as the sloop HMIS Hindustan, which is shown below.

NEXT: A summary of the RN's own mutinies, then
New Zealand, Canada, and Australia.

[Wombat]

I was given a book many years ago by a friend, "The Devil's Wind" By Major General G. L. Verney. Its the story of the Naval Brigade at Lucknow, HMS Pearl & HMS Shannon.

If you can still get hold of a copy, you may find it interesting.

Wombat,
(James).

[kookaburra]

Mutinies in the Royal Navy

In fairness, we should look at some history of munity in the RN, to ascertain what tradition was passed down to the Dominion navies.


Considering the thousands of ships commissioned in the Royal Navy and its antecedents, perhaps dating this from the 'Navy Royal' of the Reformation, that is circa 1500, recorded mutinies have been fairly rare. But the 'industial dispute' type mutinies have perhaps been more common than generally realized, particularly during the 20th Century.

Below is a list of the better known incidents from the C18th on which some details can be found, starting with the best-known, but not the worst of them.



HMS Bounty, at sea near Tonga on April 28, 1789, in which her captain, 34-year-old Lieutenant William Bligh was overthrown by Acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian and his followers, who seized the control of the ship from and returned to Tahiti, where Christian had married a local woman, and many other crew had formed connections while living ashore on the tropical island paradise.

Captain Bligh’s popular image as a tyrannical commander is now undergoing some historical revision. In fact I note that will a little shame, because I once wrote a very severe account of his career in an Australian bicentennial history, and a distinguished colleague, the late David McNicoll (son of a RAN admiral), sent a gentle note saying I'd been much too hard on him.

It seems that Bligh, a Cornishman, had a difficult, thin-skinned personality, but in terms of the the naval discipline of the times, was neither the martinet nor tyrant he has often been portrayed. It was said of him that he would rather reprimand when he should have flogged, and flogged when he should have hanged. Bligh's loss of the Bounty, in fact, may have had more to do with the latitude he allowed his men inb living on shore in Tahiti, particularly when the ship was forced back there a second time after encountering mountainous seas at Cape Horn, on the breadfruit gathering expedition (to be experimented with as a possible food staple for slaves in the West Indies).


When the mutiny erupted on a second attempt to return home via the Cape of Good Hope, Blight was cast adrift with 18 loyal men in a 23ft open boat, and made an epic 3,618 nautical mile voyage to reach the Dutch East Indies.

Bligh did have a distinguished naval career. He been personally chosen, and sailed with Captain Cook on his last voyage in 1776, , and with Lord Howe at the Battle of Gibraltar. He evntually attained the rank of Vice-Admiral, but came to grief again after being appointed Governor of NSW, where he tried to break the corrupt power held over the colony by the NSW Corps, and was humiliated in the 'Rum Rebellion' of 1808.

Outcome A number of men inadvertently caught up in the mutiny other otherwise were arrested on Tahiiti when HMS Pandora was sent seeking the Bounty. Four drowned when Pandora was wrecked on the way back to Britain, and 10 faced court-martials. Four were acquitted on Bligh's testimony that they had taken no part in the insurrection, two were convicted for remaining passive during the mutiny, but received royal pardons, and a third also convicted by released on a technicality. Three others were hanged.

Christian and his followers, including a number of Tahitians, eventually made their way to Pitcairn Island - mis-marked on naval charts - and settled there, but most eventually died in murderous feuds when relations between the Tahitians and white men broke down on the Island. It remains unclear whether Fletcher Christian was murdered, or committed suicide.

HMS Hermoine, off the coast of Puerto Rico, September 21, 1797 A mutiny caused by the cruel excesses of Captain Hugh Pigot, whowas the son of an admiral of the same name, with the younger Pigot being made a captain in the RN being made a Captain in the RN at age 24 through family influence.

The younger Pigot was notorious for his callous attitude and treatment of his men, and in his 1963 book 'The Black Ship' Royal Navy authority Dudley Pope concluded that Pigot was 'possibly the cruellest Captain in the history of the service'.


On a previous command of HMS Success he had ordered 85 floggings in nine months, from which two men died of injuries received. Although he and his ship took part in a number of daring and successful actions again the Spanish in the Caribbean, he regularly abused his authority, and crew held him responsible for the deaths of two men and a boy seamen who fell to their deaths during bad weather, when Pigot issed an order that the last man down was to be flogged. He then kicked the bodies, and ordered 'the lubbers' remains to be thrown overboard.

The mutiny erupted in the early hours of the next morning.
Men broke into his cabin and repeatedly stabbed him, and - apparently seized with blood lust - set about murderibng nine other officers, including a boy midshipman. Pigot, still alive and pleading for mercy - only to be told 'you showed us none' - was thrown overboard, and was heard crying for help in the ship's wake.

His manner of command had prompted the bloodiest mutiny in RN history. The mutineers handed the ship over to the Spanish at La Guiara, Venezuela, where they were held aboard.


Outcome.The ship was recovered in a 1799 raid by men from HMS Surprise at Puerto Caballo, and renamed HMS Retribution. In total 33 mutineers were captured and 24 were hanged, their bodies left to hang in gibbets.



The Mutinies at Spithead and Nore, April 16 to May 15, 1797
Spithead: Sailors on 16 ships of the Channel Fleet under the command of Admiral Lord Bridport protested pay and conditions. This occurred during the war with revolutionary France, and while pardons and improvements were negotiated at Portsmouth, the outbreak was to have far more serious consequences closer to London.

Nore: Spurred by the actions of their fellow seamen at Spithead, sailors at Nore in the Thames seized HMS Sandwich on May 12, and others followed suit, with fire was exchanged between mutineer vessels and others that remained loyal. Led by Richard Parker - the radical son of a grain merchant from Exeter, and a sympathizer of revolutionary France - the Thames mutineers grievances quickly went beyond pay and conditions to a demand for the removal of harsh officers, and amendments to the Articles of War. Eventually, as they blockaded London, their demands grew, and they began calling for the dissolution of Parliament and an immediate peace with France.


Denied food supplies, and with his supporters progressively deserting to melt away, Parker finally hoisted a signal for all ships to sail to France but none raised sail.


Outcome. Parker was captured, summarily tried for treason, and hanged from a yardarm on HMS Sandwich shortly arfterwards. A total of 28 mutineers eventually shared his fate.

The Baltic Fleet, 1918-1919. Many RN ships, particularly in the Baltic Fleet, experienced disorders an refusal to turn out by lower deck sailors sympathetic to the Russian Revolution, influenced by dockworkers and the Socialist Movement, and also over industrial issues. Service against the Bolshevik Revolutionaries was supposed to be voluntary, a nicety which the Admiralty generally ignored, leading to protests and refusals of duty on many ships. Among those affected were the aircraft carrier HMS Vindictive at Copenhagen, Baltic minesweepers, and First Destroyer Flotilla. Accounts are sketchy, but some details can be found here:

http://libcom.org/history/1918-1930-mutiny-and-resistance-in-the-royal-navy

Invergordon mutiny September 15-16, 1931. A general strike among crews on ships of the Atlantic Fleet, over Depression era pay cuts of up to 25% for some ratings. Among the many ships affected, but were particular in being unable to sail for planned exercises, were the flagship, HMS Hood, and battleships Valiant, Nelson and Rodney, and the cruiser Dorsetshire, among others. At one point there was a threat to damage equipment on Hood, and crewmen prevent officers and leading seaman from unmooring her. A piano was hauled out on the foredeck of HMS Rodney where the sailors sang ‘the Internationale’ and other songs, cheered by others on the forecastles of nearby ships.

The mutiny caused panic on the London Stock Exchange and a run on the pound, compounding economic problems that forced Britain off the Gold Standard four days after the mutiny ended.

Outcome: The Ramsay MacDonald government compromised on the pay cuts, which particularly affected junior ratings on an older scale of pay, so that none would suffer cuts of more than 10%. A number of organizers of the mutiny, or strike, as it was being called, were jailed, and 200 men on Atlantic Fleet ships were discharged from the Navy. A further 200 from other ships and shore installations elsewhere were also purged from the Navy for inciting similar strike action. ( info from the Wikipedia entry on Invergordon). It is generally considered that Rear Admiral Wilfred Tomkinson, temporarily in charge of the Atlantic Fleet, was made a scapoegoat for the mutiny, in being blamed not nipping the first paycut protests in the bud.


Next: The mutiny that crippled the young Royal New Zealand Navy.

[herakles]

Articles of war

These can be read in full here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_War_(Royal_Navy)

It's fairly difficult to decide which of the articles covers mutiny as quite a few of them do. One specifically refers to mutiny:

Article Nineteen

If any person in or belonging to the fleet shall make or endeavour to make any mutinous assembly upon any pretence whatsoever, every person offending herein, and being convicted thereof by the sentence of the court martial, shall suffer death: and if any person in or belonging to the fleet shall utter any words of sedition or mutiny, he shall suffer death, or such other punishment as a court martial shall deem him to deserve: and if any officer, mariner, or soldier on or belonging to the fleet, shall behave himself with contempt to his superior officer, being in the execution of his office, he shall be punished according to the nature of his offence by the judgement of a court martial.

The brutal nature of the articles must be put into historical focus (though they are still extant today). Society then was extremely class laden - some would argue that the English society still is.

I find it interesting that penalties proscribed for officers are quite different to those the ordinary ranks suffered. Yet some officers behaviour was reprehensible. There were few calls for moderation like those uttered by Collingwood. Certainly there was great fear among the ruling class that the radical thinking of revolutionary France would spread to England. Just as they were in a complete funk when the perceived benefits of the Communist revolution was born.

The behaviour of the English in India is however in a class of its own. Their perceived sense of superiority would eventually cause their demise. But this too needs to be put into historical focus. It was commonly held that people of other races were inferior, even barely human. As for the behaviour of Europeans in Africa, the less said the better.

It's common to sneer at the convict origins of Australia. Yet transportation was just one of the draconian measures used by the ruling class to maintain their grip on things. Few convicts were actually criminal at all.

[kookaburra]

I was given a book many years ago by a friend, "The Devil's Wind" By Major General G. L. Verney. Its the story of the Naval Brigade at Lucknow, HMS Pearl & HMS Shannon.

If you can still get hold of a copy, you may find it interesting.

Wombat,
(James).


Thank you for that James. I seem to remember that part of the story - was there a perilous journey up-river from Calcutta to reach Lucknow? Truthfully I'm a bit reluctant to pore through the Lord Roberts volumes too willingly again now because of the delicate state of the covers (they are 1897 editions).

Anyway, here is a complete book online on the Indian Mutiny, G.A. Henty's 'In Times Of Peril,' starting on a chapter at the Naval Brigades here, but can be tracked back to the beginning. Stirring reading! Ripping yarns!

http://www.classicreader.com/book/1912/20/

Herk, since your post I have decided to proceed on naval mutinies here with an interlude first on your favourite ship - HMAS Perth, and subjects clearly dear to your stormy petrel heart.

HMAS Perth, cruiser, New York, August 4, 1939. Captain Harold Farncomb, RAN :

Newly commissioned into the RAN, the former HMS Amphion, below, glides up New York Harbour past the famous statue for a flag-showing visit to mark the New York World's Fair that year, before proceeding to briefly take up duties as the sole cruiser then on the West Indies Station.

Her Australian crew, who had arrived in Britain to take her over on SS Autolycus in May that year, smartly line the decks in dress whites - and there is no clue in the photograph to the armed confrontation that will take place at her dock on the East River within the hour.

It's the dress whites that are the problem. And the next
day, the New York Times will carry a headline: ‘Aussies Mutiny: British Officers Too British.’ (August 5, 1939). ’

Unfortunately I can't access the full article to ascertain why it was particularly the attitude of RN officers aboard who copped this blame. Clearly, from the severity of what followed, the familiar clash of cultures and attitude was already brewing aboard.

On docking, Perth's crew were granted shore leave until midnight but ordered to wear the dress whites. This would have required them to return to the ship at 6pm to change into their blue uniforms for the evening. The men lodged complaints, and were ordered to fall in on the quarter deck, but about 60 gathered rebelliously on the forecastle.

As a result, there they were confronted by officers wearing side arms and ordered below, to the astonishment and alarm of American longshoremen standing on the docks.
It was the first time in history that RAN sailors had been confronted by their own armed officers. Newspapers were alerted, and the New York police were called.



Outcome: Captain Farncomb quickly defused the confrontation diplomatically. Farncomb determined that the order should stand, but any sailor who wished to go ashore wearing blues could apply to do so to him personally. Many did, and all applications were granted. The rest of the visit went off smoothly, and there were no further consequences.

The Melbourne Argus on August 7 referred to the incident as ‘a minor strike,' and with arduous war service immediately ahead, and Perth's fighting loss in the Sunda Strait two and a half years later, the New York World's Fair mutiny has rarely been referred to again.


One can only hope that the unidentified Perth sailor in whites on arrival home in Sydney, the last pic, survived. The AWM photo shows four generations of one family.

[herakles]

An interesting story about HMAS Perth. I didn't know of it.

What a ridiculous business that common sense eventually sorted out.

She spent some time on the West Indies station. I posted this story about one event there:

http://www.worldnavalships.com/forums/showthread.php?t=724

There's also a good account of Lucknow etc here: http://www.worldnavalships.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2760

[kookaburra]

Thanks for those showthread links Herk. I had missed nigelweysom's thread on the Indian mutiny, in which we have obviously shared an interest - his probably more expert, although in India for three years I did visit a number of sites, including the Ridge in Delhi, where some of the heaviest fighting took place. But not much remains there from the times - a lonely and neglected memorial tower.

Just to continue this diversion for the moment, in Delhi I had also seen a photo of a Raj statue 'cemetery' - scores of statues of old British monarchs, particularly Queen Victoria, British generals and others, pulled from their plinths at Independence and laying, overgrown and neglected, in a field somewhere out beyond Old Delhi
(I now learn that there was another one in Lucknow, and possibly many others elsewhere).

Anyway, I attempted unsuccessfully to find it one day. My lovely Indian staff (I was a bureau chief for the region) were vague about it (possibly because they didn't know - a thing they would never directly admit - or because it was somehow a politically incorrect subject). A taxi driver simply got lost when I tried.

There's an article here which illustrates the problem, but which confirms that the statue cemetery is still there:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/your_say/article4197174.ece


Regarding your showthread on HMAS Perth, and the unknown incident of pursuit of a Russian ship carrying German engineers. I haven't found a reference in books I have here, but John Bastock says she was in the Caribbean from September 3 1939, until passing through the Panama Canal en route for Australia on March 2, 1940, arriving in Port Jackson March 31. So ... six months on the West Indies station - plenty of time for something like that to have happened.


Back to naval mutinies soon ...

[Wombat]

On the evening of 4th November 1906 there was a small mutiny in Portsmouth, which began as a result of the order “on the knee” being given by Lieutenant Collard to approximately 400 stokers.

The incident began a few hours earlier while on the parade ground. It was pouring with rain and when the parade was dismissed, a section made their verbal displeasure a little too loudly. Lieutenant Collard hearing the grumblings ordered the men he thought responsible to re assemble in the drill hall, where they were told the necessity of leaving the parade ground quietly.

Before he addressed the men Lieutenant Collard gave the order, “On the knee”. Although this command was still in use at that time, the men felt that the order was being given as a form of punishment, and were slow to respond. One man left still standing, Stoker Robert Acton. Stoker Acton was ordered to the middle of the drill hall and the order was given directly to him again, which he obeyed. The men were later dismissed and went off to the canteen.

Lieutenant Collard had thought that was the end of the matter, but by 10.00 pm the sailors had re assembled on the parade ground and were voicing their displeasure. A message was sent to Commodore Stopford calling him to the parade ground to quell the unruly gathering. He immediately ordered assembly, which was obeyed promptly and quietly by the bluejacket’s, but with much grumbling by the stokers. When some of the stokers continued to interrupt, the Commodore had them arrested. The rest were marched off to their quarters in small groups accompanied by officers.

These actions still did not bring peace and quiet, and the stokers were soon asking to see the Commodore and demanding the release of their fellow stokers. The Commodore agreed to release the detained men if the group would agree to return to their quarters and cause no more trouble. By midnight all was quiet.

The following day when the men assembled for evening parade, they again complained about their treatment and the order to kneel that had been given on the previous evening. They felt the order was being used to belittle them. The Commodore informed them that this was in fact a legitimate naval order, and they appeared to accept his reply, leaving the parade ground in a quiet orderly manner.

By midnight the trouble had started again, and even spilled over into the streets of Portsmouth, an estimate of over 900 stokers and ratings were implicated, being supported by others on leave. Stones were thrown to break the windows of the officer’s quarters, and the rioters were trying to break into the barracks. The police were struggling with the crowds and had even enlisted the help of the mounted police, but it wasn’t until the early hours of the morning that control was restored, by a large armed party of Marines and Bluejackets with fixed bayonets. 120 men were arrested in the barracks, but only 30 considered ringleaders were kept in custody.

On the 26th November 1906 a Court Martial was held against Lieutenant Collard, which lasted for 10days’. The charges were: “that he did on 24th November 1905, at the Naval Barracks, Portsmouth, commit an act to the prejudice of good order and Naval discipline, in giving unauthorized punishment to Stoker Robert Acton, of His Majesty’s ship Victory and using abusive language to the said Robert Acton, and that he did on 24th November, 1905, commit an act to the prejudice of good order and discipline in making an improper use of the order “On the knee” to a number of stokers when assembled after evening quarters in the gymnasium in the Royal Naval Barracks.

In his defence Lieutenant Collard made a compelling speech, making reference to his unfair treatment both in parliament and by the press. The Court Martial found Lieutenant Collard “not guilty”.

It took twelve months for this Court Martial to be held, in which time questions were asked in the House of Commons, and the English press had a field day. One in particular, the Daily Mail, seemed to stir public opinion more than the others. The young journalist who had been sent to cover the mutiny in Portsmouth had a reputation for writing sensational and controversial stories, and he certainly lived up to his reputation.

After the verdict Lieutenant Collard sued the Daily Mail for defamation of character, for which he got a considerable amount of money. The Daily Mail’s proprietor, Sir Alfred Harmsworth, took revenge on the young reporter by sending him to West Africa, and on his return sacking him. This young reporter turned out to be Edgar Wallace, and his experience on the African assignment led to the classic “Sanders of the River” ensuring his future as a Novelist and a playwright.

Twenty years later, the young Lieutenant Collard was made Admiral.

The order “On the knee” was abolished.


Many years ago I found a postcard. It shows what looks like a naval officer, stood in front of a desk holding a cane. On the desk is sat a little white dog, listening to what he is saying. In the background is a blackboard on which is written:
“On the Knee.
You Won’t!
then
5 Years
Bread
&
Water”.

I never understood what it meant, or what it was referring to, until years later when I came across some information about the postcard, which in turn led me to the mutinous story behind it.

Wombat,
(James).

[herakles]

What an interesting story James. Thanks for telling it.

"On your knees"? What barbarism was this? I presume they weren't hanging men from the yard arm at this time.

I was immediately reminded of the barbaric practices used as punishment of English soldiers in WW1. There was a riot somewhere in France over that too and, as I recall, led by Australian troops - who did not suffer these sort of punishments.

[Wombat]

Thanks Herk,

I think you are referring to what was nicknamed “The Bullring” which took place in either France or Belgium, not sure which now. These soldiers were sent from the front line for extensive training, and the Instructors went too far, using bully tactics. They had forgotten that these soldiers were hardened front line troops, who had seen more action and been through terrible ordeals. The soldiers didn’t appreciate that sort of treatment from their own side, especially after the sacrifices they had made.

As for the Australian troops, they were a law unto themselves.

Wombat
(James).

[astraltrader]

Thanks for that information James. Oddly enough I too have the same postcard but until your piece never realised the underlying reason behind it.

[kookaburra]

James, I do agree that was an excellent story, and very nicely told.

Well, pressing on with this condensed history, an event in which a government's hard-nosed reactions set back the development of a fledgling Dominion navy for years:

The Royal New Zealand Navy's 'pay issue' Mutiny, April 1947.

At the end of WW11, despite demobilizations, New Zealand had decided its navy (formally inaugurated as a separate service from the Royal Navy in 1941) should remain a 'two cruiser' navy. But HMNZS Achilles, of River Plate fame was aging, and HMNZS Gambia, on loan from the RN, was too large for the navy's peacetime manpower resources.

The Dido Class anti-aircraft light cruisers Black Prince and Bellona (later replaced by HMNZS Royalist) were acquired on the basis that they would complement the aircraft carrier operations of the neighbouring R.A.N.

As the Easter of 1947 approached, Black Prince was in the Calliope Dock at the Naval Base in suburban Devonport on Auckland Harbour for an extended re-fit; the corvette Arbutus was berthed opposite with several HTMLs and smaller ships nearby; Bellona was at sea exercising with the Australians; and the minesweeper Hautapu, the navy's fourth main unit, was at Lyttelton.

For some reason pay rates in the RNZN had been allowed to fall well behind those for equivalent ranks in both the New Zealand Army and Air Force, and despite a government undertaking to redress this, when it was learned on the evening of March 31 that new scales still left the navy ratings at a considerable disadvantage, the to-and-froing between ships across the docks became intense. In dry dock, Black Prince had only about half her suite of RN officers and NZ crew aboard, but they were soon joined by ratings from Arbutus and the base, HMS Philomel, itself.

The next day, April 1, a mass protest meeting was held on the base, and seeking to circumvent major trouble the base commander, Commander Peter Phipps (later Vice-Admiral, NZ's first native-born admiral) addressed the men in the base Gymnasium, appealing for calm, before leaving for Wellington for consultations with the government.

The government's response was non-commital, and the following day the men walked off the base en masse, with Commander Phipps at one point trotting beside them appealing to the crew leaders not to take their actions to this new, more serious stage. Over the next days a series of meetings by the mutinous crewmen were held at Devonport football oval, but the government refused to budge, and positions only became more hardened.

Finally, Phipps was forced to issue an ultimatum. Return to duty and face naval punishment - or suffer immediate dismissal from the service. In Auckland alone, almost 200 men chose the latter course. Told that they could return to be base and ships to collect their possessions, they were met at the locked gates by the Master At Arms, (later Lieutenant) K.F. Connew, to be escorted inside one by one, and made to surrender their uniforms.

Meantime the strike action had spread to Hautapu in Lyttelton. At sea, the RN officers had kept the Bellona's crew busy, and on return her captain sought to avert trouble by immediately sending 200 of her crew on leave on docking. But soon they too were infected by the radical feeling around the dockside pubs.

When it came time to return to their ship, more than 100 had deserted. A suggestion was made to send Royal Marines aboard to arrest them, which the captain sensibly ignored, instead issuing a time limit by which the men could return before being offically listed as deserters. About half complied.

Most of these details come from Kevin Baker's book: Mutiny, Terrorism, Riots and Murder: A History of Sedition in Australia and New Zealand. By scrolling down, you can come to Baker's report on the RNZN mutiny of 1947 here:
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=tzrOqE9JjjIC&pg=PA103&lpg=PA103&dq=royal+New+Zealand+Navy+Mutiny+1947&source=bl&ots=_S6m-v01wK&sig=X-mM6HxB6peZBE9jSUroKzGPdpA&hl=en&ei=eXy2SbvILpCw6wOa5IWlCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA108,M1


Outcome: With the dismissal of hundreds of men, and recruiting affected, the small Royal New Zealand Navy was left undermanned for years, and its developoment set back. Baker says that instead of recommissioning in June, as planned, it was necessary to place HMNZS Black Prince , one of the only two cruisers and main fleet units, in reserve for three years.

He appears to be astray however in some details of the fates of the ships afterwards. Baker says Black Prince only ever returned to service briefly before being sent back to Britain for scrapping. Not so I think. Black Prince represented the RNZN at the 1953 Coronation Review and in the Mediterranean later her crew were involved in rescue and relief operations after the Agosoli earthquake in Greece. There are references to her exercising with RAN ships into the latter half of the 1950s, and she was sold to Mitsui of Japan for scrapping in Osaka in May 1962.

HMNZS Bellona, as flagship, had a chequred career and several mishaps - an engine room fire, and hit by a dud rocket fired by an aircraft from HMAS Sydney. A grounding near Nelson, NZ, however, was pretty amusing ...

From a Bellona website:

Bellona was leaving Nelson early on the morning of November 10,1948 when her bow just failed to clear the mudbanks off Haulashore Island on the turn to the harbor entrance. She ran aground for about 8 minutes with no damage. The story of her refloating is quite interesting: All hands were mustered on the quarter-deck at 0320 hours and the RN captain, who had a reputation for exacting instant obedience, ordered everyone to jump while the engines went full astern. The combined weight of 550 men (about 40 tons) worked and the Bellona floated free. A humorous part of the story is that two cooks had jumped overboard and had to be picked as they thought the order to "jump" meant jump overboard.


Now that's a real 'Kiwi' story! Unlike the Aussies, when Britain said 'jump,' the Kiwis always jumped:)

[herakles]

Thanks Herk,

I think you are referring to what was nicknamed “The Bullring” which took place in either France or Belgium, not sure which now. These soldiers were sent from the front line for extensive training, and the Instructors went too far, using bully tactics. They had forgotten that these soldiers were hardened front line troops, who had seen more action and been through terrible ordeals. The soldiers didn’t appreciate that sort of treatment from their own side, especially after the sacrifices they had made.

As for the Australian troops, they were a law unto themselves.

Wombat
(James).

I'm not referring to The Bullring James. I am referring to the barbaric practices used on British soldiers as field punishment - like being chained to wheels. This is not the moment to raise the matter of the extensive use of firing squads. The Australians broke up one such punishment centre. This matter was shown in that excellent series on TV "The Monocled Mutineer".

Indeed there was much disobedience from Australian soldiers in France. At least double the number of AWOL's for instance. Their basic attitude was: we are volunteers who have come here to fight not be subjected to petty Army traditions. They knew they were immune from the firing squad as a result of that frightful incident of Breaker Morant in the Boer War. The big punishment for an Australian was to be sent home in disgrace.

Another excellent post Kooka. I want to know who was NZ PM at the time. I have my suspicions. NZ is so different to Australia in many ways. I note they are bringing back Sirs and Dames. Says it all really.

[astraltrader]

Herk I think the NZ Premier at the time was Peter Fraser [Labour Party].

[herakles]

Herk I think the NZ Premier at the time was Peter Fraser [Labour Party].

Thank you. Not the man I was expecting. During his term in office the notion that NZ troops be answerable first to the NZ Govt. was born. As with Curtain he had to decide if NZ troops were to be recalled from North Africa or left there as Churchill wanted. They stayed.

[astraltrader]

Right. Of course it comes back now - he was the Premier who took over at the start of 1940 from memory.

[kookaburra]

Yes, it was Peter Fraser , and I should have mentioned that. Labour PM from 1940-49, Scottish-born Socialist who emigrated to New Zealand at age 26 because he thought it would be more progressive than Britain. Became a wharfie, charged with sedition in his opposition to NZ's involvement with Britain's 'imperialistic' cause during WW11, but supported its participation in WW11 against the the Nazis. Demanded a direct NZ government say in the disposition of NZ troops after the disaster of Greece, but left them in the Middle East, unlike Australia.

Was dressed down and humiliated on a visit to Washington by US Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and the US somewhat marginalised NZ's role in the Pacific War because of his leadership. But he was a prominent in international affairs, including the formation of the United Nations (but opposed the veto powers of the Security Council).

I've seen nothing that explains his hard-nosed approach to the RNZN mutiny, and can only guess that his ideals may have been out of sympathy with the service, dominated as it was by upper class RN officers. But that's just an off-the-top of my head guess.

I also meant to mention that to help overcome the manpower shortage caused by the navy mutiny and dismissals of 1947, the NZ women's naval service - disbanded immediately after the war - was re-constituted.

Just as an aside, I'll bet the Prime Minister Herk was wondering about was his predecessor, the Australian-born and raised Michael Joseph Savage, Prime Minister from 1935 up to his death in office in 1940, and still regarded in the labour movement as one of New Zealand's finest leaders. Took NZ into the war and was totally committed to Britain's cause.

Back to mutinies shortly with the Australian experiences,
on which I've mnaged to gather some additional details to those shown in the Australian forum's 'HMAS Australia mutiny' thread.

[kookaburra]

ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY: RAPID GROWTH AND SHRINKAGE - RAPID GROWTH OF MUTINY AND DISSENSION,


Covering an intense period of unrest in the Royal Canadian Navy, which started during WW11, but resulted in a quite major grouping of insurrections in the postwar period - and which led, fortunately, to major reforms.

My main sources here are (1) The landmark report that led to those reforms, from a Board of Inquiry led by Rear Admiral E.R. 'Rollo' Maingay, known as the 'Maingay Report.' It's 56 pages. You can read it here:

http://www.navalandmilitarymuseum.org/resource_pages/controversies/mainguy.pdf

(2) The other is a journal article written by Lt-Commander Richard H. Gimblett, PhD: What the Maingay Report Never Told Us: The Tradition of 'Mutiny' in the Royal Canadian Navy before 1949. You can read that in full here:

http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vo1/no2/doc/85-92-eng.pdf

I've also picked up a few additional details from a blogger,
'Collin' of Essex, but verified the the details where I can.

In the 1940s the RCN appears to have gone through the most intense period of unrest of any Dominion Navy, although I can also find six incidents of crew dissension or 'mutiny' in the RAN during WW11 and the months immediately preceding it (next post).

I think all the Dominion services inherited Royal Navy tradition and rules that allowed men to forward individual grievances up the chain, but there was no law which allowed the expression of group grievances - in fact it was illegal.


The somewhat distinctive method that the Canadian lower decks chose to express their group grievances were to lock themselves in their messdecks and remain silent: forcing officers in a number of instances to bring them to discussion by calling down shutes and hatches.

We'll come to the major outbreaks, on the cruiser HMCS Ontario in 1947, and the events on the widely dispersed destroyers Athabaskan, Crescent, and aircraft carrier HMCS Magnificent in February-March 1949 shortly. These led to the Maingay inquiry (although the carrier incident was resolved quickly, little discussed has been a whole chain of minor to outright dangerous acts of sabotage on Magnificent in the 12 months leading up to that event).

There appears to have been four core causes in these events - (1) the massive and rapid expansion of the RCN in wartime, and its almost equally rapid contraction immediately afterwards;(2) the rising sense of nationalism among Canadian crews : (3) a cultural clash with RCN officers deeply ingrained by training in RN class attitudes towards their crews; (4) poor conditions, and recreational facilities aboard their ships, particularly the films provided, which were in stark contrast to those in ships of the neighbouring United States Navy.

* The Canadian Navy went from 1,585 personnel (officers and men) and 16 ships in 1939 to a peak strength of 93,034 and 956 ships of all kinds during WW11 (Maingay Report). By some accounts, it ended up the third largest navy in the world at the end of WW11, and training procedures had been strained. (the RAN peaked at around 39,000 men). The mass influx of the RCNVR men also brought more democratic and 'Canadian' attitudes with them into the navy.


Postwar, the RCN was quickly wound back back to a service of less than 10,000 personnel and 54 ships. The consequent shuffling of senior personnel often broke the bonds built between officers and men, and the Petty Officers grouping somehow lost their role as the traditional middlemen. On the other hand the delayed demobilisation of specialist units such as the naval fire fighting service caused a massive increase in desertion.

The Maingay Report is pretty diplomatic in alluding to the next underlying cause: the inherited tradition of British class attitudes among the officers, but there is enough there to read 'between the lines' of the report's intent. It refers to men saying that they felt they were being treated as 'cogs in a machine' rather than having any recognised participatory role in the running of the ship. Again and again there is a wish expressed to see the ships following 'Canadian routines.' The mutiny destroyer HMCS Athabaskan was recognised as having the widest 'social gulf,' and a greater 'lack of sympathy between the officers and men' of any ship in the Canadian Navy.

The men also deeply resented being refused the right to have 'Canada' or Maple Leaf badges on their uniforms.
In ports, Maingay says this led to fights with sailors from the USN, who were constantly mistaking them for 'limeys.'

I've mentioned elsewhere, but its worth repeating here, a conclusion reached by Alan Filewood, in his work 'Theatre, Navy and The Narrative of 'True Canadianism', raising the question whether RCN meant the 'Royal Canadian Navy' or the 'Royal Colonial Navy.' He says:


The last issue — an assertion of "an uncaring officer corps harbouring aristocratic British attitudes inappropriate to Canadian democratic sensitivities" — went beyond the question of sailors' morale and touched on the basic identity of the Canadian Navy and indeed, on the national identity of Canada as a whole.

It was to have ramifications in the process undertaken in later decades, painful to many of the officers concerned, of deliberately cutting off many of the British traditions in such areas as ensigns and uniforms.

So... a chronology of the Canadian Navy's troubles:

HMCS Skeena, January 1936, at Acapulco, Mexico: Crewmen refused work and barricaded their mess decks when the captain delayed the expected adoption of a tropical work routine (beginning at dawn and ending by noon).


Outcome: The ship’s Executive Officer entered the mess deck and promised to intervene with the captain on their behalf, which he did with successfully, resolving the issue without charges.

HMCS Assiniboine, River Class destroyer, 1940.
Dr Gimblett refers to a mess deck lock-in that took place in Assiniboine, in the late-spring or summer of 1940. The Gimblett article says the war-time details of this incident have been lost.

HMCS Reindeer, armed yacht, 1942.
In late November 1942 in Sydney, Nova Scotia the crew used the pretext of lack of shore leave to express their concern over the growing instability of their captain. Again the outcome appears to have been suppressed, possibly due to wartime sensitivities and restrictions.

HMCS Iroquois, Tribal Class destroyer , July 19, 1943 Captain W.B. Holms. In what was said to be the most severe mutiny of any allied ship in WW11 occurred when 190 Iroquois sailors barricaded themselves in their mess decks in protest over a stoppage of Shore Leave by the captain (known as 'Scarface' to his men).

Posted eselwhere by ‘Collin’ from Essex: Between 1942 and 1944, Captain 'Mook' Madgwick was first lieutenant of Iroquois, based in Britain ...However, he had to deal with an incipient mutiny, brought about by his captain, Commander W B L "Scarface" Holms. Holms insisted upon peacetime routines such as Bovril and sherry on the bridge and ordered men to work in their good uniforms; he also stopped leave arbitrarily and inflicted group punishments....
[Madgwick] considered reporting the internal affairs of Iroquois to the British authorities, but guessed correctly that he would be told that Canadians must sort these out for themselves. Mutiny simmered for months and was delayed only by a short visit ... to Halifax.
Matters came to a head in July 1943. Though Iroquois later rescued 628 survivors from the troopship Duchess of York, Holms had withheld fire while three troopships which he was escorting 300 miles west of Vigo were attacked by German aircraft, and two were sunk. Then on arrival in Plymouth, after a German prisoner complained that he had been robbed of a uniform badge, Holms again stopped leave, despite Madgwick's protests. The junior rates locked themselves on their messdecks while Holms fell down to knock himself unconscious in his bathroom. The mutiny ended when Holms was stretchered ashore and Madgwick ordered to take Iroquois to sea.
A busy patrol under Madgwick's temporary command settled the Iroquois' nerves and Madgwick was exonerated at a subsequent inquiry. Nevertheless the commander-in-chief at Plymouth told him: "Madgwick, you've had a hard time! But I cannot have a mutinous ship in my command. Sail within the hour for Scapa!"

HMCS Chebogue 1944. Passingly mentioned elsewhere, but no details given.


HMS Nabob, mainly Canadian –manned escort carrier, during WW2. Captain H.N. Lay
With a Fleet Air Arm squadron embarked and British Merchant Service personnel in the Engine Room, the ship became embroiled in a dispute over disparities between Canadian and British rates of pay and victualling (the RCN was better in both respects), resulting in a brief lock-in and then a large number of desertions.


Outcome: The captain reported the ships sub-standard living conditions to the Admiralty, and was able to use the incidents to gain improvements.

HMCS Riviere-du-Loup, corvette, January 10, 1945.
When the crew learned that the captain had taken ill and the Executive Officer (a Volunteer Reservist in whose professional competence they already had lost confidence) was designated to take the ship to sea, this prompted them to demand his removal. Outcome unknown.

HMCS Nootka, Tribal Class destroyer. Undated. Dr Gimblett reproduces evidence from an earlier inquiry (pre-Mainguy) that identified Nootka as the ship having the largest number of desertions in a rash of mass desertions affecting RCN ships. An Ordinary seamen gave evidence that Nootka 'would never have sailed from Halifax at the end of July if the men had been organised," and Leading Seaman Max Reid (who rose to the rank of captain later) spoke of 'seething unrest within the ship.'

HMCS Micmac destroyer, December 5, 1946. Captain, Commander R. L. Hennesssy . Leading Seaman Albert Allan Elliott became the only Canadian sailor to be court-martialled for mutinous behavior , charged on two counts that he “did endeavour to seduce a man from his duty or allegiance to His Majesty”, and a third count that he “did unlawfully attempt to stir up a disturbance in... the ship’s company of HMCS Micmac.” The incident followed a dispute with the Executive Officer over Shore Leave, when Elliott attempted to keep the hands in the mess decks at ‘Fall In’ by issuing ‘make and mend clothing’ orders to them at that time.

Outcome: Elliott was summarily tried by the captain, found guilty, and sentenced to 90 days detention. However on review it was determined that the offence warranted a higher-level hearing and on 17 January 1947 a Standing Court Martial was convened at Stadacona. Elliott was once again was found guilty and sentenced to 12months in detention, reduced to three months on appeal.


HMCS Ontario cruiser, at Nanoose Harbour, near Vancouver Island, August 20 1947, Captain James Hibbard . Brought out of reserve as the New Entry training cruiser the ship was at anchor in the fleet exercise area at Nanoose Bay when crew members involved in the Welfare Committees came into disagreement with the Executive Officer, Commander J.V. Brock mainly over an issue about wearing uniforms on work details. As a result 50 junior hands staged a lock-in in the mess decks and added a demand for Commander Brock’s removal . Seeking to de-fuse the situation Captain Hibbard addressed the ship’s company over the loud-speaker broadcast system, and was sufficiently reassuring that when he eventually ordered “Clear lower decks,” the men responded by falling in.

Outcome: Commander Brock was transferred to another ship within days, with the concurrence of The Flag Officer Pacific Coast, Admiral Rollo Mainguy. The men involved in the 'mutiny' were dispersed to other ships throughout the fleet. During his inquiry Admiral Maingay himself admitted that Brock’s transfer was done with undue haste and without a full investigation, a course which he said ‘appears to have been neither completely wise nor completely fair.”

By implication, Maingay is accepting that weak action by the naval command (including himself), in which the protesting men had prevailed against the X.O., set the scene for the climactic events of 1949. It is underlined by the fact that some 25 seamen from Ontario had been transferred to HMCS Crescent , one of the destroyers on which the last mutinies occurred, and I think there were some on Athabaskan.

Worth noting too, that while the 20th Century 'mutinies' are generally more in the nature of 'industrial disputes,' in the Canadian examples this appears to be the third or fourth occasion when group action was directed at inadequate or unpopular captains or senior officers. There would be more. We now turn to 1949:

HMCS Athabaskan, destroyer, at Manzanillo Mexico, February 26, 1949. Captain M.A. Medland
Another 'lock-in.' 90 ratings refused to leave their mess & fall in for work, apparently over changes in work routines and other matters, and officers were first forced to communicate with them down an ammunition hatch. They asked to talk to the captain. When Captain Medland walked in he saw a list of written demands on the table - and to avoid the legal consequences of 'mutiny' that this threatened, he carefully place his hat over them, pretending not to notice them. But while doing so his eye caught the first three items.

When would they go to 'tropical' work routines?
Why were they men always being told to put their hats on straight?
And the third was about a general lack respect shown towards them.
Captain Medland talked informally with the men, and after he left had 'stand easy' piped, and 'hands carry on with your work' piped 10 minutes later. All the men turned out. Athabaskan's 'mutiny' was over.

Outcome: Charges of 'slackness' were made against those with no excuse, and those charged were issued with a 'caution' rather than punishment.


HMCS Crescent, destroyer, March 15, 1949, at Nanking, China. Another lock-in, in which 83 men barricaded themselves in their mess decks and refused to turn out for duty. The situation was resloved in a similar fashion to Athabaskan, with the captain talking informally to the men - although in this case a written list of demands had been left on a mess table.

Written in various hands, it asked for the X.O. to be replaced by a First Lieutenant, protested about work routines, particularly the number of sentries being placed in the wet mess, causing harder work routines, and ask for a 'a little consideration from the captain.' The men were also unhappy about the callous way they had been treated in delivering some some liquor rations to the British Consulate in Nanking. They said for four years the ship had been the happiest in the RCN, but there was now not one happy man aboard. 'Esprit de Corps is nil,' the document said.

The captain asked that the men make individual complaints, as required by the navy rules, and he would consider them. After that the men turned out for duty when piped, and no disciplinary action was taken against them. The ship was caught up in the midst of the final acts of the Chinese Revolution at the time.

HMCS Magnificent, aircraft carrier, Caribbean, March 20, 1949. Captain (later Admiral) D.W. Piers
After flying-stations on this Sunday, 32 of Magnificents aircraft handlers stayed in their mess deck rather than falling in. They too targeted their X.O. Flying schedules cancelled by bad weather had disrupted work routines, and the men felt they had not been informed considerately of the circumstances that kept them on standby for long periods. The RCN was then just becoming accustomed to the more complex organisation of aircraft carriers - there were tensions between the general crew and its Air Group, and the aircraft handlers were actually a discrete group to themselves, sitting somewhere between the general crew and the Air Group. The men returned to work after Piers, a hard-bitten former destroyer commander, listened to their grievances, and no charges were laid.

Behind this quick and satisfactory resolution, however, were more ominous signs. For more than a year, mysterious incidents of malicious damage and sabotage of equipment had been occurring on the carrier, and noone was ever found responsible.

Maingay's report says that some were quite minor - a carley float thrown overboard, while the removal of a stanchion from a flight deck safety barrier could have had serious consequences. On two other occasions the rungs on long ladderways were cut almost through, and could have resulted in serious injury. Even more serious were at least two occasions when sand had been found to have been thrown in the bearings of the flight arrestor wires gear. The discovery - at the last minute, before flying operations - of water mixed in the fuel of one of the aircraft was, after an on-board inquiry, finally put down condensation, but nevertheless remained concerning. It could have led to the aircraft ditching or crashing on landing if not discovered.


Maingay is careful to say these incidents were never proved against any of the crew, and that dockyard workers had also been working aboard the carrier at times over the period.

The sequence of RCN mutinies also took place at the time of a national maritime strike in Canada, and in the depths of the Cold War, the inquiry was launched to ascertain whether there was any communist influences infecting the navy's lower decks. No evidence of this was found - rather, the typical RCN rating was said to be a 'good red-necked Alberta boy.'

Just one for all kinds of reasons not very happy in and with the service way back then, it seems. They felt their officers aped the Royal Navy, and for them it just wasn't 'Canadian' enough. And unable to have their country's name on their shoulders, it felt like they were wearing someone else's uniform. After the Maingay report, which of course identifies other problems - including mis-leading recruiting advertisements for the Navy, leading to thwarted expectations - improvements gradually flowed throughout the service, and as far as I can ascertain there has been little or no sign of repetition of these immediate postwar problems.

[herakles]

The Canadians certainly had more than their fair share of mutiny. Work conditions feature a lot but so do those related to relationships. We had all entered a new world at this time where subservience was starting to be questioned. So whereas in the past, a poor officer would be tolerated, now he would not be.

It's good to note that all the matters were resolved without too much fuss.

Royal navy traditions were at the time most inflexible and needed changing. This wouldn't happen overnight.

A good post K.

[kookaburra]

Royal navy traditions were at the time most inflexible and needed changing. This wouldn't happen overnight.

A good post K.


Thanks. In fairness, I should mention a couple of extended British TV series I once watched that portrayed life on modern British warships in about the 1980s. The first was about life on a frigate - I just can't bring to mind the ship's name or the name of the series, which was then followed up by another about life on the carrier HMS Ark Royal.

One would have to say that the portrayal of the manner of the captains and the X.O.s and other officers in inter-acting with their men was entirely 'modern,' decent, and wise. Much more 'democratic' than some of the earlier incidents suggested in this thread. I think big changes must have started in the expanded RN too in WW11.

Edit: Just looked the TV series up: they were the BBC series produced between 1973 and 1977 called 'Warship,' a fictional series set aboard a fictional HMS Hero, but filmed aboard the Leander Class frigate HMS Phoebe.

The second was a follow-up BBC documentary series about life on Ark Royal of the late 1970s called 'Sailor.' The Rod Stewart theme song 'I Am Sailing' apparently helped make it enormously popular. BTW, apparently these series are still available on DVD.

[herakles]

Good point K. The world had moved on and change had to happen. Not only in attitudes between OR's and officers but also industrial relations. I've even heard a rumour that women now serve on board ship. :rolleyes:

The days of blind obedience are gone. So too has the British Empire and all that went with that. Though some older people refuse to accept this even today.

When one thinks that it was in the 1950's that the MoD thought nothing of ordering armed forces personnel to be guinea pigs for the Monte Bello atomic bombs testing with no regard to their safety. That couldn't happen today. Why, even the Gurkhas have had a decent deal at last!

[kookaburra]

Hmmm, yes - and this is a less attractive thing to say. One has to remember that the RN went into WW11 out of the 1930s, socially, surely, the most unattractive decade in British history. I've heard it said, and would not entirely disagree, that England was itself a semi-fascist country during the 1930s.

My God, think of them, a country crushed by Depression, and the Mitford girls, Mosely, the Prince of Wales and many others, all gadding around star-struck by their beloved Herr Hitler.

[herakles]

Indeed. It's similar to their love affair with Communism in its early days. The Duke of Windsor never did stop his affair with Hitler.

But there were other forces at work, people like Churchill, who had the vision. Just as well or 1940 would have been a very different story. At least by the start of the war, they had started preparations. Though it's as well the Commonwealth was there.

In fact, they ,ay be returning to the 30's again:

From the Daily Telegraph today.

Britain is showing signs of sliding towards a 1930s-style depression, the Bank of England says today for the first time.

[kookaburra]

Mutinies in the Royal Australian Navy PART ONE - The WW1 Era

In 1919 Fleet Admiral Viscount Jellicoe visited Australia and other dominions to advise on naval strategies, and - in the light of the parliamentary uproar over events on the flagship HMAS Australia - was asked by Prime Minister William Morris Hughes whether he thought young Australians were amenable to naval discipline. Author Kevin Baker (also see source below) says Jellicoe replied with some insight in the Australian character.

He said that he believed Australians could accept discipline provided the reasons for that discipline were explained to them so that they could understand it

And of course Admiral Collingwood had famously remarked that mutiny reflected more upon the authorities than the lower deck men who reacted to the bounds of discipline.

The first two mutinies in the R.A.N. both seem to have been a good cases in point ...

The RAN Bridging Train Mutiny, January 13, 1916, at Imbros, Greece
The first mutiny in the Royal Australian Navy took place on land only four years after its formation, in 1915 - and in fact involved the Navy's most highly decorated unit of WW1

The 300 men of the RAN Bridging Train, an engineering support unit, had gone ashore under fire at Gallipoli, spent almost five months on the beach at Suvla Bay under shot and shell, had two men kiled, more than sixty wounded, two died from illness, and many others fell ill in the appalling conditions. They were awarded 20 decorations for bravery and good conduct.

A group of 50 them were, as it happens, the very last to leave, at 4.30 am on the night of December 20 (20 minutes after the last Australian soldiers also went) , having maintained wharves for the British rearguard to go out on from Lala Baba Beach in the covert evacuation that marked the end of that tragically mis-conceived British adventure.

Their leader Lt Commander (later Rear Admiral Sir) Leighton Seymour Bracegirdle was an outstanding and popular commander. The second-in-command was Lt Thomas Arthur Bond, who had received the DSO for bravery in New Guinea. He was an accountant in peacetime, but there had been snafus with the men's pay from the beginning of their service, and Bond - who knows why now - had been unable to keep up with them.

When the Unit was reconstituted at Imbros in the Greek Islands they had been without pay for five weeks, and spent a spartan Christmas in Greece. Bond was scraping up some funds for them. But then the mail started coming in. The men's families had not received their payments either, some home pay arrangements had been completely cut off, and women and children in Melbourne and Hobart had spent a bleak Christmas both without their men or any money.

It was the final straw. The men were outraged. Bracegirdle was in hospital in Egypt with malaria and jaundice, and somehow Bond - perhaps overwhelmed - failed to attend to it. Their complaints ignored, on January 13, 189 of them (these numbers vary in different sources, author Kevin Baker mentions 60 out of 78 drivers) , apologetically but firmly refused to turn out for duty until they and their families were paid.

Promised that action would be forthcoming to restore their pay, they reluctantly turned to, and when Bracegirdle returned the pay problems were resolved.

The Australian commander was prepared to let it go at that, but Rear Admiral Arthur Christian, RN, the local RN commander on the Island (famous name, I wonder?) insisted on disciplinary action against the mutineers. Seven ringleaders were found guilty of deliberately refusing orders and sentenced to four months jail.


The unit saw further action on the Suez Canal and in Sinai, but was disbanded in 1917.

Sources: Kevin Baker: Mutiny Terrorism, Riots and Murder: A History of Seditionin Australia: RAN website article by Greg Swinden; Mac's Ahoy website


HMAS Fantome, July 26, 1917, Acting Commander Tobias Jones, RN. A genuine mix of the old and the new, the 1070 ton composite steam and sail sloop Fantome was launched in Scotland in 1901 and transferred to the RAN in 1914. Capable of cruising at long range as a result of her sails, she was a beautiful-looking vessel in some ways, but poorly suited for the tropics in which she would spend most of her RAN service life. War-time crew numbers also led to severe overcrowding.

There was not enough space for the men to sling hammocks, and many slept on the decks subject to tropical rain storms, says Kevin Baker's book (above). Their food was poor, mainly salted rations. In 1917 the ship swept by influenza, and in Hong Kong 107 men were landed for hospital treatment.

It was prior to their next voyage that Acting Commander Jones decided the listless crew needed ‘smartening up’ and added drilling - marching in fours - to their work routines. Jones was an arch disciplinarian and in fact had already been warned by senior officers against ‘going too far’ – he had administered six canes strokes to a boy seaman for making an insolent remark, although physical punishment was banned in the RAN.

At sea on July 26 Jones again ordered drilling on the quarter deck, and eight of 13 men refused to fall in.
Four stokers joined in sympathy, saying they would refuse to man the 'dog watch' unless the drill was cancelled. They maintained while alright in port, it was an unreasonable 'hardship' at sea. After addressing the men, and cautioning them that their actions in affecting the efficiency of the ship was abetting the enemy, A/Comm Jones finally had all 12 arrested.

Outcome: A court-martial was held in Singapore, and the men were charged with conspiracy to commit mutiny. While a conspiracy was not proved (mutiny itself would have been a more serious charge), all 12 were found guilty and sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labour.

Authorities did react and some improvements were made in crew arrangements on Fantome. Acting Commander Jones never advanced in rank. (source: Baker)


HMAS Psyche Pelorus Class cruiser, Bay of Bengal, c1915-16. There was an outbreak of indiscipline on the elderly cruiser HMAS Psyche in late 1915 or 1916, which Herakles has referred to in his Australian forum thread on this ship and her sister ship HMAS Pioneer. I have read several passing references to it, in former crewman Dudley Rickett's memoir for example (Australian Naval Historical Society site) but not much detail in main sources.

The problem seems to have been caused by monotonous patrol duties in the Bay of Bengal, poor conditions and food, and mass outbreaks of illness that at one time in July 1916 saw half the ship's complement hospitalised in Hong Kong (shades of Fantome, above). Court-martials had been conducted in Singapore in February and March 1916. I think the particular incidents of concern were when stokers refused to turn out to duty in the Bay of Bengal and the work was done by Petty Officers. I've found no report detailed reports of their outcome, possibly due to war-time censorship.

The Ricketts memoirs, from memory, suggest the incidents were 'swept under the carpet.


POSTWAR: HMAS Australia, June 1919, at Fremantle.

This incident, at the flagship's first port of call on its return to Australia after four years of war, and its considerable aftermath, has been well covered in Herakles 's 'HMAS Australia mutiny' thread in the Australian forum. That can be found here:

http://www.worldnavalships.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1808

Next: RAN mutinies in WW11.

[Blackfly]

Good job on the write up on our Navy. This is the stuff that should be taught to the new OS joining the fleet as to why we have Mess Meetings and Ships Committee Meetings now on a regular basis with the XO.

Thanks for the efforts.

[herakles]

Reading the Bridging Train mutiny certainly reinforces Collingwood's comments. RA Christian should have ensured an apology was delivered rather than acting as a twat. (There's another difference between us and our English cousins. It's pronounced "twot")

The behaviour of the men on HMAS Fantome was no different to the behaviour of the ANZACs in France. Well, at least the A part of the word.

[kookaburra]

Mutinies in the Royal Australian Navy, Part 2 - the WW11 Era.

Time will only allow me to do one case here at present - but an intruguing one, the most severe mutiny in the RAN during WW11.

HMAS Pirie, Corvette, Townsville, Qld, June 9, 1943. Lt Commander Charles Ferry Mills, RAN.

It had been a less than stellar career. Charles Ferry Mills had been a 1917 inductee into the RAN, and retired 13 years later, apparently having struggled up to the rank of lieutenant through length of service. On leaving the Navy, he became a Tax Office clerk in Melbourne. There Mr Mills may have remained for who knows how long, but war needs have a way of reviving the prospects of some men, however briefly.

It’s a harsh assessment. Others have been harsher. When very ordinary men are placed in positions of real power over others, things rarely go well - particularly on an enclosed life vessel like a ship at sea. It’s the reason why the Navy has traditionally put individuals rising to command through the most intense and on-going character scrutiny at every stage of their careers.

But the needs of wartime can short-cut the process. It happened here.

Recalled to wartime service, Mills spent three years in the Victorian training establishment, HMAS Londsdale, advancing one rank to Lieutenant Commander. Then, perhaps to the astonishment of both himself and his good wife – who had a background role in what followed – he was placed in command of one of His Majesty’s Australian ships, the little Bathurst Class corvette HMAS Pirie.

Commissioned at Whyalla in October 1942, under Mills’s command Pirie was to have her baptism of fire, a moment of moment of death and glory, very quickly. On April 11, 1943, she was part of Operation Lilliput, the deployment of 14 corvettes to ferry and supply troops making the first big push against the Japanese in the Buna-Gona area of New Guinea. She was escorting a British merchantman, SS Hanyang off Oro Bay when the two ships were subject to an intense attack by a large force of Japanese fighters and dive bombers.

Pirie had suffered six very close near misses when a bomb, coming from the rear, penetrated the protective canopy of the bridge, sheered off the helmsman’s protective apron, killed the gunnery officer instantly, and exploded on the foredeck, killing the six ratings of the forward gun crew, and wounding four others.

Seven dead: it was the most severe combat casualty list of any RAN corvette in the war, other than the heroic loss of HMAS Armidale four months earlier. Hanyang suffered a further three killed in the attack. Pirie’s gun crews had performed well, shooting down three of the attackers.

But when it was all over, crewmen on HMAS Pirie were saying that the ship was ‘under the control of the coxswain’ when the ship was hit – with Commander Mills crouching on the deck.

Now this may be much too harsh. Others were crouching too – it’s instinctive, and the only intelligent thing to do if one had a chance to think about it. But the fact is, after six months under his command, Mills’s crew had come to detest him. Author Kevin Baker in Mutiny, Terrorism Riot and Murder: A History of Sedition in Australia and New Zealand, suggests Mills was a vain and foolish man, who sought to overcome his shortcomings by acting as an arch and petty disciplinarian. Greg Barter, a reviewer of Baker and Tom Frame’s related work in the Law Society of NSW Journal says Mills was utterly unsuitable to captain any ship, and about the only thing the reviewer notes about the man with approval was Mills’s death in 1947.

Aboard HMAS Pirie feelings had been so high that some crew had in fact stooped to creeping up to Mills’s cabin door at night and hurling insults at him, before fleeing down companionways to avoid discovery. They had given him nicknames like ‘Offal Guts,’ ‘Fender Belly,’ and sometimes worse.

Moreover, conditions on the damaged ship were now very bad. The men had received neither mail nor their pay. Gaping holes in the wet decks were covered with tarpaulins. The general atmosphere of insubordination may have been such that when the ship was escorted to Maryborough Queensland for repairs, Lt. Commander Mills finally resolved to take his revenge on all of them.

Shore Leave was refused to the entire crew during the four weeks she was in dock, under the chaotic conditions of repair. Mills himself meantime had left the ship and taken up quarters ashore with his wife, who had come up from the South to join him.

Set to rights again, Pirie steamed to Townsville to await orders for her next tour of duty. Again, the crew were refused their expected Shore Leave. On June 9, as she was preparing to steam to Cid Harbour in the Whitsundays, the ordinary seamen refused to turn out for duty. Refusing a subsequent order sent from their commanding officer to fall in on the foredeck, they demanded a right to discuss their grievances with him. Instead of meeting the men (in contrast to the Canadian cases, and the HMAS Perth incident posted earlier) Mills issued orders that the leading seamen should address the men and resolve the problem. About half continued to refuse duty, and the commanding officer went ashore to report to naval authorities that his crew was in a state of mutinous assembly.

Naval Officer in Charge of the port immediately informed the Naval Board. It was a moment of truth for Lt Commander Charles Ferry Mills also.

Late that day an armed Navy guard was posted on the dock opposite the ship, and the crew were summoned to the quarter deck, where the Naval Officer in Charge read Articles Ten and Eleven of the Articles of War to them. The port officer ordered any who were not prepared to immediately return to duty now stand aside. None did, and the ship subsequently sailed for Cid Harbour on schedule.

Outcome: At Palm Island, the base for the joint Australian-US Task Force 74, a board of inquiry was held into what was by then being called a strike, and the matter was passed back to Mills to resolve by summary action. Mills issued sentences ranging from 21 to 60 days jail against 10 of his men, and four others received lesser punishment. Still there were complaints about the seemingly erratic nature of the process: men not involved, or asked to give evidence, were punished, and the atmosphere of discontent continued.

Some six weeks later Lr Commander Mills received a written reprimand from Navy Headquarters for the loss of discipline on his ship. He was heard to remark ‘it looks like it’s the bowler hat (return to civilian life) for me.’ It wasn’t – he was relieved of his command a short time later, and returned to a shore posting at the Flinders Naval Base training establishment. His passing two years after WW11 has already been noted.


A mutiny on Pirie’s sister ship, HMAS Mildura – and its more amusing sequel – will follow, and several others, in a wrap-up post to follow .

[kookaburra]

Royal Australian Navy WW11 cont'd:

Due to time constraints I am proceeding with this previously-prepared item on HMAS Westralia. I'll wrap -up with HMAS Mildura tomorrow.

HMAS Westralia, Armed Merchant Cruiser, Cairns, Christmas Day-Boxing Day , 1941. Captain Hudson, RN. Poorly equipped for extended service in tropical waters, Westralia had ferried men of Sparrow Force to East Timor and was conducting other troop ferrying duties. She had virtually ran out of supplies. The men, according to author Kevin Baker (source cited in earlier posts) had been living mainly on a diet of powdered eggs, prunes and rice for three weeks, causing many to suffer diarrhoea. As she approached Cairns for Christmas her plane was flown off to order fresh supplies, but when Christmas lunch arrived it was …the prunes and rice special yet again.

The men were kept hard at work loading supplies all Christmas Day, for a planned departure in the early morning hours of the next morning. The enticing sounds of Christmas merriment drifted from the shore. A request was made for a few hours Shore Leave, which Captain Hudson, all wartime business still (and, one would guess, wishing to avoid AWOLs so close to departure) refused.

Some time after midnight on December 26, he was advised that around 100 men were gathered around the anchor winches and threatening to impede the ship’s 3.30 am departure.

Hudson sent the master-at-arms to order them to disperse. Then, without further discussion, he ordered machine guns mounted on the bridge wings against any eventuality, and - some time later - for ‘Action Stations’ to be sounded. Every man not reporting to his post was to be placed under close arrest. There were 104 of them. In the end the Captain ordered a much smaller number of ringleaders to be held pending courts martial, and the others returned to their duties, taking the ship to Darwin.

Outcome: Unknown. Baker says the ships logs are incomplete for this period, and wartime censorship presumably suppressed the release of any subsequent proceedings.

Earlier, there had been an incident, scarcely a mutiny, on the destroyer HMAS Voyager, one of the famous 'Scrap Iron Fotilla' in the Mediterranean. Nonetheless, some details here:

HMAS Voyager, destroyer, Alexandria, July 23, 1940. Commander J.C. Morrow, RAN: Reported as starting with demands that the ship be given more adequate anti-aircraft armament, it finally came to a head in Alex. with a protest over orders that she be painted in a new camouflage pattern within the course of one day. This minor incident involved a sitdown strike outside the messes by 12 men.

Outcome: Resolved without further consequences when the First Lieutenant alerted Captain Morrow, and the camouflage painting was re-scheduled to take place over a further day.

[kookaburra]

Mutiny: Conditions and Class - a Penultimate thought

The United States Navy maintains that it has never had a mutiny. It's not quite true. Three men were summarily hanged on the navy brig Somers in 1842 for plotting to take over the ship; a number of 20th century incidents seem to have been racially based – such as the ammunition loading strike at Mare Island in 1944. There were anti-war incidents on US ships during the Vietnam era - but that’s another subject.

In general, the service of a much wealthier nation, by WW11 the USN provided far better pay and better conditions for men on its ships than seemed possible in either the RN or Dominion navies. In the Pacific, the ice-cream making machines on US ships became the stuff of awe and envy.

In the course of this thread we've boiled most 'mutinies' down to 20th century notions of the industrial dispute, with some effect of residual British notions of class distinctions widespread in the Royal Navy. Fortunately as weve discussed, this began to change during the war, leading to a much more modern and democratic navy in the decades that followed (see earlier posts regarding the BBC TV series 'Warship' and 'Sailor').

In regard to the latter, however, I found the photographs of conditions on two ships that did suffer mutinies, HMS Hood (in 1931 at Invergordon), and HMAS Australia (in 1919 at Fremantle) to be quite revealing.


These were both capital ships, but to me, the men's messes didn't look all that much changed since the days of sail.

The four pictures show.

1. The admiral's dining room on HMS Hood.
2. The men's messes on HMS Hood.
3. The men's mess on HMAS Australia.
4. A pay parade on HMAS Australia - note TWO ratings are actually barefoot - and the contrasting body language of the officers.

[kookaburra]

MUTINIES IN THE ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY (Conclusion) :

Wrapping up my contributions here.


In their book Mutiny!: naval insurrections in Australia and New Zealand, Allen & Unwin, (Sydney) 2000 Tom Frame and Kevin Baker say: ‘Since 1916 there have been more mutinies in the Royal Australian Navy than in any other navy maintained by an English-speaking nation.'

A reviewer for the Australian War Memorial stated that this was not backed up by evidence, and nor has it been confirmed in research for this thread. While such events are not a matter for competition, clearly the unrest that swept through various RCN ships during WW11 and particularly in the difficult period of contraction afterwards was equal to or exceeded the level of incidence in RAN. The most serious mutiny of all, in the Royal Indian Navy (post#1) has to be set against the historic struggle for independence.

In hindsight, it is also easy to see why, in the formative years of the young Dominion navies, there was a inbuilt recipe for trouble. Captains and officers were largely drawn from the RN, men from a distant, very different place, and a deeply entrenched class culture - even if it was then regarded as ‘the mother country.’ Attitudes were different, the Dominions were infinitely more egalitarian, their national pride and nascent search for their own identities was stirring, just at a time when the imperial attitudes of the British officer class towards ‘colonials’ was likely to have been more to the fore than ever.

Yet, taking a broader view, and looking beyond the list of specific events listed in this thread, one would have to say that in the main this interface was managed successfully: for every incident of anger, there are 10000 cases of brotherhood – men and ships working together in a common cause. The dominion navies played their role in both world wars bravely and well, again and again.

As more officers from their own naval colleges rose to command and Staff levels, this aspect of maintaining discipline would largely disappear anyway. By the end of WW11 the RAN, for example, was almost totally Australianized service. In Canada, ingrained attitudes appeared have lingered on within their own officer service, and when crews reacted, it was the officers who had to change to make way for the new Canada.

Here’s the last of my list of incidents within the RAN:


HMAS MILDURA, Bathurst Class late 1943, at Newcastle, Lt Commander John Little.

A mess deck lock in occurred after the ship had made a storm-lashed convoy escort from Gabo Island to Sydney, and the First Lieutenant determined that the sodden crew would be required to pay for broken mess crockery from the mess deck fund, and allowed only a shortened period of shore leave in Newcastle the next day, in contrast to a sister ship berthed opposite. The issues were resolved without further consequences by Captain Little, a respected former merchant marine officer who was presumably seasoned in the area of waterfront disputes.

Nonetheless there is an amusing first-hand account of the voyage, the ‘mutiny’ – and the ship painting sequel back in Sydney the next day – in the recollections of former Petty Officer Alan Newitt, published here on the HMAS Mildura Association website:


. http://home.vicnet.net.au/~mildura/war_years_8.htm

NOTE: Interestingly, there had been a a much more serious mutiny on Mildura’s Royal Navy name ship predecessor, the Pallas Class cruiser HMS Mildura in New Zealand in 1891. There are some quite dramatic details in this New Zealand newspaper report:
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=BOPT18910916.2.13&l=mi&e=-------10--1----0-all



HMAS Moresby, survey, armed escort vessel, off Kupang, Timor September 11, 1945. Captain’s name not mentioned in sources. En route to Darwin after surrender documents for Japanese forces on Timor were signed on board, 50 seamen refused duty in protest against ‘intolerable’ living conditions on the 27-year-old ship. The captain mustered the men and told them that their complaints would be looked at on reaching Darwin and the seamen returned to duty.


Outcome: A Board of Inquiry was held as soon as the ship reached Darwin, and while it found that the men’s actions were not to be condoned, noone was of a mind to take serious action against them at the moment of peace being signed. It was also felt their complaints had some justification. Morseby was deemed unsuitable for further survey work, and she was paid off soon after her return to Sydney early in the New Year.


One last dispute:
On August 17, 1970 industrial unrest swept through the engine rooms of ships tied up at the fleet base at Garden Island over the government's failure to pass on a merchant marine industry allowance, and 200 men walked off their ships - HMASs Sydney, Brisbane, Anzac, Yarra and Swan - to attend a 90-minute mass meeting in a courtyard. The meeting dissolved and the men returned to their ships after the Officer Commanding the Australian Fleet listened to their grievances and agreed to obtain a response within a week.

This was the last event that could be tentatively called a 'mutiny' in the R.A.N.

[Bear]

The walk off at Garden Island in 1970 was mostly by stokers and was not about an allowance or award not passed on--such things were irrelevant in the RAN. It was about Group Pay and the stokers' slot in the pecking order designated by civilian dills. Group pay caused more problems in the RAN than anything else in my experience. We went from a service where all rates were paid the same with increments of pay for promotion to each higher rate, to a layered system where each rate was adjudged to be more or less valuable to the service.
This led to some anomalies that only fools could have instituted. In some cases CPOs and POs were on lower pay than men they had authority over. The stokers' pay rate was one of the lowest. The dispute was resolved when the Admiral agreed that no action would be taken against any of the men who walked off and that their grievances would be considered. The 'no action' agreement got up a lot of officers' noses at the time, especially in HMAS Sydney.
There were many more mutinies, or perhaps 'industrial disputes' is a better way of putting it, than ever met the outside eye. The last I know of was in HMAS Swan--the modified DE--in either 1973 or 1974. I will have to check my records if you want information about this. I left the ship more than a year before this happened, but know of it from men with whom I served.
I'm quite sure that there have been incidences since that time, but news of them would not leak out.
The RAN is as tight as a drum in that respect.