America suffered its most devastating World War II loss on
its own soil at Port Chicago, California located in San Francisco’s East Bay area
75 years ago today when a munitions explosion rocked the area, leaving 320 men
dead and more than 200 of them were Black men. The tragedy set the stage for
what became known as the Port
Chicago Mutiny which historians say
contributed to the end of segregation in the Armed Forces.
Earlier this week the National Park Service held a special
service marking the 75th anniversary of the explosion. Family and
friends of the men who perished gathered at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine Memorial
to remember their loved ones.
The explosion
occurred on July 17, 1944 as munitions denotated while being loaded onto a
cargo vessel headed for the Pacific Theater Operations. The blast shook the
area and blew out windows. Because Black sailors were usually assigned the job
of munitions loading, they were impacted the most dramatically. A month later
when the Navy brought in replacement sailors, 258 of them refused to do the job
unless new safety procedures were implemented. The men were willing to work but
not in the dangerous job of munitions loading.
In the aftermath of the explosion, Sailor Percy Robinson
reportedly told researcher Robert L. Allen that the men were scared, adding “If
somebody dropped a box or slammed a door, people [began] jumping around like
crazy.”
According to BlackPast.org, 208 of the men who decided not
to load munitions were punished with a court-martial, loss of pay for three
months, and bad conduct discharges. Fifty of the men were charged with mutiny
which was punishable by death. They became known as the Port Chicago 50. They
were sentenced to eight to 15 years of hard labor but were granted clemency
when the war ended.
The NAACP investigated the incident and reported that the
men were dissatisfied with their treatment in the Navy. The Navy began a review
of its policy regarding the separation among its ranks. In 1948 President Harry
Truman signed Executive
Order 9981 abolishing segregation in the Armed Forces.
On the Port Chicago Memorial’s Facebook page, John Phillip
Fernandez wrote: “My parents and their families lived in nearby West
Pittsburg…and, no one EVER said a bad word about those sailors who were
overworked and undertrained to handle all those munitions, and then refused to
continue.”
