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You Might Also Want to Remember July 17

July 17, 2024, is the eightieth anniversary of the most fatal World War II tragedy on the mainland soil. The site is about ninety miles southwest of Sacramento, CA, called the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Monument. On that day in 1944, at 10:19 pm, an explosion took place of such magnitude that U.C. Berkeley measured the ground shock at 3.4 on the Richter scale, while others thought it was a nuclear bomb test.

World War II's insatiable demand for munitions in the Pacific led the Commander of Mare Island, in charge of the Naval Weapons loading dock at Port Chicago (near Concord), to request faster ship loading. Primarily, young black men in the then segregated Navy, recently trained in basic Naval Seamanship, were assigned to the loading facility without any specialized training. A Naval officer had been searching for training and safety manuals. The Longshoreman's Union in San Francisco offered to train the sailors, but the Navy refused.

Some winches troubled the two privately contracted ships on each side of the pier. While histories of the sailors show they were wary of the mortars, bombs, torpedoes, depth charges, and incendiary devices, they'd been informed the munitions weren't armed and wouldn't be fused until their destination.

The pier's two railroad lines enabled loading of the ships on each dock side from two train cars. Loading operations were seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. The investigation indicates the fully fueled ship contributed to the explosion before sinking, while the Fire Boat parked nearby was thrown over six hundred feet and sank. Everything hot, exploding and unexploded ordnance, rained down on the nearby town and the base, causing injuries, and fires, and fear as buildings were demolished. Pilots reported seeing fire and debris 8 to 12,000 feet high.

There are stories about the unpopular black petty officers driving the sailors to load quicker, and officers having bets on whose enlisted men could go faster. It appears sailors scoring higher on basic Navy tests got other assignments. Those who performed well on the loading tasks received transfers. The Navy misjudged the complexity of the strenuous pick up and carry tasks complicated by grueling hours.

320 sailors and civilians perished in the explosion, 220 of them black sailors, representing 15-20% of all African American WWII casualties. Another 390 were injured. 

Sailors volunteered to help with an intended rescue, and then there was clean up. Less than a month later, the Navy resumed loading operations. 258 black men refused to load the munitions. Many consider this the start of the West Coast Civil Rights movement. Some were held on a barge for three days. Most agreed to go back to work, but were court martialled with three months' pay suspended. 

The Navy charged fifty men with conspiring to mutiny, even though there is no evidence they attempted to take possession of any ship, building, place, or person. The 'mutiny' was refusing to load munitions. 

Thurgood Marshall, Chief Counsel for the NAACP, attended the court martial as an observer. These fifty men received fifteen years sentences. In 1946, they were released and served out their military service in the Pacific. They sought clemency. By 1999, everyone but Frederick Meeks had passed away, and he was pardoned by President Clinton.

The Army Corps of Engineers calls this memorial the most solemn WWII memorial you'll never visit. Per the National Park Service, you must seek a reservation at least two weeks ahead to visit the Port Chicago Naval Magazine Memorial, because it's on an active military base.

~ John Patterson

See also: The 80TH Anniversary Remembrance 

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