San Francisco, CA - Port Chicago Naval Magazine

Beautiful Memorial here. But the event which it commemorates is a terrible tragedy. I’ll confess that we have not see this memorial ourselves since it is on an active military base and you need prior permission to get onto the base to see it. Next time we’re in town, we’ll try to see it. My pictures are all taken from the National Park Service website. Note that two of them are marked ‘Official Photograph, not to be released for publication.’ Obviously, the military was trying to keep tragedies like this out of public view during the war. Newspapers also did not show deaths on the battlefield during the war. They were declassified in 1981.

WWII came suddenly and the US was caught needing to beef up its West Coast capacity for storing and loading munitions needed for the war in the Pacific. Just across the bay from San Francisco was another bay with deep water, railroad connections and isolation from populations centers - on the map where it says Port Chicago.

Here seamen, mostly African Americans loaded ammunition onto ships. Neither the officers nor the men had received any special training about loading ammunition. Worse, officers placed bets with other officers to see whose team could load the ammunition the fastest. The base also ignored warnings from a local longshoremen’s union about safe handling of dangerous cargo. It was a recipe for disaster.

By July 17, one ship was almost loaded and another stood off to the side ready for loading. 16 rail cars lined the pier filled with 1000-lb bombs, depth charges, and incendiary bombs. At 10:18 that night there was a tremendous explosion, followed by another larger one which demolished ships, piers, railroad cars killed 320 men of whom only 51 could be identified. The cloud from the blast rose 12,000’ in the air and windows in homes 20 miles away were shattered. The dead were buried, the 390 injured were treated and the rest were left to clean up.

Officers were given 30 days leave and transfer to other duty but the loaders were not. They were sent to Mare Island, another base to load munitions onto ships. 258 refused citing the previous blast and knowing that no safety changes had been implemented. They were threatened with court martial and 208 returned to work. 50 did not and were court-martial for mutiny. Though Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP attorney, ably defended them, they were sentenced to 15 - 18 years in prison. After the war the Navy granted clemency and put them on ships to finish their enlistments.

The ship being loaded disappeared, here is what remained of the ship waiting to be loaded.

So what in the end came as a result of this horrific accident? Well, the Navy developed and implemented significant safety changes to the loading of ammunition. Secondly, the Navy began to integrate the troops 3 years before President Truman issued his official declaration of integration in all the services.