The ship was under contract with the Military Sea Transportation Service to carry napalm bombs to be used by the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War and was originally bound for Sattahip, Thailand.
[15] Because Columbia Eagle was a U.S. flagged ship, she was a part of the Merchant Marine fleet and therefore eligible under government contracting rules to haul military supplies to the war zone.
Lundeberg School teaches the skills needed to get deck, engine and steward jobs on merchant marine ships.
The ship had been sailing on a Department of Defense supply charter carrying Napalm to the U.S. Air Force bases in Thailand for use in the Vietnam War.
McKay and Glatowski had planned their action to ensure that they would involve the least amount of crew members, knowing full well that they were risking their freedom if not their lives.
[19] By taking action right after the daily radio communication of the ship's location they ensured that the crew on the lifeboats would be found and rescued.
A Lockheed P-3B from VP-1 Crew 6, the "Scalf Hunters", operating from U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield, Thailand, was directed to launch a search and rescue (SAR) mission to find the SS Columbia Eagle and assist as needed.
The United States Coast Guard cutter Mellon was the first US military vessel to pursue the Columbia Eagle.
The destroyer, USS Turner Joy, was detached from the station at I Corps to pursue the Columbia Eagle at flank speed and to intervene.
Meanwhile, the mutineers had turned the ship over to Cambodia's Prince Norodom Sihanouk's government, declared themselves anti-war revolutionaries, and been granted asylum.
On 18 March at 06:36, Denver reversed her course; Prince Sihanouk had been deposed by a coup led by the pro-U.S. Sirik Matak and Lon Nol.
If the Cambodians could be persuaded to release Columbia Eagle, Denver's flight deck could help the rescued crew members rejoin their ship.
The coup was unfortunate for mutineers McKay and Glatkowski; as they had hoped to find asylum in a pro-Communist country; instead, they became prisoners of the new Cambodian government.
A United Press International newspaper interview from August 1970[22] describes them as living under guard in "a rusting World War II landing ship moored in the Mekong River," regularly using marijuana supplied by their guards, and making statements supporting the Manson Family and violent overthrow of the United States government.
[5]In June both men were indicted by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles on charges of mutiny, kidnapping and assault.
According to an article for Penthouse magazine, entitled "The Last Mutineer", by Richard Linnett and Roberto Loiederman, co-authors of the book "The Eagle Mutiny",[31] remains of a corpse brought back from Cambodia in 1991[32] were positively identified as Clyde McKay's by the Central Identification Laboratory - Hawaii (CILHI), the U.S. Navy's forensic lab in Hawaii.
Subsequently, the remains were cremated and the ashes were buried by his family in their cemetery plot in Hemet, California, where McKay had spent his youth.