title: Hurricane Irene

text: While the storm made landfall next to Galloway and Little Egg Harbor in the southeastern part of the state, South Jersey received little damage and flooding. Further north, severe river flooding occurred due to record rainfall, with a statewide rainfall maxima of in Freehold. Eleven rivers reached record levels, and a week after the storm all rivers in the state remained at "moderate flooding level". The flooding affected roads, including the heavily used Interstate 287 and Garden State Parkway. Along the Hudson River, floodwaters affected parts of Jersey City and Hoboken. The north tube of the Holland Tunnel was briefly closed. Flooding affected the train lines in the Trenton area. The storm killed seven people in the state, and damage was estimated at around $1 billion.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: In addition to major flooding, the combination of already heavily saturated ground from a wet summer, and heavy wind gusts made New Jersey especially vulnerable to wind damage, notably in Union County. Fallen trees blocked vital roads, including portions of New Jersey Route 28 and U.S. Route 22. Numerous homes suffered structural damages from the wind. In total, approximately 1.46 million customers of JCP&L and PSEG throughout most of the 21 counties lost power. On Sunday September 5, power had been returned to last remaining 2,000 residents who suffered a power outage.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Flooding in some parts of the state continued for another three days. On August 31, Paterson counted 6,000 displaced persons, and three of four bridges crossing the Passaic River remained closed. On August 31, President Barack Obama declared the state a disaster area, including all 21 counties. More than 31,000 residents filed assistance claims through FEMA, and within two weeks nearly $38 million had been disbursed with others pending. Hardest-hit counties were Bergen and Passaic in the northeast, each with more than 4,000 claims.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Despite the mandatory evacuations ordered for many parts of the Jersey Shore, the damage and flooding in that area of the state was not as severe as predicted. This miscalculation was met with frustration among many coastal residents that were evacuated out of an abundance of caution. A year later, when evacuations were ordered for Hurricane Sandy, some residents were reluctant or skeptical about the storm's potential and their preparations were more lax, since some of Irene's impacts fell short of the original predictions. This proved very damaging for some, as Hurricane Sandy ended up being far worse than predicted.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: In Manhattan, the Hudson River flooded in the Meatpacking District. Long Beach and Freeport, both of which experienced serious flooding, were among the worst-hit towns on Long Island, and many roads were left impassable. The workers at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan worked to make the World Trade Center site hurricane proof, and escaped major damage, just missing the tenth anniversary of 9/11.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: The winds knocked down many trees and power lines, leaving almost 350,000 homes and businesses without power in Nassau and Suffolk counties.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Flooding of the Ramapo River and more than a half-mile (1 km) of washouts led both Metro-North and NJ Transit to suspend service on the Port Jervis Line north of Suffern for nearly three months.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Flooding overwhelmed several sewage treatment plants, since many of them collect and processed storm runoff as well as wastewater. At least 52 municipalities in the Hudson Valley reported raw-sewage spills into local waters. Vaccinations against tetanus and hepatitis were offered to rescuers before entering houses in some areas. Parts of Washingtonville were under of water during the storm due to the flash flood of Moodna Creek, wrecking some nearby homes.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Disastrous flash floods occurred in the northwestern Catskill Mountains. Record flooding along the Schoharie Creek destroyed the 156-year-old Old Blenheim Bridge, a National Historic Landmark.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Flooding by Schoharie Creek in the village of Prattsville, NY caused major damage and destroyed large areas of the village. Every structure on the strip that comprises Main Street was partly or fully destroyed, including all 22 of the village's businesses. Eleven houses collapsed in the flood, fifteen were condemned and torn down, and more than 100 homes were so damaged that the residents couldn't return to them, but amazingly there were zero fatalities. It received widespread national news coverage because the village had nearly been washed away. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo labeled Prattsville as the place in New York State hardest hit by the storm.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Local officials estimated that approximately one-third of all the houses and businesses in the village of Schoharie had been destroyed due to flooding. The Gilboa Dam, built in 1926, which had undergone some strengthening procedures during 2005 and 2006, sustained minor damage due to the flooding of the Schoharie Creek.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Further upstate, Irene did significant damage in the Adirondack Mountains. A section of NY 73 was washed out, isolating two hamlets. DEC reported that "landslides too numerous to count" had taken place on many of the High Peaks themselves, all of which are located on state Forest Preserve land. Overall, there were ten deaths in the state, most due to flooding.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: On September 3, Governor Cuomo announced the creation of a $15 million federal relief fund to help farmers there cope with the damage, after an estimated $45 million in crop damage on . In mid-September, farmers reported a smaller-than-average harvest of pumpkins in the northeastern United States. By that point, many farmers in the Black Dirt Region were near bankruptcy, and fundraisers were being held to tide them over pending federal disaster relief. Farmers were worried the reports would deter tourists from visiting farm country for traditional autumn activities and purchases, an economic setback which some said would exacerbate the damage from the storm. Many planned to remain open and offer what they could to visitors.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: In Connecticut, 20 homes in East Haven were destroyed and five others were damaged beyond repair by flooding and storm surge along the shore of Long Island Sound. On Sunday, Connecticut's two main electric companies, Connecticut Light and Power and United Illuminating, reported that a record 754,000 customers, about half the state, were without power. More than two days after the storm made landfall, about 400,000 people were still without power, some being told they would have to wait more than a week, especially in heavily wooded areas. In Ridgefield, 90% of houses lost power, requiring the utility to turn off power to the other 10% to ease restoration efforts. Route 15, one of the state's main highways, was closed from the New York state line to Interstate 91 in Meriden due to fallen trees.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Governor Dannel Malloy said Hurricane Irene was responsible for a tenth death on August 28: a man who died in a fire likely caused by downed wires from high winds. An elderly woman, who resided in Prospect, died in similar situations, when a falling tree caused power lines to collapse onto her home, starting a fire; her husband was critically injured. In Bristol, a man drowned when his canoe capsized.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: A week later, many homes in Connecticut still had not had their power restored. Connecticut Light & Power said on September 2 that it was ahead of where it expected to be, and that less than 100,000 customers would still be without power by midnight the next day. Crews had come from many distant places in North America, including British Columbia, to help the utility's own crews. The continued outages also meant that in rural areas with private wells, residents still lacked running water a week after the storm.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: In Massachusetts, damage was greatest in the Hill Towns and Western Massachusetts as the eye of the storm tracked westward, toward Albany, New York. High winds toppled trees and heavy rain caused widespread flooding of Connecticut River tributaries. The Westfield River rose almost twenty feet in a matter of hours; the Deerfield River rose over fifteen feet in the same period. Both rivers reached flood stages not seen since the 1955, and 1938, hurricanes and floods. A 6-mile stretch of Route 2 from Charlemont to Florida along the Cold River branch of the Deerfield was closed due to damage for over 3 months.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Rhode Island had gusts of wind up to , uprooting trees and causing extensive damage to its power grid. By the storm's end, an estimated 256,000 out of 480,281 customers were without power. Rhode Island electric company, National Grid, expected it would take until Labor Day weekend to restore power to the most remote areas and areas which were most damaged. On August 30, two days after the storm, 138,000 customers remained without power. A power line on Aquidneck Island near Portsmouth was felled by winds during the morning of August 28, severing power to Portsmouth, Middletown, Newport and Jamestown. Power was not fully restored to Aquidneck Island and Conanicut Island communities until August 30. The storm surge into Narragansett Bay caused some coastal damage, although Providence, at the head of the bay, was spared downtown flooding in part due to its hurricane barrier. There was some localized river flooding, however being on the eastern side of the storm, most of the damage came in the form of wind.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Almost every river and stream in Vermont flooded, resulting in at least three deaths and one missing. In Wilmington, the flood level of the Deerfield River east branch reportedly exceeded levels measured during the 1938 New England hurricane – the only other tropical cyclone to make a direct hit on Vermont in the state's recorded history. Throughout Vermont, numerous covered bridges, many over 100 years old, were damaged or destroyed. Extensive road damage resulted in the isolation of over a dozen rural towns that would require helicopter air-lifts of necessities in the days immediately following the storm. The storm decimated multiple sections of U.S. Route 4 between Rutland and Quechee, making east/west travel through the central part of state nearly impossible. The resort town of Killington as well as neighboring Pittsfield were completely isolated from travel in and out for two weeks. Statewide, the cost of repairs for road and bridge damage alone was estimated to exceed $700 million.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Relief concerts were organized by local Vermont bands such as Phish and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. By December the state was recovering more quickly than originally expected. Within a month of the storm 84 of 118 closed sections of state highway, and 28 of 34 bridges, had been reopened. The state had relied on assistance from National Guard units in eight other states, and highway workers lent to it by New Hampshire and Maine. "We'll do the work and we'll figure out how we're paying for it," said deputy state secretary of transportation Sue Minter, "but we're not waiting." Repair costs ultimately turned out to be $175–200 million, with most of it covered by federal disaster relief.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Tropical storm conditions occurred throughout the state of Maine during Irene's passage. Flooding caused by Irene's heavy rainfall washed out two bridges on State Route 27 in Carrabassett Valley.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Irene also affected a large section of Canada, stretching from the eastern Ontario to the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador. On August 28, in Quebec, high winds (more than in some places) and heavy rainfall from post-tropical storm Irene knocked out power to over 250,000 homes, felled tree branches, and damaged buildings and traffic signals across Montreal. One person was killed after a road was washed out and cars were swept into the Yamaska River near Sorel-Tracy; another section of road in Charlevoix was also washed out, while flooding forced evacuations in Estrie. In New Brunswick, many trees fell in the wake of the hurricane, mainly due to the strong winds associated with the storm. Power was lost to an estimated 75,000 – 200,000 New Brunswick residents, directly due to the gale-force winds. Insured damage in Canada was estimated at $130 million.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Described as "A photographic scavenger hunt set to a hurricane", was held August 28, coinciding with the hurricane.


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Owing to the high death toll and extensive damage wrought by the storm, the name "Irene" was later retired by the World Meteorological Organization, and will never again be used for an Atlantic tropical cyclone. It was replaced for the 2017 season with "Irma".


title: Hurricane Irene

text: Direct Relief, a disaster relief organization, among many other organizations, collaborated to offer assistance for people affected by Irene.


title: Pipes of Peace

text: Pipes of Peace is the fourth solo studio album by English singer-songwriter Paul McCartney, released on 31 October 1983. As the follow-up to the popular "Tug of War", the album came close to matching the commercial success of its predecessor in Britain but peaked only at number 15 on America's "Billboard" Top LPs & Tape chart. While "Pipes of Peace" was the source of international hit singles such as "Say Say Say" (recorded with Michael Jackson) and the title track, the critical response to the album was less favourable than that afforded to "Tug of War".


title: Pipes of Peace

text: Many of the songs released on "Pipes of Peace" were recorded during the 1981 sessions for "Tug of War", with "Pipes of Peace", "The Other Me", "So Bad", "Tug of Peace" and "Through Our Love" being recorded afterwards, in September–October 1982. Accordingly, the album has many things in common with its predecessor: it was produced by George Martin, it featured two collaborations with the same artist (this time with Michael Jackson; the "Tug of War" collaborations being with Stevie Wonder), and continued McCartney's alliance in the studio with Ringo Starr, former 10cc guitarist Eric Stewart and his last session work with Wings guitarist Denny Laine. By November, McCartney would start shooting his self-written motion picture "Give My Regards to Broad Street", co-starring wife Linda, Starr and Tracey Ullman, which would take up most of his time throughout 1983. Due to the filming commitments (and to allow a reasonable lapse of time between his new album and "Tug of War"), the release of "Pipes of Peace" was delayed until October.


title: Pipes of Peace

text: Unlike "Tug of War", the album features an electro-tinged sound. On the track "Tug of Peace", McCartney blended the title song to "Tug of War" with that of the new album. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic describes the mix as "an almost-electro collage that twists the songs into "McCartney II" territory".


title: Pipes of Peace

text: McCartney spent much of his energies finishing and preparing "Give My Regards to Broad Street" for release in the autumn of 1984.


title: Pipes of Peace

text: In 1983 "Pipes of Peace" made its debut on CD on Columbia Records. In 1993, the album was remastered and reissued on CD as part of "The Paul McCartney Collection". Three bonus tracks were included on the latter release: the previously unreleased "Twice in a Lifetime" (the title song of the 1985 film of the same name); his 1984 hit from the Rupert Bear project, "We All Stand Together"; and "Simple as That", released in 1986 on the charity album "The Anti-Heroin Project – It's a Live-In World".


title: Pipes of Peace

text: The album was reissued in remastered form in 2015 as part of the ongoing "Paul McCartney Archive Collection" series of releases. The version with "enhanced packaging" contains three discs: the remastered album itself, a bonus audio disc containing mostly demo versions of the songs found on the first disc, and a disc with a film. The reissue was accompanied by the Record Store Day exclusive single "Say Say Say (2015 Remix)".


title: Pipes of Peace

text: "Say Say Say" was released as the album's lead single in October 1983. A duet with Michael Jackson, it reached number 2 in the UK and number 1 in the US, where it remained for six weeks through to early in 1984. "Pipes of Peace" peaked at number 4 in the UK and number 15 in the US. Following "Say Say Say", the album's title track became a UK number 1, while in the US, the flipside "So Bad" hit number 23.


title: Pipes of Peace

text: Critical reaction was less than that which had greeted "Tug of War", many feeling that "Pipes of Peace" was a weaker execution of its predecessor's formula. In addition, according to McCartney biographer Howard Sounes, the album's commercial reception was "slightly disappointing, considering the quality of the work".


title: Pipes of Peace

text: Reviewing the album for the "NME", Penny Reel described "Pipes of Peace" as "A dull, tired and empty collection of quasi-funk and gooey rock arrangements ... with McCartney cooing platitudinous sentiments on a set of lyrics seemingly made up on the spur of the moment." Reel opined that the "one decent moment" was the title track, which he found to be "a Beatlish soiree surely destined as a Christmas single", before concluding: "Even here, however, a note of insincerity in the vocal finally defeats the lyric's objective."<ref name="Reel/NME"> Available at Rock's Backpages ("subscription required").</ref>


title: Pipes of Peace

text: Sounes views "Pipes of Peace" and its predecessor as "abounding with well-crafted tunes" that almost match the standard of McCartney's work with the Beatles; yet, he adds, the two albums "must be marked down for a surfeit of love ballads with lamentable lyrics". Reviewing the 2015 reissue of "Pipes of Peace", for "Pitchfork", Ron Hart notes that, at the time of release, "Some critics derided McCartney for aging gracelessly", yet "a good listen to the album today reveals some ways it was ahead of its time." Hart writes of the song "Tug of Peace": "an early, primitive version of a mash-up that brought together the title cuts of these underappreciated albums. The blend is clunky, but it foreshadows his electronic music work as the Fireman and on "Liverpool Sound Collage"."


title: Pipes of Peace

text: By contrast, Jeff Strowe of "PopMatters" considers that the album "presents McCartney at his most regrettable", and views "Pipes of Peace" and "Tug of Peace" as, respectively, a "woefully underdeveloped title track" and a "dreadful mashup". Strowe writes more favourably of "Say Say Say", however, describing it as "catchy in that pure '80s manner", and highlights "Sweetest Little Show" and "Average Person" as "a nice one-two punch of refreshing creativity that give the proceedings a much needed spark of interest and vitality".


title: Pipes of Peace

text: All songs written by Paul McCartney, except "Say Say Say" and "The Man" co-written by Michael Jackson, and "Hey Hey" co-written by Stanley Clarke.


title: Pipes of Peace

text: In 2015 the album was re-issued by Hear Music/Concord Music Group as part of the sixth set of releases, alongside "Tug of War", in the "Paul McCartney Archive Collection". It was released in multiple formats:


title: Love It to Death

text: Love It to Death is the third studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper, released on March 9, 1971. It was the band's first commercially successful album and the first album that consolidated the band's aggressive hard-rocking sound. The album's best-known track, "I'm Eighteen", was released as a single to test the band's commercial viability before the album was recorded.


title: Love It to Death

text: Formed in the mid-1960s, the band took the name Alice Cooper in 1968 and became known for its outrageous theatrical live shows. The loose, psychedelic freak rock of the first two albums failed to find an audience. The band moved to Detroit in 1970 where they were influenced by the aggressive hard rock scene. A young Bob Ezrin was enlisted as producer; he encouraged the band to tighten its songwriting over two months of rehearsing ten to twelve hours a day. The single "I'm Eighteen" achieved Top 40 success soon after, peaking at . This convinced Warner Bros. that Alice Cooper had the commercial potential to release an album. After its release in March 1971, "Love It to Death" reached on the "Billboard" 200 albums chart and has since been certified platinum. The album's second single, "Caught in a Dream", charted at .


title: Love It to Death

text: The original album cover featured the singer Cooper posed with his thumb protruding so it appeared to be his penis; Warner Bros. soon replaced it with a censored version. The Love It to Death tour featured an elaborate shock rock live show: during "Ballad of Dwight Fry"—about an inmate in an insane asylum—Cooper would be dragged offstage and return in a straitjacket, and the show climaxed with Cooper's mock execution in a prop electric chair during "Black Juju". Ezrin and the Coopers continued to work together for a string of hit albums until the band's breakup in 1974. The album has come to be seen as a foundational influence on hard rock, punk, and heavy metal; several tracks have become live Alice Cooper standards and are frequently covered by other bands.


title: Love It to Death

text: Detroit-born vocalist Vincent Furnier co-formed the Earwigs in the mid-1960s in Phoenix, Arizona. The band released a few singles and went through a few name changes before settling on a lineup with guitarist Glen Buxton, guitarist and keyboardist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway, and drummer Neal Smith. In 1968 the band adopted the name Alice Cooper—a name Furnier later adopted as his own—and presented a story that it came from a 17th-century witch whose name they learned from a session with a ouija board.


title: Love It to Death

text: At some point Buxton painted circles under his eyes with cigarette ashes, and soon the rest followed with ghoulish black makeup and outlandish clothes. The band moved to Los Angeles and became known for its provocative, theatrical shock rock stage show. In an incident during a performance at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival in 1969, Cooper threw a live chicken into the audience, who tore it to shreds.


title: Love It to Death

text: The group's first two albums, "Pretties for You" (1969) and "Easy Action" (1970), appeared on Frank Zappa's Straight Records label, and failed to find an audience. The band relocated to Detroit and found itself in the midst of a music scene populated with the hard-driving rock of the MC5, the stage-diving Iggy Pop with the Stooges, and the theatricality of George Clinton's Parliament and Funkadelic. The Alice Cooper band incorporated these influences into a tight hard-rock sound coupled with an outrageous live show.


title: Love It to Death

text: While at the Strawberry Fields Festival in Canada in April 1970, band manager Shep Gordon contacted producer Jack Richardson, who had produced hit singles for the Guess Who. Richardson was uninterested in producing the Alice Cooper band himself, and sent the young Bob Ezrin in his place. Cooper recalled the junior producer as "a nineteen-year-old Jewish hippie" who reacted to meeting the outlandish band "as if he had just opened a surprise package and found a box full of maggots".


title: Love It to Death

text: Ezrin initially turned down working with the band, but changed his mind when he saw them perform at Max's Kansas City in New York City the following October. Ezrin was impressed with the band's audience-participation rock-theater performance and the cult-like devotion of the band's fans, who dressed up and knew the lyrics and actions to the music, which Ezrin compared to the later cult following of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". Ezrin returned to Toronto to convince Richardson to take on the band; Richardson did not want to work directly with such a group but agreed on condition that Ezrin took the lead.


title: Love It to Death

text: The band and Ezrin did pre-production for the album in Pontiac, Michigan, in November and December 1970, and recorded at the RCA Mid-American Recording Center in Chicago in December. Richardson and Ezrin produced the album for Richardson's Nimbus 9 Productions, with Richardson as executive producer.


title: Love It to Death

text: Ezrin, with his classical and folk background, attempted to have the band tighten the loosely structured songs. The band resisted at first but came to see things Ezrin's way, and ten to twelve hours a day of rehearsal resulted in a tight set of hard rock songs with little of the psychedelic freak-rock aesthetic of the first two albums. According to Cooper, Ezrin "ironed the songs out note by note, giving them coloring, personality". Ezrin rearranged "I'm Eighteen" from an eight-minute jam piece called "I Wish I Was 18 Again" to a taut three-minute rocker.


title: Love It to Death

text: Both Buxton and Bruce used Gibson SG guitars and tended to double up, playing similar parts with subtle differences in phrasing and tone. Dunaway often played a moving counter-melody bass part, rather than following the typical rock strategy of holding to the chord's root.


title: Love It to Death

text: Zappa had sold Straight Records to Warner Bros. in 1970 for $50,000. That November the group released a single of "I'm Eighteen" backed with "Is It My Body"; and Warner Bros. agreed to allow the group to proceed with an album if the single sold well. The band posed as fans and made hundreds of calls to radio stations to request the song, and Gordon is said to have paid others a dollar per radio request. Soon the song was on the airwaves across the US—even on mainstream AM radio—and peaked at on the charts. The success of the single convinced Warner to contract Richardson to produce "Love It to Death".


title: Love It to Death

text: Ezrin was intent on developing a cohesive sound for the album, and his earnestness was a source of humor for the band. At a time when the Beatles had a reputation that made them seem beyond criticism, the Alice Cooper band intended "Second Coming" as a jab at the recently released track "The Long and Winding Road" with Phil Spector's elaborate production—the hyperbolic acclaim it received struck the band as if it were the Second Coming of a master composer on the order of Beethoven—as well as Ezrin's attempts to bring such production values to Alice Cooper's music. Ezrin did not realize the joke was largely at his expense. When recording the "I wanna get out of here" sequence of "Ballad of Dwight Fry", Ezrin had Cooper lie on the floor surrounded by a cage of metal chairs to create an element of realism to the singer's frantic screams. "Black Juju" was the only track recorded live in the studio. "I'm Eighteen" was a sixteen-track recording at 15 IPS; other tracks were recorded at 30 IPS.


title: Love It to Death

text: A dark, aggressive song whose lumbering, distorted guitar riff is in E minor scale, "I'm Eighteen" was the band's first to hit global audience. In raspy vocals against arpeggiated guitar backing, the lyrics describe the existential anguish of being at the cusp of adulthood, decrying in each verse being "in the middle" of something, such as "life" or "doubt". The chorus switches to a series of power chords building from A, the vocals proclaiming: "I'm eighteen / And I don't know what I want ... I gotta get out of this place / I'll go runnin' in outer space". The song turns around at the conclusion with an embrace of those things that had caused such anguish: "I'm eighteen and I like it!"


title: Love It to Death

text: "I'm Eighteen" comes between two straight-ahead rockers: "Long Way to Go" and album opener "Caught in a Dream". Both follow simple hard-rock , trading heavy riffing with guitar fills and solos. The album title derives from lyrics in "Long Way to Go". "Caught in a Dream" was the album's second single and features irreverent, tongue-in-cheek lyrics such as "I need everything the world owes me / I tell that to myself and I agree". The first side closes with "Black Juju" by bassist Dunaway, a lengthy track in the vein of the Doors, and Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive"—both bands Alice Cooper earlier had opened for—with an organ part derived from Pink Floyd's "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun". The band named the song after a stray dog in Pontiac.


title: Love It to Death

text: "Is It My Body", the B-side to the "I'm Eighteen" single, opens the second side of the album. The verses pose the questions: "What have I got? / That makes you want to love me? / Is it my body?"—and declare in the chorus: "Have you got the time to find out / Who I really am?" "Hallowed Be My Name" follows with lyrics such as "Screaming at mothers / Cursing the Bible". "Second Coming" continues on the theme of religion: "... have no other gods before me / I'm the light / The devil's getting smarter all the time" The track developed from one of Cooper's lyrical fragments—"Time is getting closer / I read it on a poster"—and is set to a delicate piano by Ezrin.


title: Love It to Death

text: "The Ballad of Dwight Fry" is a dramatic piece about the inmate of a mental asylum. It opens with a young girl's voice asking if her "Daddy" will "ever come home", against a childlike piano backdrop. The song shifts to acoustic guitar and Cooper singing presumably in the persona of the girl's father, at first in a wavering almost-whisper. His voice builds with his persona's increasing instability, eventually shouting in the heavy, guitar-backed chorus: "See my only mind explode / Since I've gone away". After the second chorus there is a softer, creepy keyboard break written by Bruce but played by Ezrin, and when the vocals reappear they repeat "I wanna get out of here", at first tentative and imploring, before climaxing in the character's total mental breakdown and a return to the chorus. The song's main character is named for Dwight Frye, an actor Hollywood media dubbed "the man with the thousand-watt stare" who portrayed Renfield, the lunatic slave of the titular vampire in the 1931 film "Dracula" starring Bela Lugosi.


title: Love It to Death

text: The album closes with a cover of "Sun Arise" by Australian entertainer Rolf Harris. The upbeat pop song had been a show-opener for the band throughout 1970, and contrasts with the darkness of the rest of the album.


title: Love It to Death

text: "I'm Eighteen" was the band's first top 40 in the US, a success that led to a recording deal with Warner Bros. Records. It spent eight weeks on the US charts, peaking at . In Canada it broke the top ten, peaking at .


title: Love It to Death

text: "Love It to Death" was released on March 8, 1971; a British release of the album followed in June on the Straight label. "Love It to Death" was the first of the band's albums on which the members received individual credit for songs; previously the band as a whole was credited with all material. Although the original sleeve stated that the album was a Straight release, Straight had already been purchased by Warner Bros and the album bore Warner disc labels. The album reached on the US album charts, in Britain, and in Canada. The RIAA certified the album gold on November 6, 1972, and platinum on July 30, 2001. Alice Cooper was the first band on Warner Music Canada's roster to sell more than 100,000 copies each of four albums in Canada. In 1973 the band was awarded platinum albums in Canada for "Love It to Death", "Killer", "School's Out", and "Billion Dollar Babies". The album first appeared on CD in October 1990.


title: Love It to Death

text: The original cover shows the long-haired band members in dresses and makeup, and Cooper holding a cape around himself with his thumb sticking out to give the illusion of an exposed penis. This led Warner Bros. to censor it—first that December by covering it with white strips, then by having the photo touched up with paint in pressings beginning in 1972. Both front and back cover photos were taken by Roger Prigent, credited as "Prigent". The gatefold features a close-up photo by Dave Griffith of Cooper's eyes heavily made-up with spidery eyelashes; in his pupils appear photos of the other band members.


title: Love It to Death

text: "Caught in a Dream" was released as a single backed with "Hallowed Be My Name" on April 27, 1971; it peaked in the US at . The group supported the album with extensive touring. "Ballad of Dwight Fry" was a dramatized set piece in the live show, featuring an actress dressed as a nurse who dragged Cooper offstage and brought him back on straitjacketed in time for the second verse's "Sleepin' don't come very easy / In a strait white vest". At the song's climax, Cooper would break free of the straitjacket and hurl it into the audience. The Love It to Death tour of 1971 featured an electric chair in the earliest staged executions of the singer. These executions were to become an attraction of the band's shows, which became progressively more flamboyant; the shows in the Billion Dollar Babies tour of 1973 concluded with Cooper's execution by prop guillotine. The Love It to Death tour grossed so much the band bought a forty-two room mansion from actress Ann-Margret in Greenwich, Connecticut, which was to be its home base for the next few years.


title: Love It to Death

text: In contrast to the first two albums, which have been entirely unrepresented in Cooper's band and solo concerts since the release of "Killer", "Love It to Death" is the fourth-most-represented album in these setlists, behind "Welcome to My Nightmare"," Billion Dollar Babies "and" Killer". Nevertheless, "Love It to Death" strong concert representation is almost entirely due to three songs—"I'm Eighteen", "Is It My Body" and "The Ballad of Dwight Fry"—which have each seen over a thousand performances. "Hallowed Be My Name" has never been played live, whilst "Black Juju" and "Second Coming" have never been performed since the release of "Killer". Even "Caught in a Dream" and "Long Way to Go" disappeared from Cooper's setlist after "Killer" was released and were revived only for individual tours after 1999.


title: Love It to Death

text: The album garnered mixed reviews. "Billboard" called the album "artfully absurd third-generation rock" and the group "the first stars of future rock". John Mendelsohn gave the album a favorable review in "Rolling Stone", writing that it "represents at least a modest oasis in the desert of dreary blue-jeaned aloofness served up in concert by most American rock-and-rollers". However, referring to "Black Juju" he also said that "the one bummer on this album is so loud a bummer that it may threaten to neutralize the ingratiating effect" of the other tracks. Robert Christgau wrote in "The Village Voice", "The singles ('Caught in a Dream' and 'I'm Eighteen') are fantastic, but the album is freighted with garbage, the kind of thing that's done better by the heavy metal kids down the block."


title: Love It to Death

text: The band saw its popularity rise over the next several albums. "Killer" followed in November 1971 and reached on the US charts, and the band finally topped those charts in 1973 with its sixth album, "Billion Dollar Babies". Unreleased demos of "Love It to Death" have circulated among fans; highlights include outtakes of "Ballad of Dwight Fry" with alternative lyrics, and early versions of "You Drive Me Nervous", which did not have an official release until it appeared on "Killer".


title: Love It to Death

text: "Love It to Death" is seen as one of the foundational albums of the heavy metal sound, along with contemporary releases by Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and others. A review in British magazine "Melody Maker" called it "an album for the punk and pimply crowd" a few years before punk rock became a phenomenon. Pioneer punk band the Ramones found inspiration in Alice Cooper's music and "Love It to Death" in particular. Vocalist Joey Ramone based the group's first song, "I Don't Care", on the chords of the main riff to "I'm Eighteen". John Lydon wrote the song "Seventeen" on the Sex Pistols only studio album "Never Mind the Bollocks" (1977) in response to "I'm Eighteen", and is said to have auditioned for the Sex Pistols by miming to an Alice Cooper song—most frequently reported as "I'm Eighteen". "Love It to Death" inspired Pat Smear to pick up the guitar at age twelve; he went on to co-found the Germs, tour as second guitarist for Nirvana, and play rhythm guitar for the Foo Fighters.


title: Love It to Death

text: "Hit Parader" included "Love It to Death" in its heavy metal Hall of Fame in 1982, and placed the album twenty-first on its list of "Top 100 Metal Albums" in 1989. In 2012 it was ranked on "Rolling Stone"s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Greg Prato of AllMusic called "Love It to Death" "an incredibly consistent listen from beginning to end" and "the release when everything began to come together for the band". To Pete Prown and HP Newquist, the groups's theatrical arrangements help its two guitarists " the all-too-common clichés" in their simple hard-rock riffing and soloing "that were part and parcel of early seventies rock".


title: Love It to Death

text: The band was pleased with the collaboration with Ezrin, and he remained their producer (with the exception of "Muscle of Love", released in 1973) until Cooper's first solo album, "Welcome to My Nightmare" in 1975. "Love It to Death" launched Ezrin's own production career, which went on to include prominent albums such as Aerosmith's "Get Your Wings" (1974), Kiss's "Destroyer" (1976), and Pink Floyd's "The Wall" (1979).


title: Love It to Death

text: Songs from "Love It to Death" continued to be frequent requests long after Cooper went solo. In response, when writing material for his 1989 album "Trash", Cooper and producer Desmond Child spent time listening to "Love it to Death" and the band's 1974 "Greatest Hits" album to "find that vibe and match it to" a style appropriate to the 1990s.


title: Love It to Death

text: Thrash metal band Anthrax included a cover of "I'm Eighteen" on its debut album "Fistful of Metal" in 1984. Alternative metal band the Melvins covered "Second Coming" and "Ballad of Dwight Fry" on their album "Lysol" in 1992. The song "Dreamin on the 1998 Kiss album "Psycho Circus" bears such a resemblance to "I'm Eighteen" that a month after the album's release Cooper's publisher filed a plagiarism suit, settled out of court in Cooper's favor. Swedish death metal band Entombed released an EP in 1999 entitled "Black Juju" that included a cover of "Black Juju".


title: Love It to Death

text: Alternative rock band Sonic Youth recorded covers of "Hallowed Be My Name" (as "Hallowed Be Thy Name") and "Is It My Body"—the latter of which is bassist Kim Gordon's favorite of her own vocal performances. Gordon used the song's title for a 1993 essay on the artist Mike Kelley, in which she described the Coopers as "anti-hippie[s] reveling in the aesthetics of the ugly". The essay appeared in 2014 in a collection by Gordon also titled "Is It My Body?"


title: Barry Newman

text: Barry Foster Newman (born November 7, 1938) is an American actor of stage, screen and television known for his portrayal of Kowalski in "Vanishing Point", and for his title role in the 1970s television series "Petrocelli". He has been nominated for Golden Globe and Emmy awards.


title: Barry Newman

text: Newman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of a Belarusian-born mother, Sarah (née Ostrovsky), and an Austrian father, Carl Newman. Newman graduated from the prestigious Boston Latin School in 1948. He was a childhood friend of actor Leonard Nimoy.


title: Barry Newman

text: After graduating from Brandeis University with a degree in anthropology in 1952, Newman was drafted into the army, and having learned saxophone and clarinet in high school, he was assigned to the 3rd Army band in Atlanta. After being discharged, Newman went to New York to receive his master's degree in anthropology from Columbia University, when a friend, who was studying acting with Lee Strasberg, invited him to sit in on a class. His destiny changed as he fell in love with acting and left Columbia University after only five weeks to study acting with Strasberg.


title: Barry Newman

text: Newman's first acting job was in Herman Wouk's first comedy "Nature's Way", in which he played a jazz musician. New York critic Richard Watts called him "The creme of the Jesters". This role was followed by a featured part in the play "Maybe Tuesday", written by Mel Tolkin.


title: Barry Newman

text: Newman starred in the New York production of Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap." After numerous parts on Broadway, including the musical "What makes Sammy Run", Sidney Kingsley's "Night Live, America Hurrah,", Newman went on to do TV and movies. While working at nights on Broadway in "What Makes Sammy Run," Newman starred as attorney John Barnes in the daytime drama "The Edge of Night" for two years. Earlier, Newman co-starred in his first film, the gangster potboiler "Pretty Boy Floyd" (1960), and he made his breakthrough with his first starring role in "The Lawyer" (1970). Newman starred in the 1971 cult movie "Vanishing Point", followed by starring roles in 20th Century Fox's "Salzburg Connection" and Paramount's "Fear Is the Key." In 1974, "Petrocelli", a TV series created around the character Newman first played in "The Lawyer", debuted on NBC and ran two seasons.


title: Barry Newman

text: After "Petrocelli", Newman starred in the film "City on Fire" with Henry Fonda and Ava Gardner, then in Disney's "Amy". He starred or co-starred in more than 20 TV movies of the week, including ABC's "King Crab", which won the ABC Theater Award. He also co-starred in several miniseries, including "Fatal Vision". "Variety" called Newman "The Spencer Tracy of the 80s".


title: Barry Newman

text: In 1989, Barry Newman starred with Suzanne Pleshette in the television series "Nightingales". In the early 1990s, Newman starred in the BBC's production of "The Mirror Cracked". During the 1990s, Newman co-starred in "Daylight", "Bowfinger", and "The Limey".


title: Barry Newman

text: Director Richard C. Sarafian's original choice for the role of Kowalski was Gene Hackman, but 20th Century Fox insisted on using Newman. The film was not initially a success in the United States when it first opened in 1971, but received critical acclaim and was a commercial success in Europe. Since its release it has developed a cult following.


title: Barry Newman

text: Newman's success with the TV movie "Night Games", based on the 1970 movie "The Lawyer", led to the TV series "Petrocelli", starring Newman as a lawyer who lives and works in the fictional town of San Remo, Arizona (filmed in Tucson, Arizona). He was nominated for an Emmy in 1975 for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, and in 1976, for a Golden Globe.


title: Barry Newman

text: "Petrocelli: San Remo Justice: An Episode Guide and Much More", by Sandra Grabman, published by BearManor Media


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The Royal Indian Navy mutiny or revolt, also called the 1946 Naval Uprising, was an insurrection of Indian naval ratings, soldiers, police personnel and civilians against the British government in India. From the initial flashpoint in Bombay (now Mumbai), the revolt spread and found support throughout British India, from Karachi to Calcutta (now Kolkata), and ultimately came to involve over 20,000 sailors in 78 ships and shore establishments.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The mutiny was suppressed by British troops and Royal Navy warships. The Indian National Congress and the Muslim League condemned the mutiny, realising the political and military risks of unrest of this nature on the eve of independence. The leaders of the Congress were of the view that their idea of a peaceful culmination to a freedom struggle and smooth transfer of power would have been lost if an armed revolt succeeded with undesirable consequences. The Communist Party of India was the only nation–wide political organisation that supported the rebellion.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The RIN Revolt started as a strike by ratings of the Royal Indian Navy on 18 February in protest against general conditions. The immediate issues of the revolt were living conditions and food. By dusk on 19 February, a Naval Central Strike committee was elected. The strike found some support amongst the Indian population, though not their political leadership who saw the dangers of mutiny on the eve of Independence. The actions of the mutineers were supported by demonstrations which included a one–day general strike in Bombay. The strike spread to other cities, and was joined by elements of the Royal Indian Air Force and local police forces.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: Indian Naval personnel began calling themselves the "Indian National Navy" and offered left–handed salutes to British officers. At some places, NCOs in the British Indian Army ignored and defied orders from British superiors. In Madras and Poona (now Pune), the British garrisons had to face some unrest within the ranks of the Indian Army. Widespread rioting took place from Karachi to Calcutta. Notably, the revolting ships hoisted three flags tied together – those of the Congress, Muslim League, and the Red Flag of the Communist Party of India (CPI), signifying the unity and downplaying of communal issues among the mutineers.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The revolt was called off following a meeting between the President of the Naval Central Strike Committee (NCSC), M. S. Khan, and Vallab Bhai Patel of the Congress with a guarantee that none would be persecuted. Contingents of the naval ratings were arrested and imprisoned in camps with distressing conditions over the following months, and the condition of surrender which shielded them from persecution., who had been sent to Bombay to settle the crisis. Patel issued a statement calling on the strikers to end their action, which was later echoed by a statement issued in Calcutta by Muhammad Ali Jinnah on behalf of the Muslim League. Under these considerable pressures, the strikers gave way. Arrests were then made, followed by courts martial and the dismissal of 476 sailors from the Royal Indian Navy. None of those dismissed were reinstated into either the Indian or Pakistani navies after independence.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: During the Second World War, the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) had rapidly expanded from a small naval force composed of sloops to become a full–fledged navy. The expansion occurred in an ad hoc basis as operational requirements changed over the course of the war, the naval headquarters was moved from Bombay to New Delhi during this period, the navy acquired a varied assortment of warships and landing crafts, and the naval infrastructure in British India was expanded with improved dockyards, new training facilities and other support infrastructure. The RIN played an instrumental role in halting the progress of Japanese forces in the Indian Ocean Theatre. The force was involved in escorting allied convoys in the Indian Ocean, defending the Indian shoreline against naval invasions and supporting allied military operations through coastlines and rivers during the Burma Campaign.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: Due to the war, recruitments began occurring beyond the confines of the "martial races" composed of demographics who were politically segregated. The ratings were composed of a diverse group, from different regions and religions, mostly from rural backgrounds. Some of them had not even physically encountered Britons before the recruitment. Exponential rises in the price of goods, famines and other economic difficulties eventually forced many of them to join the expanding armed forces of the British Raj. In a period of 4 to 6 years, the recruits underwent a transformation in their mindset. They were exposed to developments from around the world.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: In 1945, it was ten times larger than its size in 1939. Between 1942 and 1945, the CPI leaders helped in carrying out mass recruitment of Indians especially communist activists into the British Indian Army and RIN for war efforts against Nazi Germany. However once the war was over, the newly recruited men turned against the British government.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The demobilisation of the Royal Indian Navy began once the war with Japan ended. Leased ships were paid off, a number of shore establishments were closed and the sailors were concentrated into select establishments for their release from service. Much of the concentration occurred in the naval establishments at Bombay, which served as the primary base for the RIN and hence became over crowded with bored and dissatisfied personnel awaiting their release. The dissatisfaction among the Indian personnel came from a variety of causes such as dismal living conditions, arbitrary treatment, inadequate pay and a perception of an uncaring senior leadership. Despite the wartime expansion, the officer staff of the formed remained predominantly white and the navy was noted to be the most conservative in terms of number of Indian officers. The concentration of the personnel and grievances in its ranks combined with tense interracial relations and aspirations to end British rule in India led to a volatile situation in the navy.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: Unlike the close relationship between British Army and the British Indian Army, the Royal Indian Navy was not privy to such a relationship with the Royal Navy. However the war had brought the two closer together under the leadership of the British High Command and due to temporary transfers between the two navies. The British naval circles were prevalent with perceptions of lack of competency among Indians, opposition to the independence movement and assumptions of continued British presence in India. John Henry Godfrey was the commanding officer of the RIN and had overseen its transformation from a small coastal defense fleet to a regional navy. In the post war period, he intended to preserve its status as a regional navy and had the vision for the RIN to serve as in instrument of British interests in the Indian Ocean. Operating under this vision, Godfrey proposed the acquisition of new warships from the British Admiralty and maintained that British officers would be necessary for the fleet to continue functioning as Indian officers lacked the required expertise and training.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The INA trials, the stories of Subhas Chandra Bose ("Netaji"), as well as the stories of INA's fight during the Siege of Imphal and in Burma were seeping into the glaring public–eye at the time. These, received through the wireless sets and the media, fed discontent and ultimately inspired the sailors to strike. After the Second World War, three officers of the Indian National Army (INA), General Shah Nawaz Khan, Colonel Prem Sahgal and Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon were put on trial at the Red Fort in Delhi for "waging war against the King Emperor", i.e., the Emperor of India.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: According to the Home Department of the Raj, the Congress advocacy during the trials, their election campaign for the advisory council and the highlighting of excesses during the Quit India Movement contained inflammatory speeches and had created a volatile atmosphere. There were several upsurges between November 1945 and February 1946. In a September 1945, All India Congress Committee meeting, the party had taken the stand that in case of any confrontations, negotiation and settlement must be the way forward.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: Calcutta in particular experienced frequent instances of civil unrest in opposition to the trials, and eventually led to the popular support emerging in favor of the revolutionary vision of an independent India that was advocated by the Communist Party of India.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: Between 1943 and 1945, the Royal Indian Navy suffered nine mutinies on board various individual ships.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: In January 1946, British airmen stationed in India took part in the Royal Air Force Revolt of 1946, mainly over the slow speed of their demobilisation, but also in some cases issuing protests against being used to potentially quell the independence movement. The Viceroy at the time, Lord Wavell, noted that the actions of the British airmen had influenced both the RIAF and RIN mutinies, commenting "I am afraid that [the] example of the Royal Air Force, who got away with what was really a mutiny, has some responsibility for the present situation."


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: In early February 1946, mutinies broke out in the Indian Pioneers unit stationed in Calcutta, Bengal Province and later at a signals training center at the air base in Jubbulpore, Central Provinces and Berar. According to Francis Tucker, the commanding officer of the Eastern Command, the dissatisfaction against British colonial rule was rapidly growing within the bureaucracy and the police force as well as in the armed forces itself.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: HMIS "Talwar" was a shore establishment, with a signals school at Colaba, Bombay. Following the end of the war, the establishment was among the locations in Bombay where a large number of ratings were deployed. Around 1,000 communications operators were residing at the establishment, most of the whom consisted of lower–middle class and middle–class people with matriculation or college education as opposed to general seamen who were primarily from the peasantry. In late 1945, upon reassignment, around 20 operators along with a dozen sympathisers frustrated with racial discrimination faced by them during their period of service, formed a secretive group under the self designation of "Azad Hind" () and began hatching conspiracies to undermine their senior officers.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The first incident occurred on 1 December 1945, when RIN Commanders had intended to open up the establishment to the public; in the morning the group vandalised the premises by littering the parade ground with burnt flags and bunting, prominently displaying brooms and buckets at the tower and painting slogans such as "Quit India" and "Revolt Now!" across various walls of the establishment. The senior officers cleaned up the premises before the public arrived without further action. The weak response emboldened the conspirators who continued on with similar activities over the course of the following months.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The response was a result of correspondences issued by the Commander–in–Chief Sir Claude Auchinleck informing officers to maintain a degree of tolerance for a smooth transition in case of Indian Independence such that British interests are secured by maintaining good relations. Unable to catch the conspirators and restricted from taking strict action against their underlings, the command at HMIS "Talwar" resorted to increasing the pace of demobilization in the hopes that the troublemakers would be pushed out of the force during the process. As a result, the group shrunk in size but the remaining ones remained enthused for more nationalistic activities.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 2 February 1946, Auchinleck himself was supposed to attend the establishment and the officers aware of the potential for vandalism had employed guards to prevent any large–scale action beforehand. Despite this, the group was able to add stickers and paint the walls of the podium from where the C–in–C was to receive the establishment's salute, featuring slogans such as "Quit India" and "Jai Hind". The vandalism was spotted before sunrise and Balai Chandra Dutt, a five–year veteran of the war, was caught while escaping the scene with stickers and glue in his hand. Subsequently, his lockers were searched and communist and nationalist literature were found among its contents. The material was considered to be seditious; Dutt was interrogated by five senior officers in quick succession including a rear-admiral, he claimed responsibility for all acts of vandalism and announced his status as a political prisoner. He was imprisoned in solitary confinement for seventeen days, while the acts themselves continued unabated following his imprisonment.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 8 February 1946, a number of naval ratings (enlisted personnel) were court martialed for insubordination, and the commanding officer Frederick King reportedly indulged in racialist polemic along with the use of epithets such as "sons of bitches", "sons of coolies" and "junglies" to describe his Indian underlings. Some of the naval ratings filed a formal complaints against the leadership style of the commanding officer. On 17 February, a large number of ratings began refusing food and orders for military parades, King had reportedly used the term "black bastards" to describe a group of sailors during the morning briefing. By 18 February, the ratings at HMIS "Sutlej", HMIS "Jumna", and those at Castle and Fort Barracks in the Bombay Harbour followed suit and began refusing orders, in solidarity with the operators at HMIS "Talwar".


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: At 12:30, 18 February 1946, it was reported that all naval ratings below the rank of petty officer at "HMIS Talwar" were refusing commands from the CO. Eventually, the ratings rebelled, seizing control of the shore establishment and expelling the officers. Over the course of the day, the ratings moved across the Bombay Harbour from ship to ship in an attempt to convince other ratings to join them in the mutiny. In the meantime, B. C. Dutt had spent several days in solitary confinement and was allowed to return at the "Talwar" barracks before his expected dismissal from the force. He would later come to be known one of the primary instigators of the mutiny. Within a day, the mutiny had spread to 22 ships in the harbour and 12 other shore establishments in Bombay. On the same day, the mutiny was also joined in by RIN operated wireless stations including those as distant as Aden and Bahrain; the mutineers at HMIS "Talwar" had used available wireless devices at the signals school to establish direct communications with them.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 19 February, the Flag Officer Commanding, Royal Indian Navy, Admiral John Henry Godfrey sent out a communication via the All India Radio, stating that the most stringent measures would be utilised to suppress their mutiny, including if necessary the destruction of the Navy itself. Rear Admiral Arthur Rullion Rattray, second–in–command to the Royal Indian Navy, and the commanding officer at the Bombay Harbour conducted an inspection in person which confirmed that the unrest was widespread and beyond his control. Rattray insisted on a parley with the mutineers but Auchinleck and Godfrey were both opposed to the idea. The events at HMIS "Talwar" had motivated sailors across Bombay and the Royal Indian Navy to join in by the prospects of a revolution to overthrow the British Raj and in solidarity with the grievances of their naval fraternity.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: Over the course of the day, many of the ratings moved into the city armed with hockey sticks and fire axes, causing traffic disruption and occasionally commandeering vehicles. Motor launches seized at the harbour were paraded around and cheered on by crowds gathering at the piers. Demonstrations and agitations broke out in the city, gasoline was seized from passing trucks, tramway tracks outside the Prince of Wales Museum were set on fire, the US Information Office was raided and the American flag located inside was pulled down and burned on the streets.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On the morning of 20 February 1946, it was reported that Bombay Harbour, including all its ships and naval establishments had been overtaken by mutineers. It encompassed 45 warships, 10–12 shore establishments, 11 auxiliary vessels and four flotillas, overtaken by around 10,000 naval ratings. The harbour facilities consisted of the Fort and Castle Barracks, the Central Communications Office which oversaw all signals traffic for naval communications in Bombay, the Colaba receiving station and hospital facilities of the Royal Indian Navy located nearby in Sewri. The warships included two destroyers HMIS "Narbada" and HMIS "Jumna", two older warships HMIS "Clive" and HMIS "Lawrence", one frigate HMIS "Dhanush" and four corvettes HMIS "Gondwana" (K348), HMIS "Assam" (K306), HMIS "Mahratta" (K395) and HMIS "Sind" (K274), among other ships such as gunboats and naval trawlers.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The solitary exception to the mutiny at the Bombay Harbour was the frigate HMIS "Shamsher", a "test ship" with Indian officers. The commanding officer of HMIS "Shamsher", Lieutenant Krishnan had created a diversionary signal and moved out of the harbour on 20:00, 18 February 1946. Despite protestations from his Sub–Lieutenant R. K. S. Ghandhi, Krishnan did not join the rebellion and was also able to prevent a mutiny from the ratings under his command, with an apparent "charismatic speech" where he used his Indian identity to maintain the chain of command.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The rebellion also included shore establishments in the vicinity of Bombay; HMIS "Machlimar" at Versova, an anti–submarine training school was manned by 300 ratings, HMIS "Hamla" at Marvé which held the residence quarters of the landing craft wing of the RIN had been seized by 600 ratings, HMIS "Kakauri", the demobilisation center in the city which was seized by over 1,400 ratings who were housed there. On Trombay Island, the Mahul wireless communications station and HMIS "Cheetah", a second demobilisation center were also seized by mutineers. HMIS "Akbar" at Kolshet, a training facility for Special Services ratings which had the capacity of 3,000 trainees was seized by the 500 ratings who were residing within it premises. Two inland establishments, HMIS "Shivaji" in Lonavala was a mechanical training establishment was seized by 800 ratings and HMIS "Feroze" in the Malabar Hills, a reserve officer's training facility that had been converted into an officer's demobilisation center, was seized by 120 ratings.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: In the afternoon of 19 February, the mutineers at the Bombay Harbour had congregated at HMIS "Talwar" to elect the Naval Central Strike Committee (NCSC) as their representatives and formulate the "Charter of Demands." Warships and shore establishments became constituencies for the election of the committee from which individual representatives were elected to the committee. Most of the members of the committee remain unknown, and many of them were reportedly under 25. Of those known, were the petty officer Madan Singh and signalman M. S. Khan, who were authorised by the committee to conduct informal talks. The "Charter of Demands" was sent to the authorities and consisted of a mixture of political and service related demands.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On the warships and shore establishments, the British flags and naval ensigns were pulled down and the flags of the Indian National Congress, All–India Muslim League and the Communist Party of India were hoisted. The Bombay committee of the Communist Party of India called a general strike which was supported by leaders from the Congress Socialist Party, a socialist caucus within the Indian National Congress. The provincial units of the Indian National Congress and the All India Muslim League however opposed the mutiny from the onset. Disappointed and disgruntled with opposition from the national leadership towards the mutiny, the flags of the Congress and Muslim League were pulled down and only the red flags kept aloft.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 20 February 1946, the Naval Central Strike Committee had recommended some of the ratings to move into the city to garner popular support for their demands. RIN trucks packed with naval ratings entered European–dominated commercial districts of Bombay shouting slogans to galvanize Indians, followed by instances of altercations between the mutineers and Europeans including servicemen. Police personnel, students and labour organisations in the city went on sympathetic strikes in support of the mutineers. The Royal Indian Air Force units also witnessed unrest in its base of operations in Bombay. The personnel including pilots refused transportation duties for the deployment of British troops in the city and orders to fly bombers over the harbour. Around 1,200 air force strikers began a procession in the city alongside the ratings. The procession was joined in by striking servicemen from the Naval Accounts Civilian Staff.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: Meanwhile, the Viceroy's Executive Council convened a meeting and came to the decision to stand firm and accept only unconditional surrender, refusing any notions of a parley. Rear Admiral Rattray issued an order to confine all the naval ratings back into their quarters at the barracks by 15:30. General Rob Lockhart, the commanding officer of the Southern Command was given charge of suppressing the mutiny. The Royal Marines and the 5th Mahratta Light Infantry were deployed in Bombay to push the agitating ratings out of Bombay and back into their barracks.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The strike committee had advised mutineers to refrain from engaging in combat with the army personnel in the city, and the ratings hesitant about engaging in a confrontation with the police and the army retreated to the harbour by afternoon. The troops however proved inadequate in pushing the mutineers back into their barracks. Warning shots from machine guns and rifles were fired near the harbour to prevent the army from advancing further. The naval ratings had taken position at the harbour and were well armed with small arms and ammunitions available at the warships, lockers and munitions depots at the naval establishments. The warships in the harbour were armed with Bofors 40 mm anti–aircraft guns and main batteries with 4–inch guns, that had been altered to the advancing troops and directed their guns towards the land. HMIS "Narbada" and HMIS "Jumna" took up positions, pointing their batteries at the oil storage and other military buildings on the Bombay shoreline.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: In the evening, Admiral Godfrey reached Bombay after being flown in from the headquarters at New Delhi. The army had formed an encirclement around the harbour and naval districts. The ratings informed "The Free Press Journal" that the government was attempting to enforce a blockade and cut off food supply to them. During the same time, Godfrey offered to accede to one of the demands, that of improvement in the quality of food which reportedly baffled the mutineers. Parel Mahila Sangh, a communist–affiliated union organised food relief from fishermen and mill workers in Bombay, to be shipped into the harbour.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 21 February 1946, Admiral John Henry Godfrey released a statement on the All India Radio, threatening the mutineers to surrender immediately or face complete destruction. He had conferred with the First Sea Lord (Chief of Naval Staff), Sir Andrew Cunningham who recommended the swift suppression of the mutiny to prevent it from turning into a greater military conflict. The British flotilla of the Royal Navy, consisting of the cruiser HMS "Glasgow", three frigates and five destroyers were called in from Singapore. Bombers from the Royal Air Force were flown over the harbour as a show of strength.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The Royal Marines were directed to re–take the Castle Barracks, the mutineers entered into fire fights on some of the army positions on land. The mutineers attempted a probe into the city but the army successful repulsed it, preventing them from surging into Bombay. Godfrey sent a message to the British Admiralty requesting urgent assistance and stating that the mutineers possessed capabilities to take the city. Meanwhile, the ratings manning shops at the harbour exchanged rifle fire with advancing British troops of the 5th Mahratta Light Infantry. Salvos from the main guns of the RIN warships were fired at the British troops approaching the barracks.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: Around 16:00, the firing from the warships were ceased following instructions from the Strike Committee and the ratings retreated out of the barracks. The marines stormed the barrack facilities in the evening, seized the munitions storage and secured all the entrances and exits of the barracks. With the marines having gained a foothold inside the harbour, the Central Strike Committee was moved from the shore establishment HMIS "Talwar" to the state of the art warship HMIS "Narbada."


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: In the meantime, Royal Indian Air Force personnel from the Andheri and Colaba camps revolted and joined up with the naval ratings. Sporting white flags spattered with blood, around 1,000 airmen occupied the Marine Drive of Bombay. The contingent issued their own set of demands mimicking the "Charter of Demands" and included a demand for standardisation of pay scales with the Royal Air Force (RAF). The Royal Indian Air Force personnel at the Sion area began a strike in support of the mutineers.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 22 February 1946, British reinforcements in the form of battalions from the Essex Regiment, the Queen's Regiment and the Border Regiment, along with 146th Regiment of the Royal Armoured Corps arrived at Bombay from Poona, Bombay Province. This was followed in quick succession with the arrival of an anti–tank battery from the Field Regiment of the Royal Artillery stationed in Jubbulpore. Curfew was imposed in the city. Fearing a wider, communist–inspired rebellion in the country, the government decided to crack down on the agitators. Over the course of the unrest, up to 236 people were killed and thousands were injured, though these figures include communal violence sparked by the mutiny. On 23 February 1946, the Naval Central Strike Committee requested all the warships to fly black flags of surrender.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The news of the mutiny at HMIS "Talwar" reached Karachi on 19 February 1946. In the afternoon, the naval ratings from the shore establishments HMIS "Bahadur", HMIS "Himalaya" and HMIS "Monze" called a meeting of ratings at the beach of Manora Island through the Saliors' Association in Karachi. The general body came to a unanimous decision to launch an agitation on 21 February with a procession beginning at the Keamari jetty on the mainland and eventually moving through the city in opposition to British rule and endorsing unity between the Indian National Congress and the All–India Muslim League.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: However, on 20 February 1946, before the planned procession could occur, a dozen naval ratings on the old cruiser HMIS "Hindustan" disembarked from the ship and refused to return unless certain officers were transferred, in protest against discrimination faced by them. Over the course of the day, the group began to swell as naval ratings from HMIS "Himalaya" followed by ratings from other establishments joined them. The group moved into the Keamari locality with slogans such as "Inquilab Zindabad" (), "Hindustan Azad" (), urging commercial establishments to begin a general strike and eventually began a march towards the railway station claiming that they intended to march on Delhi. In the meantime, a second meeting was called which quickly came to the decision to drop the planned agitation and support the activities of the ratings in the city. The ratings working through the association, organised for walls in the naval areas and in the city to be struck with posters and painted with galvanising slogans such as "We shall live as a free nation" and "Tyrants your days are over", among others.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: In the morning of 21 February 1946, Manora Island was rife with unrest. The warship HMIS "Hindustan" docked at the Karachi Harbour had been seized by the naval ratings at midnight, the officers subdued, and the warship moored at the Manora Island. Within hours of the mutiny at HMIS "Hindustan", the trainings establishment HMIS "Bahadur", the radar school HMIS "Chamak" and the gunnery school HMIS "Himalaya" were seized by around 1,500 naval ratings, all located on the island. The British officers at HMIS "Bahadur" shot and killed one of the ratings during the process, whose blood soaked shirt became the flag for the mutineers. The other military vessel in the harbour, HMIS "Travancore" was also seized by the ratings.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The mutiny at the naval establishments at Manora were joined by local residents. By morning, the mutineers were crossing over to Keamari on civilian and military motor launches from the jetty of HMIIS "Himalaya". Some of the ratings were caught on their way by British manned patrol boats that fired at them and retreated when HMIS "Hindustan" began shelling in their direction with up its twelve–pounder guns. Two ratings on the launches died and several were wounded in the minor confrontation.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: In the meantime, troops from the 44th Indian Airborne Division, the Black Watch and a battery of the Royal Regiment of Artillery were deployed in Karachi for assistance. According to unconfirmed reports, many of the Indian regiments refused to fire at the mutineers. The army predominantly relied on British troops for the duration of the mutiny and the civil unrest in the city that followed afterwards.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The authorities were in close contact with their counterparts in Bombay and intended to prevent a similar collaboration between mutineers and civilians that had reportedly led to a critical situation in Bombay. Cordons were placed at the bridges connecting Keamari with the rest of the city by the police, along with British troops armed with Thompson submachine guns. The cordons prevented the mutineers from entering the city and hundreds of ratings were pinned down at the Keamari area throughout the day. Local workers at the dockyards joined up with the ratings and held demonstrations with slogans calling for revolution.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: In the evening, the mutineers at Keamari fixed rendezvous points with the workers and boatmen, and returned to the island. The mutineers held a number of meetings at night on the island to deliberate upon a plan of action for the following day. Around 11:00 pm, HMIS Chamak, the radar school received information from HMIS "Himalaya", the gunnery school and jetty on the island that HMIS "Hindustan" had received an ultimatum from the authorities to surrender by 10:00 am. HMIS "Hindustan" was the sole warship in the area and commanded the passage into the Karachi Harbour. In the morning of 22 February 1946, Commodore Curtis, the British commanding officer at the harbour held parley at 8:30 am, coming on board the ship in an effort to persuade the ratings to surrender, and providing "safe conduct" to those who would do so by 9:00 am. The ultimatum's time delineation had been adjusted with the low tide which put the warship off the shore at a strategically disadvantageous position with respect to troops on land.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The parley drew no response and the ultimatum was ignored, the ratings were observed to be in preparations for manning the ship's armaments. Altered by this development, the British troops advanced through Keamari and attempted to board HMIS "Hindustan", beginning with sniper fire from a distance directed at those on the deck of the ship. The mutineers returned fire with the Oerlikon 20 mm cannons on the ship, heavy machine guns on board the ship were also utilised. Two four–inch main guns on board the ship were primed although their field of vision of impaired due to low tide. In a retaliatory measure, the artillery battery fired at the ship with mortars and field guns, including the 75 millimeter howitzers. The warship refrained from retaliating with its full armament to avoid hitting sympathetic civilian targets in the city in light of its impaired vision. One of the main gun turrets exploded due to the shelling resulting in a fire aboard the ship, while it was attempting to leave the harbour. On this turn of events at 10:55, the mutineers at HMIS "Hindustan" surrendered and the battle had ended.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: In the morning, the British army had issued a warning stating that any civilian approaching a mile of HMIS "Hindustan" would be shot on sight. This delayed crossing of mutineers from Manora to Keamari as it significantly reduced the number of boatmen willing to assist them. The confrontation with HMIS "Hindustan" had ended by the time some of the ratings made it across were met with British troops that had advanced into and occupied Keamari. In the meantime, British paratroopers captured the shore establishments on the island. The Black Watch was also directed to re–take Manora Island, who according to an Intelligence Bureau report to the Home Department had captured the gunnery school at 9:50 am. The report further stated that the casualties at the time were 7 RIN ratings and 15 paratroopers wounded on the island. The remaining ratings were trapped at the jetty on Manora, unable to cross over to Keamari and faced with the Black Watch behind them. In the end, 8–14 were killed, 33 wounded including British troops and 200 mutineers arrested.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: Movement and communication between Keamari and Karachi were cut off with the placement of a military and police cordon from 21 February onward. Civilian dhows at Keamari were confiscated by British authorities and brought into the city, and the military deployment searched vehicles that had entered the city from Keamari to prevent mutineers from infiltrating Karachi. Much of the population was concentrated near the ports and Keamari in particular was densely populated with a heavy working–class concentration, as a result civilian life was severely disrupted with the military deployment and the placement of cordons. Exaggerated narrations of events spread through the city, and the civilian population, which was already sympathetic to the mutineers, were galvanized along with growing apprehensions for the military presence. The narrations included rumours and were primarily spread by the expropriated boatmen and fishermen who were able to maintain some lines of communication with those in Keamari.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 22 February 1946, flashes of firing and sounds of gunfire from the confrontation could be seen and heard in Karachi. The port area was swarmed with military vehicles where some of them were vandalised by civilians. Indian military police were heckled and jeered at by crowds while British troops, military trucks and dispatches were attacked with stones on several routes. The mutineers surrendered but civil unrest had begun to sweep through the city. The protests which began spontaneously in the preceding days, became more organised with the involvement of students and local leaders. In the evening, the Communist Party of India held a public meeting at the Karachi Idgah park, which witnessed a gathering of around 1,000 people and was presided over by Sobho Gianchandani. According to the authorities, "dangerous and provocative anti–British speeches" were made at this assembly; an expression prominent in the meeting was that the mutineers had shown them how the arms provided to them could really be utilised while civilians were helpless because of the lack of weapons or contact with the mutineers. The meeting concluded with the decision to call for a city–wide "hartal" () on the following day.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 23 February 1946, Karachi observed a complete shutdown with warehouses and stores closed, tramway workers on strike, and students from college and schools demonstrating on the streets. The authorities, in an attempt to prevent civil unrest which was witnessed in Bombay a day earlier, arrested three prominent communist leaders in the city and the district magistrate imposed a section 144 order in the Karachi district which prohibited gatherings of more than three people. The police force was however ineffective in enforcing the order due to low morale in the force, abstentions and instances of collusion between police personnel and civilian agitators. Over the course of the day, the streets filled as more and more people joined mass demonstrations and gatherings.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: Numerous mass gatherings, meetings and demonstrations were held while the Communist Party of India led a procession of 30,000 people through the city. The subdued naval ratings on Manora Island also observed a hunger strike in the presence of British troops. Many of the striking ratings, some of whom were identified as their leaders, were arrested by the authorities and sent to the military prison camp at Malir in the Thar Desert. At noon, a crowd of thousands had formed at Idgah park which was joined by the Communist Party–led procession. The police force was eventually deployed at the park who were repulsed after several attempts to disperse the crowd. Idgah had become a centre of resistance for the protesters, where later in the day, some of the communist leaders called for the protesters to disperse but were unable to contain the majority of the crowd who were galvanised by the previous day's radical messages and attacked the nearby police personnel.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The government called for the armed forces to be deployed in the city and the crowd at the park, faced with the arrival of the British troops, scattered into smaller groups. The troops occupied the park in the afternoon, but the smaller groups, inflamed by their deployment, targeted government establishments such as post offices, police stations and the sole "European"–owned Grindlays Bank in the city. Government buildings were vandalised by smaller groups throughout the city and a sub–post office burned to the ground. One group attempted to capture the municipal building but were prevented by the police who arrested 11 youths, including a Communist Party leader. The crowds targeted Anglo–Indians, Europeans and occasionally Indian government servants, who were stripped of their hats and ties, which were then burnt on the ground. This was followed by the British troops moving through the streets and on several occasions resorting to shooting to disperse the crowds. The crowds, which were primarily composed of students and working–class people, dispersed at night as they returned to their homes.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 24 February 1946, the military forces in the city successfully enforced a curfew. The unrest subsided over the following days and the military presence was removed by the end of 26 February. Estimates of casualties from the shootings come only from official figures: 4–8 killed, 33 injured from police firings in self–defense and 53 policemen injured.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 20 February 1946, it was reported that with the aid of radio and telegraph messages from the Signals School and Central Communications Office in Bombay, the mutiny had spread to all RIN sub stations in India, located at Madras, Cochin, Vizagapatam, Jamnagar, Calcutta and Delhi. The Bombay telegraphs also requested assistance from Royal Indian Air Force (RIAF) and Royal Indian Army Service Corps (RIASC). During the mutiny, the supplies provided to the RIASC was pilfered by servicemen and sold off to the mutineers through the black market. HMIS "India", the naval headquarters at New Delhi witnessed around 80 signals operators refusing to following commands and barricading themselves inside their station.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 22 February 1946, large–scale agitations by civilians began across several cities other than Bombay and Karachi, such as Madras, Calcutta and New Delhi. Looting was widespread and directed at government institutions, grains stores were looted by the impoverished, as were jewelry shops and banks. Criminal elements known as "goondas" were also reportedly involved.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The minesweeper flotilla of the Royal Indian Navy, with its command warship HMIS "Kistna" was stationed in the Andaman Sea. The flotilla included six other ships namely, HMIS "Hongkong", HMIS "Bengal" (J243), HMIS "Rohilkhand" (J180), HMIS "Deccan" (J129), HMIS "Baluchistan" (J182) and HMIS "Bihar" (J247). HMIS "Kistna" received news of the mutiny in Bombay during the breakfast hour on 20 February 1946. The commanding officer of the flotilla addressed the personnel at 16:00 expressing sympathies with "legitimate aspirations" while emphasizing the importance of maintaining order and discipline. The following day, further broadcasts increased tensions between the officers and the naval ratings, and rumours began to spread among the sailors. Lacking direct communication with the mutineers and access to print news, the ratings were primarily informed about the mutiny by the officers and were unable to understand the situation in Bombay.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: Godfrey had issued a statement through the All India Radio giving the example of the shore establishment HMIS "Valsura" at Jamnagar for having the stayed loyal and threatening the destruction of the navy if the mutineers didn't surrender. The broadcast reportedly agitated the ratings.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: In Morvi State, a transport vessel named SS "Kathiawar" had set out for sea on 21 February 1946. The ship was seized by the 120 ratings on board after receiving a radio transmission for assistance from the warship HMIS "Hindustan" in Karachi. The ship was subsequently diverted towards Karachi but HMIS "Hindustan" surrendered before they could reach their designation which prompted them to redirect towards Bombay. The mutiny had however ended by the time it reached the city.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 19 February 1946, around 150 naval ratings mutinied at the shore establishment and naval base HMIS "Adyar" in Madras, Madras Presidency. The mutineers paraded through the streets of the city shouting slogans and attacked the British officers who attempted to impede them in their activities.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: 1,600 personnel with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers at Avadi publicised their decision to refuse orders and initiate a general strike.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 22 February 1946, the stations of the RIAF in Punjab witnessed a mass general strike. Several demonstrations in the "bazaars" () were held across the province by the personnel from the force warning the government against shooting at Indians and demanding the release of the Indian National Army soldiers.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 22 February 1946, the naval ratings of the frigate HMIS "Hooghly" (K330) began refusing orders in protest against the violent suppression of the mutiny in Bombay and Karachi. The Communist Party of India called a general strike in the city and around 100,000 workers participated in mass demonstrations and agitations over the following days.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 25 February 1946, the British troops surrounded the frigate located at the Kolkata Harbour and imprisoned the disobedient ratings. The general strike in the city came to an end on the following day.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The mutineers in the armed forces received no support from national political leaders and were themselves largely leaderless. Mahatma Gandhi condemned the riots and the ratings' revolt. His statement on 3 March 1946 criticized the strikers for revolting without the call of a "prepared revolutionary party" and without the "guidance and intervention" of "political leaders of their choice". He further criticized the local Indian National Congress leader Aruna Asaf Ali, who was one of the few prominent political leaders of the time to offer support for the mutineers, stating that she would rather unite Hindus and Muslims on the barricades than on the constitutional front. Gandhi's criticism also belies the submissions to the looming reality of Partition of India, having stated "If the union at the barricade is honest then there must be union also at the constitutional front."


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The Muslim League made similar criticisms of the mutiny, arguing that unrest amongst the sailors was not best expressed on the streets, however serious their grievances might be. Legitimacy could only, probably, be conferred by a recognised political leadership as the head of any kind of movement. Spontaneous and unregulated upsurges, as the RIN strikers were viewed, could only disrupt and, at worst, destroy consensus at the political level. This may be Gandhi's (and the Congress's) conclusions from the Quit India Movement in 1942 when central control quickly dissolved under the impact of suppression by the colonial authorities, and localised actions, including widespread acts of sabotage, continued well into 1943. It may have been the conclusion that the rapid emergence of militant mass demonstrations in support of the sailors would erode central political authority if and when transfer of power occurred. The Muslim League had observed passive support for the "Quit India" campaign among its supporters and, devoid of communal clashes despite the fact that it was opposed by the then collaborationist Muslim League. It is possible that the League also realised the likelihood of a destabilised authority as and when power was transferred. This certainly is reflected on the opinion of the sailors who participated in the strike. It has been concluded by later historians that the discomfiture of the mainstream political parties was because the public outpourings indicated their weakening hold over the masses at a time when they could show no success in reaching agreement with the British Indian government.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The Communist Party of India, the third largest political force at the time, extended full support to the naval ratings and mobilised the workers in their support, hoping to end British rule through revolution rather than negotiation. The two principal parties of British India, the Congress and the Muslim League, refused to support the ratings. The class content of the mass uprising frightened them and they urged the ratings to surrender. Patel and Jinnah, two representative faces of the communal divide, were united on this issue and Gandhi also condemned the 'Mutineers'. The Communist Party gave a call for a general strike on 22 February. There was an unprecedented response and over a lakh students and workers came out on the streets of Calcutta, Karachi and Madras. The workers and students carrying red flags paraded the streets with the slogans "Accept the demands of the ratings" and "End British and Police zoolum". Upon surrender, the ratings faced court–martial, imprisonment and victimisation. Even after 1947, the governments of Independent India and Pakistan refused to reinstate them or offer compensation. The only prominent leader from Congress who supported them was Aruna Asaf Ali. Disappointed with the progress of the Congress Party on many issues, Aruna Asaf Ali joined the Communist Party of India (CPI) in the early 1950s.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: It has been speculated that the actions of the Communist Party to support the mutineers was partly born out of its nationalist power struggle with the Indian National Congress. M. R. Jayakar, who was a Judge in the Federal Court of India (which later became the Supreme Court of India), wrote in a personal letter


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The only major political segments that still mentions the revolt are the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party of India (Marxist). The literature of the Communist Party portrays the RIN Revolt as a spontaneous nationalist uprising that had the potential to prevent the partition of India, and one that was essentially betrayed by the leaders of the nationalist movement.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: More recently, the RIN Revolt has been renamed the Naval Uprising and the mutineers honoured for the part they played in India's independence. In addition to the statue which stands in Mumbai opposite the sprawling Taj Wellingdon Mews, two prominent mutineers, Madan Singh and B.C. Dutt, have each had ships named after them by the Indian Navy.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: Between 25 and 26 February 1946, the rest of the mutineers surrendered with a guarantee from the Indian National Congress and the All–India Muslim League that none of them would be persecuted. Contingents of the naval ratings were arrested and imprisoned in camps with distressing conditions over the following months, despite resistance from national leaders, and the condition of surrender which shielded them from persecution.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: “The weekly intelligence summary issued on 25 March 1946 admitted that the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force units were no longer trustworthy, and, for the Army, ‘only day to day estimates of steadiness could be made’. The situation has thus been deemed the ‘Point of No Return".’”"


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: Precautionary measures were taken against possibility of a second rebellious outbreak. Firing mechanisms were removed from the warships, small arms kept under lock by British officers and army troops were deployed as guards on board warships and at the shore establishments. British admirals, despite the mutiny, were unwilling to cede control and retained assumptions of the navy acting as an instrument of British interests in the Indian Ocean.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: In British circles, confidence in the loyalty and reliability of the Royal Indian Navy was shattered. The mutiny marred the reputation of John Henry Godfrey. He became known for professional neglect and was blamed for losing control of the navy during the mutiny. Godfrey took responsibility for his inability to prevent and contain the rebellion, which had jeopordised British security in the Indian Ocean. Although he was not held responsible in any official naval proceedings and continued to serve the British Admiralty, he was informally rebuked through means such as being overlooked in award of honors.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 23 March 1946, Vice Admiral Geoffrey Audley Miles replaced Godfrey as Flag Officer Commanding Royal Indian Navy. Between June 1941 to March 1943, Miles had served as the head of the British naval mission in Moscow and was responsible for coordinating British naval operations with the Soviet Navy. He was appointed as the commanding officer of the British naval forces in Western Mediterranean from March 1943 till the end of the war, and was the British representative at the Tripartite Naval Commission. The diplomatic experience of Miles hence led to a perceptions of him being best suited to deal with the aftermath of the mutiny by the British government and expectations on him remained high.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The change in leadership did not bring about change in attitudes in the British naval leadership and Miles embraced the vision for the near and long term of the navy that had been pervaded by Godfrey. He continued to employ British naval officers and no changes were made in the hierarchy of command. Miles personally visited all the shore establishments, paid off the lease on the smaller warships and sent the larger warships for exercises at sea on a continual basis. The schedule was made more hectic to keep the naval ratings distracted and minimize routine contact with the civilian population. The warships remained disarmed and the small arms out of access during the exercises. No further unrest occurred in the navy and Miles was considered to have been at least partially successful in restoring confidence in the reliability in the Royal Indian Navy.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: Following independence, the navy was divided in two, but British officers remained in positions of authority within the two navies; the Royal Indian Navy (later renamed to Indian Navy) and the Royal Pakistan Navy (later renamed to Pakistan Navy). Vice Admiral William Edward Parry became the commanding officer of the Indian Navy. None of the discharged sailors were pardoned or reinstated in either navy.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: Many sailors on HMIS "Talwar" were reported to have communist leanings and on a search of 38 sailors who were arrested on HMIS "New Delhi", 15 were found to be subscribers to CPI literature. The British later came to know that the revolt, though not initiated by the Communist Party of India, was inspired by its literature.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: Numerous boards of inquiry were set up at the shore establishments and naval bases across India by the naval authorities as factfinding bodies to investigate the causes and circumstances of the mutiny. The bodies consisted of British armed forces officers and primarily took witness testimonies of RIN officers with a small cross–section of other ranks. The cause of the mutiny was determined to have its basis in administrative deficiencies such as inadequate information, failure of regular inspections, lack of experienced petty officers, chiefs and officers.


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: On 8 March 1946, Commander–in–Chief Sir Claude Auchinleck recommended a commission of inquiry determine the causes and origin of the mutiny. The commission of inquiry's members were:


title: Royal Indian Navy mutiny

text: The commission became highly politicised. It was criticised for being over–legalistic, selective in its conduct and antagonistic towards the military institution. Its report was publicly released in January 1947. British naval officers remained skeptical of its findings.