dogs.” With a strong sense of black pride and influenced by the civil rights and Black Power movements in the U.S., they were very unhappy with their conditions. During the nights prior to deployment, several racial incidents occurred in Subic Bay enlisted men's club. On October 8, a black sailor went on stage and shouted "Black power! This war is the white man's war!" and then continued to preach to the drunken crowd. A glass was thrown that hit him in the head, and a fight between blacks and whites broke out. On October 11, the night before the ship was to depart, a larger black-white fight erupted in the EM club which was broken up by a marine riot squad with clubs. Five black and four white sailors were arrested but returned to the ship before it departed. Back at sea, unhappy about being redeployed and overworked, many of the crew were now also deeply angry over racial tensions. Once underway on October 12, an investigating officer began an inquiry into the fight by summoning several black sailors. “This [singling out of blacks only] was hard to understand in terms of the tensions” the NY Times quoted an officer saying “who had access to all of the reports of the incident.” One of those summoned brought “nine companions with him and grew belligerent”. The nine then stormed out to join other black sailors on the mess deck with the crowd soon growing to over one hundred. The chief master-at-arms became alarmed and summoned the marines, a move which was described later by “officialdom” as the first of “a series of mistakes” and an explosive situation quickly developed. The ship's executive officer ordered the blacks and the Marines to separate ends of the ship, but the captain issued conflicting orders. In the ensuing confusion, the blacks and the Marines ran into each other on the hangar deck and a fight broke out. “The fighting spread rapidly, with bands of blacks and whites marauding throughout the ship’s decks and attacking each other with fists, chains, wrenches, and pipes.” More conflicting orders were issued resulting in more confusion and fights raged on for much of the night. The fights left 40 white and 6 black sailors injured, including three who had to be evacuated to onshore medical facilities. By morning, a tense calm was achieved and normal flight operations were resumed. However,