HMCS Athabaskan (R79)

HMCS "Athabaskan" (R79) was the second destroyer of the Canadian Navy to bear the name Athabaskan after the many tribes throughout western Canada that speak Athabaskan family languages. Its pennant was later changed to DDE219. Both this ship and the original "Athabaskan" were Tribal class destroyers and thus the latter became known as the "Athabaskan II".

On February 26, 1949, when the "Athabaskan" was on fuelling stop at Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico, ninety Leading Seamen and below – constituting more than half the ship's company – locked themselves in their messdecks, and refused to come out until getting the captain to hear their grievances.

The captain acted with great sensitivity to defuse the crisis, entering the mess for an informal discussion of the sailors' grievances and carefully avoiding using the term "mutiny" which could have had severe legal consequences for the sailors involved.

Specifically, while talking with the disgruntled crew members, the captain is known to have placed his cap over a written list of demands which could have been used as legal evidence of a mutiny, pretending not to notice it.

At nearly the same time, similar incidents happened on "Crescent" at Nanjing, China, and on the carrier "Magnificent" in the Caribbean, both of whose captains acted similarly to that of the "Athabaskan". [Dr Richard Gimblett, Research Fellow with Dalhousie University's Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, "Dissension in the Ranks, 'Mutinies' in the Royal Canadian Navy" [http://www.navalandmilitarymuseum.org/resource_pages/controversies/rcn_mutinies.html] ]

ee also

* List of ships of the Canadian Navy
* Royal Canadian Navy#"Mutinees" in 1949

References