THE PORT CHICAGO TRAGEDY
	The United States was swept into World War II on December 7, 1941. As the war in the Pacific expanded, the Naval Ammunition Depot at Mare Island, California, was unable to keep up with the demand for ammunition. Port Chicago, California, located 35 miles north of San Francisco, proved an ideal place for the U.S. Navy to expand its munitions facilities. Constructed in 1942, it was the first pier in U.S. history built for loading and shipping ammunition, including dangerous explosives, overseas. By 1944, after expansions and improvements, the pier could support the loading of two ships simultaneously. African-American Navy personnel were assigned to the dangerous work of loading these munitions at Port Chicago. Reflecting the racial segregation of the day, the officers of these units were white.
	Seventy-one white officers were put in charge of more than 1,400 African-American sailors, who loaded the ammunition in three round-the-clock shifts. The sailors moved the ammunition hand-to-hand, on hand trucks or carts, or rolled the larger bombs down a ramp from the boxcars on the pier and placed them into cargo netting which was spread out on the pier. The ammo included small caliber bullets, incendiary bombs, fragmentation bombs, depth charges, and bombs up to 2,000 pounds. The cargo nets were lowered by the ships booms into a hatch, where they were packed layer by layer and secured with
	dunnage. Neither the officers nor the sailors received any training in handling ammunition. There was tremendous pressure to speed up the loading, and officers made bets on the quantity of ammunition their units would load during a shift. The men were speeded up by threats of punishment. It was back-breaking, dangerous work.
	TRAGEDY STRIKES
	On the evening of July 17, 1944, there were two ships being loaded at the Port Chicago pier. The SS E.A. Bryan, after four days of loading was packed with 4,606 tons of ammunition and explosives. Also docked at the pier was the SS Quinault Victory, being loaded for its maiden voyage. On the pier were 16 railcars with another 430 tons of bombs waiting to be loaded. Working in the area were 320 cargo handlers, crewmen, and sailors. At 10:18 p.m., a hollow ring and the sound of splintering wood erupted from the pier at Port Chicago followed by an explosion that ripped apart the night sky. Witnesses said that a brillant white flash shot into the air accompanied by a loud, sharp report. A column of smoke billowed from the pier, and fire glowed orange and yellow. Flashing like fireworks, smaller explosions went off in the cloud as it rose. Within six seconds, a deeper explosion erupted as the contents of the E.A. Bryan detonated in one massive explosion. The seismic shock wave was felt as far away as Boulder City, Nevada. The blast caused damage 48 miles across the bay in San Francisco.
	Click on Above Picture to Enlarge The E.A. Bryan and the structures around the pier were completely disintegrated. A pillar of smoke and fire stretched over two miles into the sky above Port Chicago. A plane flying at 9,000 feet reported seeing chunks of white hot metal "as big as a house" flying past. There were no identifiable pieces of the SS E.A. Bryan remaining, 25,000,000 pounds of ship and ammunition were gone! The shattered Quinault Victory was blown into the air. Witnesses reported seeing a 200-foot column on which rode the bow of the ship, its mast still attached. Its remains crashed back into the bay 500 feet away. The largest remaining pieces of the 7,200-ton ship were the size of a suitcase.
	All 320 men on duty that night were killed instantly. The explosion at Port Chicago accounted for 15% of all African-American casualties of World War II. In addition to those killed, there were 390 wounded. But for the African-American sailors at Port Chicago, another bombshell was about to drop.
	TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE
	Congress introduced a bill to grant the families of the dead $5,000 compensation. That amount was reduced to $3,000 because Mississippi representative John Rankin objected to the larger sum when he learned that most of the beneficiaries were African-Americans. But that was just the beginning of the problems for the survivors. A Naval Court of Inquiry was held to investigate the cause of the explosion. They cleared the white officers in charge and found the cause to be "incompetence" on the part of the African-American sailors. What neither the sailors nor the public knew was that a week after the explosion, an Armed Services Explosives Safety Board investigation reported that the blast was most likely caused by a mine filled with torpedo explosives that accidently ignited, not by the negligence of the loaders. The shocked, grieving seamen were ordered back to work and denied leave, while white servicemen were given thirty days leave.
	Less than one month after surviving the horror of the explosion, African-American sailors were forced back to work loading ammunition at the nearby Mare Island base, without any changes in procedures. What had been minor grievances and problems before the explosion began to boil, as apprehension of returning to the piers, grew. Because conditions remained unsafe, 258 men refused to load ammunition unless safety procedures were implemented. They told their commanding officers they would obey any order, but not that one. The base commander ordered them back to work or face mutiny charges. The African-American sailors still refused.
	Of the 258 sailors, 208 faced summary courts-martial and were sentenced to bad conduct discharges and the forfeiture of three-months pay for disobeying orders. The remaining 50 sailors were singled out for general courts-martial on the grounds of mutiny. They received between eight and fifteen years at hard labor. Soon after the war, in January 1946, their sentences were commuted, but all were dishonorably discharged.
	YEARS LATER
	In 1994, twenty-four members of Congress petitioned the U.S. Navy to review the circumstances surrounding the Port Chicago convictions. The Navy Board of Review admitted that race had played a role in assigning only African-American sailors to load ammunition, and the subsequent mutiny proceedings illustrated the costs of racial discrimination. However, the Navy still refused to overturn the convictions. In 1999, NBC television's Tom Brokaw made several media appearances extolling " 'the greatest generation,' those who fought in World War II (because) they returned to their hometowns in triumph and used discipline and ingenuity to make America great." Brokaw's comments prompted actor/producer Morgan Freeman to ask, "What criteria are you going to use to say that was the best generation? Is that a generalized statement or does it include all of us? If it includes all of us, then that statement's wrong because (the Port Chicago mutiny trials were) institutionalized exclusion. It behooves us to try and tell the stories that have been neglected."
	Even though the U.S. Navy still refuses to overturn these sailors' convictions and appeals to former President Clinton went unanswered, this wrong can be corrected. The African-American sailors who were dishonorably discharged can be legally exonerated. Exoneration goes beyond a pardon, because a pardon would require all to admit guilt. If you would like to see this travesty finally corrected, you can use the link below to send letters to Congress in support of a bill that would exonerate these men and to let our government officials know that we will not tolerate this injustice any longer.
	For more information and photos of the sailors and Port Chicago pier explosion, click here: For more information on the Port Chicago Mutiny and a Timeline of the History of African-Americans in the Military from 1700 to the present, click here:
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	Information was compiled from the following sources: U.S. Navy; National Park Service. "Port Chicago Naval Magazine." Washington: Government Printing Office. Workers World. "The Port Chicago Mutiny" by Monica Moorehead. The Boston Herald. "Reclaiming A 'Mutiny' " by Wendy J. Williams. Minorities Job Bank

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