During April 1947, the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) experienced a series of non-violent mutinies amongst the enlisted sailors of four ships and two shore bases. Over 20 per cent of the RNZN's enlisted personnel were punished or discharged for their involvement. The main cause was the poor rates of pay compared to the rest of the New Zealand Defence Force and equivalent civilian wages, exacerbated by the release of a long overdue government review which failed to address the issue. Sailors saw the new pay rates as still inferior to the other branches of the military, with the increases being consumed by taxes, inflation, and the cancellation of allowances and benefits. The poor living and working conditions aboard RNZN ships was another issue, compounded by sailors having no effective way to make dissatisfaction known to the higher ranks. Dissatisfaction with peacetime duties and opportunities also contributed, with many sailors locked into enlistment periods of up to 12 years, and demobilisation efforts prioritising those enlisted specifically for the duration of the Second World War.
On 1 April, around 100 sailors from the shore base , in Devonport, declared their intent to refuse duty. They were joined by another 100 personnel from the cruiser and the corvette , who marched off the base. After campaigning for three days and winning the right to backdated pay, the mutineers were given a choice: return to duty and accept punishment, or be discharged. The majority chose the latter. These men were financially penalised, denied access to veterans' benefits, and suffered government bans on employing them. The 23 who returned to duty were punished through rank reductions, reductions in rank and pay, or short periods of imprisonment. On 8 April, seven sailors at the shore base , in Lyttelton, refused to work and demanded to be discharged. Also that morning, the captain of the was presented a letter detailing sailor's dissatisfaction with the handling of lower-deck committees, and eleven sailors deserted. Some returned to duty voluntarily, but the rest were arrested by police. Punishment (for those who returned voluntarily and those arrested) consisted of sentences of 60 days imprisonment, commuted to 14 to 24 days.
At the time of the initial mutiny, the cruiser was in Australian waters, and when the ship returned to New Zealand in late April, several sailors sought discharge. On Anzac Day (25 April), about 100 of Bellona ship's company decided not to return to duty. They recruited 40 sailors waiting to be posted to the Philomel, and on 28 April, the group presented their demands to the captain. They were informed that anyone not reporting for duty the following day would be considered Absent Without Leave. The next morning, 52 sailors were marked as having deserted, although all but 20 returned before Bellona next deployment two months later. The Bellona mutineers received punishments of up to 92 days imprisonment, while the deserters additionally lost all unpaid pay and allowances. Arrest warrants were issued for those who did not return, with one sailor at large for over two years. The mutinies and the resulting manpower shortage forced the RNZN to remove Black Prince from service, and set the navy's planned development and expansion back by a decade. Despite this impact, the size and scope of the events have been downplayed.
Causes From the navy's inception in 1941, there were concerns about sailors' pay and conditions.Frame & Baker, Mutiny!, pp. 189–90 By the end of the Second World War, naval pay was well behind equivalent ranks in the New Zealand Army and the Royal New Zealand Air Force, and much lower than wages for equivalent jobs in the civilian sector. Sailors were forced to accept this instead of seeking work elsewhere, as they had enlisted for set periods during the war; some were required to complete twelve years service.Frame & Baker, Mutiny!, p. 190 Following the war's end, a review of pay was initiated. During his 1943 re-election campaign, the Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, promised that new pay scales would be established by 1 April 1946; if there were any delays, the pay rates would be backdated, and the sailors would receive the difference as a lump sum.Frame & Baker, Mutiny!, pp. 190, 193, 196
The review was published on 1 April, although many sailors learned of the details from contacts during the preceding weekend of 29–30 March.Frame & Baker, Mutiny!, p. 193 While an improvement, the new pay rates were still half that of the Army and Air Force, and most, if not all, of the increase would end up absorbed by increasing tax rates. Several benefits or allowances were either removed (for example, uniformed personnel were no longer allowed free travel on public transport without a voucher) or were not modified to compensate for inflation (for example, uniform allowances remained at pre-war levels, despite the threefold increase in uniform prices). The promised backdating was not mentioned in the initial announcement, resulting in great dissatisfaction amongst the sailors. A later announcement clarified that the backdating would occur, but it is unclear whether doing so was originally intended, or added because of the mutiny.
Many of the sailors who had signed up for long periods during the war were finding themselves dissatisfied with peacetime duties and conditions.National Museum of the Royal New Zealand Navy, 1947 Mutiny Some attempted to secure a discharge as they thought there would be better opportunities and pay in civilian jobs, but demobilisation efforts were focused on the personnel who had signed up under "Hostilities Only" conditions. The two ships on which the mutiny originated, the and the , were both considered to have poor accommodation and seakeeping, particularly when wartime upgrades decreased the space available and increased the number of personnel required to operate them.Frame & Baker, Mutiny!, pp. 188–92
Enlisted personnel felt that their concerns about service conditions were not being considered by the navy. Following requests and demands for a formal channel through which sailors could express their grievances, the Admiralty had approved the formation of lower-deck committees. New Zealand authorities had reluctantly agreed to this, but the committees were banned from considering or making proposals to the officers on the matters of pay, shipboard routine or service conditions; the issues that affected the sailors the most. Of the 219 recommendations made by various committees to higher authorities, only 6 had been approved for consideration, and only 1 was implemented. The National Museum of the Royal New Zealand Navy partially attributes the lack of concern for lower-deck welfare to the breakdown of chains of communication as divisional officers were demobilised, along with the broader disruption caused by demobilisation efforts.
Mutinies Philomel, Black Prince, and Arbutus At the time of the mutiny, Black Prince was docked at the shore base , in Devonport. The cruiser was undergoing a refit, which affected the living and working conditions of the personnel. The most extreme example was the closure of the ship's heads, which coincided with a bout of dysentery: to leave the ship and use the toilets ashore, a sailor required express permission from his supervisor, and when one man headed ashore without permission, he received seven days punishment.Frame & Baker, Mutiny!, pp. 192–193
Arbutus was secured alongside Black Prince, having just returned from a two-month show the flag cruise around the Pacific Islands. The deployment had seen several incidents, the first of which occurred while the ship was docked in Tahiti; sailors who were meant to be guarding the ship became drunk, after which a crowd of Tahitians attempted to board the ship and remove equipment.Frame & Baker, Mutiny!, p. 191 On departure, the corvette sailed into a heavy storm, which lasted for several days.Frame & Baker, Mutiny!, p. 192 Waves breaking over the bow rendered the bridge unusable, and many aboard—including the ship's cat, for the first and only time in its life—were seasick. Water contamination of the fuel oil taken on in Tahiti damaged the propulsion machinery, further adding to the problems. When Arbutus finally limped into port, the ship's company were informed that they would only remain at Philomel long enough to take on aviation fuel and supplies to be delivered to the Cook Islands.
During Monday 31 March, there were spontaneous gatherings of sailors, during which they discovered the pay review, shipboard conditions, and the ineffectiveness of the lower-deck committees.Frame & Baker, Mutiny!, p. 194 Rumours were being spread that an announcement on pay rates would come the following day, but they would not be backdated as promised. Most came to the conclusion that the only way to bring attention to these issues was to mutiny in protest.
Tuesday 1 April At morning parade on Tuesday 1 April, around 100 sailors of Philomel informed the base commander, Commander Peter Phipps, that they intended to refuse duty in protest of the government's failure to make the new pay rates retrospective. After the Philomel mutineers left the parade ground, word circulated around the base and the ships that there would be a gathering in the base canteen at 12:00. Phipps had been aware of the sailors' dissatisfaction over the previous few days, but when he informed his superiors of their actions, the reply simply informed him that the details of the pay review would be published that evening. The commander ordered all Philomel personnel to assemble in the gymnasium at midday, but nobody below the rank of petty officer attended.Frame & Baker, Mutiny!, pp. 194–195 After addressing those in the gymnasium, Phipps went to the canteen to talk to the sailors there: after asking them to return to duty and giving the news that the pay scales would be published that evening, he informed them that they had already committed acts of indiscipline, and "would have to take the consequences".Frame & Baker, Mutiny!, p. 195 Although aware that their actions constituted mutiny, the sailors were too frustrated with the situation to care.
After discussing the causes of their dissatisfaction, those at the canteen meeting (which now included a number of sailors from Black Prince) decided to present a petition to the Naval Board with three demands, that the new pay rates were to be made retrospective to 1 April 1946, lower-deck committees needed to be capable of addressing issues with pay and service conditions, and the sailors were not to be punished for their actions.Frame & Baker, Mutiny!, pp. 195–196 Phipps noted the details of the petition, and left to communicate with the Naval Board. The bosun's pipe to resume work was sounded at 13:00, but the sailors decided that they would "go on strike" in protest instead. Although mutinying, the sailors remained calm and in control of their actions, and endeavoured to make clear that their grievances were with the government, not the navy.Frame & Baker, Mutiny!, p. 196 When moving around the base, they had conducted themselves in an orderly and disciplined fashion, and those disembarking from Black Prince had saluted the White Ensign as required. They also took care to ensure their actions could not be attributed to external factors; for example, when one sailor drank rum with his lunch, he was encouraged to return to duty, so nobody could claim the mutineers were acting under the influence of alcohol.