HMS Delhi and HMS Vindictive introduce the wider Baltic troubles, but the First Destroyer Flotilla supplies the clearest collective refusal. On 12 October 1919, the coded phrase "My name's Walker" prompted 150 sailors from three destroyers, nearly half their combined crews, to leave their posts and prevent departure from Port Edgar. Fifty men then set out for London with petitions, while 96 were arrested and punished and 10 received imprisonment. They avoided the red flag and did not claim a revolutionary programme, helping officers distinguish their protest from the Kilbride case. The government's volunteers-only pledge had altered the basis on which the sailors believed they were serving. In this interpretation, naval authorities could have asked police to stop the march but declined to take responsibility for a dispute created by ministers' promise.
Chapter · 23:58-27:26
The First Destroyer Flotilla's Baltic protest
A coordinated refusal by destroyer crews exposed the contradiction between the volunteers-only pledge and Baltic deployment orders.