One of the only shipboard mutinies in American history occurred during the Vietnam War. In March 1970 two merchant marines named Clyde McKay and Alvin Glatkowski held their captain at gunpoint and commandeered the supply ship Columbia Eagle. Abandoning most of the crew in lifeboats, the two hijackers changed course and steered toward the neutral nation of Cambodia. After arriving in the port of Sihanoukville, the mutineers informed authorities that they had seized the ship and its cargo of 10,000 tons of napalm as an act of protest against the Vietnam War.

Unfortunately for McKay and Glatkowski, their arrival in Cambodia coincided with the start of a civil war that later led to the rise of the pro-American Khmer Republic. Initially given asylum, the two hijackers soon found themselves prisoners of Prime Minister Lon Nol’s right-leaning government. Glatkowski was later released and surrendered at the U.S. embassy, and Columbia Eagle was returned to American authorities. McKay, however, escaped from Cambodian custody along with a U.S. Army deserter named Larry Humphrey. The two fled north hoping to join the communist Khmer Rouge as freedom fighters, but were reportedly executed by the guerrillas in 1971.