The Stop Our Ship (SOS) movement, a component of the overall civilian and GI movements against the Vietnam War, was directed towards and developed on board U.S. Navy ships, particularly aircraft carriers heading to Southeast Asia. It was concentrated on and around major U.S. Naval stations and ships on the West Coast from mid-1970 to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, and at its height involved tens of thousands of antiwar civilians, military personnel and veterans. It was sparked by the tactical shift of U.S. combat operations in Southeast Asia from the ground to the air. As the ground war stalemated and Army grunts increasingly refused to fight or resisted the war in various other ways, the U.S. “turned increasingly to air bombardment”. By 1972 there were more than twice as many Seventh Fleet aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin as previously and the antiwar movement, which was at its height in the U.S. and worldwide, became a significant factor in the Navy. While no ships were actually prevented from returning to war, the campaigns, combined with the broad antiwar and rebellious sentiment of the times, stirred up substantial difficulties for the Navy, including active duty sailors refusing to sail with their ships, circulating petitions and antiwar propaganda on board, disobeying orders, and committing sabotage, as well as persistent civilian antiwar activity in support of dissident sailors. Several ship combat missions were postponed or altered and one ship was delayed by a combination of a civilian blockade and crewmen jumping overboard.
The major targets of the SOS movement were four different aircraft carriers, the USS Constellation, the USS Coral Sea, the USS Kitty Hawk and the USS Enterprise, with lesser but significant activity on and around a number of other ships.
USS Constellation The first effort began in 1970 in San Diego, the principal homeport of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet., Naval Base San Diego A San Diego–based antiwar group, Nonviolent Action, founded by peace activist Francesco Da Vinci, came up with the idea of the Constellation Project, sometimes called The Harbor Project (the SOS name developed later). It was a nonviolent campaign to oppose the war and, at the same time, to show support for the crew of the USS Constellation. Through leaflets and letters, NVA told the sailors that they were not against them, they were only against their orders. NVA's nonviolent campaign attracted other peace groups such as the Concerned Officers Movement and the Peoples Union. As press coverage of the Constellation Project expanded, it drew the attention of antiwar activists from all over California, including Joan Baez and David Harris.Joan Baez Wearing Stay Home For Peace T-Shirt, Joan Baez Prior to Singing at a Constellation Vote Rally At that point, David Harris suggested expanding the Constellation Project into a Constellation Vote – a citywide referendum asking San Diegans to vote on whether the USS Constellation should be redeployed to Vietnam or stay home for peace. The Constellation Vote set the spark for the larger SOS movement to come., San Diego Nonviolent Action Anti-Aircraft Carrier Initial Statement; accessed December 23, 2017.
Constellation Vote
Although the city-wide Constellation Vote was non-binding, it served as a dramatic exercise in democracy. It gave not only San Diego citizens a voice in regard to being for or against the carrier's return to Southeast Asia, it also gave sailors a chance to vote. In preparation of the Constellation Vote, hundreds of activists, including sailors and veterans, canvassed the city. The canvassing was followed by a citywide straw vote from September 17 through September 21, 1971. Out of 54,721 votes counted, over 82% of voters elected to keep the ship home, including 73% of the military personnel who voted. While not a "real" vote, the impact on public opinion was appreciable, boosted by national prime time coverage by CBS and ABC television.The Connie Vote: The USS Constellation and the Peace Movement in San Diego, 1971, The Bob Fitch Photography Archive at Stanford University. In Congressional hearings in December 1972 Admiral David H.Bagley, the U.S. Navy's Chief of Naval Personnel testified that "considerable public interest was generated" by the campaign.
Antiwar military personnel
The involvement of large numbers of antiwar officers and enlisted men created significant debate in the traditionally pro-military town. It also permitted creative methods not normally available to other antiwar groups, such as the CONSTELLATION STAY HOME FOR PEACE banner frequently seen being towed over the city by recently retired navy flight instructor Lt. John Huyler, and the Constellation Vote stickers found everywhere on board the USS Constellation, including in the captain's personal bathroom.Constellation Vote Logo, Constellation Vote Logo Used on Stickers and FlyersPraxis Underground Newspaper V.1 No.7, October 6, 1971 p.9, "Stay Home For Peace Stickers" Land GI in Brig Bathroom stickers weren't the only complication the captain had to deal with. Over 1,300 of the ship's sailors signed a petition requesting actress Jane Fonda's antiwar FTA Show, known to most GIs as the "Fuck The Army" show, be allowed on board. The captain refused this request but then got himself in hot water by intercepting and destroying 2,500 pieces of U.S. mail sent by antiwar activists to crewmembers. Faced with a possible court of inquiry and health problems, the captain was removed from command before the ship sailed.
Research and pamphlet Laying the basis for the broader SOS movement to come, a considerable amount of research was conducted into the role of aircraft carriers in modern warfare by Professor William Watson of MIT, who was then a visiting Professor of History at UC San Diego. He argued in a widely distributed pamphlet that aircraft carriers had become weapons "used to crush popular uprisings and to bully the weaker and poorer countries of the world.", Attack Carrier: The Constellation Papers, September 1971
The Connie 9 When the Constellation set sail for Vietnam in on October 1, 1971, nine of its crew publicly refused to go and took sanctuary in a local Catholic church, Christ the King. The "Connie 9", as they were quickly dubbed, were soon arrested in an early morning raid by U.S. Marshals and flown back to the ship, but within weeks were honorably discharged from the Navy.
USS Coral Sea
As news of the efforts to stop the sailing of the Constellation spread, crewmen aboard the USS Coral Sea, an aircraft carrier stationed at Naval Air Station Alameda in the San Francisco area, decided to circulate a petition and the SOS movement officially acquired its name. Their “Stop Our Ship” petition stated in all capital letters: “THE SHIP CAN BE PREVENTED FROM TAKING AN ACTIVE PART IN THE CONFLICT IF WE THE MAJORITY VOICE OUR OPINION THAT WE DO NOT BELIEVE IN THE VIETNAM WAR.” It then asked fellow sailors to sign if they felt the ship should not go to Vietnam. The petition was started on September 12, 1971, and within three days it had gathered 300 signatures, at which point the ship's executive officer ordered it confiscated., Stop Our Ship Leaflet p.2 (USS Coral Sea), BLOW THE MAN DOWN - Stop Our Ship Petition (USS Coral Sea)
Antiwar activity on board ship
Undeterred, the antiwar sailors created dozens of new copies and begin recirculating it with instructions about how to avoid confiscation. The military brass, however, declared the petition illegal and arrested three crewmen for passing out antiwar literature. With the ship now at sea for pre-deployment trials, a tit for tat battle erupted. On September 28, 14 sailors passed out petitions and an antiwar GI underground newspaper in the mess hall in front of the captain. The captain responded by having several men arrested, some of whom claimed they were beaten in the brig. Word of these activities reached the civilian antiwar movement in the San Francisco area, and, when the Coral Sea passed under the Golden Gate Bridge as it returned to port on October 7, a large SOS banner was hung over the side of the bridge. Seventy crewmen responded in kind, forming the letters SOS on the flight deck as the ship passed under the bridge. The Navy then began to discharge those it viewed as leaders of the petition drive.
Protests spread
By the time the dust had settled, over a 1,000 members of the crew had signed the petition – about 25% of the over 4,000 men assigned to the ship. On November 6, over 300 men from Coral Sea marched with over 10,000 others in an anti-war demonstration in San Francisco. In an unprecedented move the Berkeley City Council declared the city a sanctuary for the men on the Coral Sea who were refusing to go to war. The council encouraged city residents to "provide bedding, food, medical and legal help" to the sailors, and "passed a motion to establish a protected space where soldiers could access counseling and other support.” Ten local churches also offered sanctuary. In response a U.S. Attorney in San Francisco said “he would not hesitate to prosecute anyone who willfully harbors a military deserter”. When the ship sailed on November 12, around 1,200 protestors demonstrated outside of Naval Air Station Alameda to encourage sailors not to sail and at least 35 crewmen failed to report for duty.
On the way to Vietnam When the Coral Sea arrived in Hawaii in late November, it was greeted by a special performance in Honolulu of the FTA antiwar show, featuring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, and Country Joe McDonald.Liberated Barracks on JSTOR, Liberated Barracks Vol.1 No.3 Nov. 1971 More than 4,000 people attended, including approximately 2,500 members of the military and several hundred sailors from the Coral Sea. After the show, approximately 50 crewmen met with the show's cast. When the ship pulled out of port to continue to Southeast Asia, another 53 sailors were missing.In January 1972 with the ship off Vietnam, Secretary of the Navy John Chafee visited the Coral Sea. SOS activists on board held a demonstration and presented the Navy Secretary with a petition which 36 of them had signed., SOS From The Coral Sea - Supporting Materials for the film Sir! No Sir!
USS Kitty Hawk
Meanwhile, back in San Diego, another aircraft carrier, the USS Kitty Hawk, was preparing for deployment to Southeast Asia. Sailors on board, with help from the Concerned Military (the San Diego Concerned Officers Movement had broadened its membership to include enlisted personnel and changed its name) and civilian antiwar forces, began publishing their own newspaper called Kitty Litter and organizing a personalized version of SOS called “Stop the Hawk”. They circulated an antiwar petition which gathered several hundred signatures, but most copies were confiscated by superiors. On February 15, 1972, around 150 Kitty Hawk crewmen attended a rally to hear Joan Baez sing and listen to four of their crewmates speak out against the war. Two days later, when the ship set sail for Indochina, 7 members of the crew publicly refused to sail and took refuge in local churches.
With the ship at sea, copies of Kitty Litter continued to be published by civilian supporters and mailed to antiwar crewmen who circulated them on board and submitted articles. One article published in the August 1972 issue pointed to a serious problem on board: "In two consecutive masts, Captain Townsend has put several black men into the brig for fighting with white men, while dismissing 'with a warning' a white man who spoke in a demeaning manner to a black man and then proceeded to punch him in the stomach! Needless to say, this angered the black men on board, as well as many white men". Clearly more trouble was brewing on the Hawk that was soon starkly revealed (see below).
USS Enterprise