EXPLOSION AND MUTINY
AT PORT CHICAGO

By the second year of World War II, the U.S. Navy was looking for a place to expand its facilities for shipping munitions to the Pacific. Port Chicago, across the bay and 48 miles from San Francisco was selected and construction began in 1942. By 1944, improvements allowed two ships to be loaded simultaneously from one pier.

Black sailors who had signed on to fight in the war were instead assigned the job of loading the munition ships as stevedores. Because of the critical need for supplies overseas, loading went on around the clock in shifts and the men endured what seemed like endless, difficult physical labor.

With a war on, safety precautions were not always followed. When the men complained about being hurried to load live munitions under substantial time pressure, they were told that the bombs had not been primed and could not explode.

On the evening of July 17, 1944, the S. S. Quinault Victory was being loaded with munitions at the same pier with the S. S. E. A. Bryan. The holds were packed with 4,606 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs, depth charges, and ammunition. Nearby rail cars contained another 429 tons of explosives.

At 10:18 p.m., an explosion that ripped apart the night skies. A brilliant white flash shot into the air, accompanied by a loud, sharp report. Within seconds, a deeper explosion erupted as the cargo of the Bryan detonated as one massive bomb. The blast was so severe, it caused damage in San Francisco almost 50 miles away.

The 320 cargo handlers, crewmen, sailors, and officers working in the area were killed instantly. In addition to those killed, 390 others were wounded. The Bryan and the structures around the pier were completely disintegrated. Pieces of the shattered Quinault Victory were spun into the air. The largest pieces of the 7,200-ton ship were the size of a large suitcase.

The surviving black sailors of Port Chicago were furious. They had lost friends, comrades, and even brothers loading ships under careless supervision with inferior equipment. Of the 320 men killed in the explosion, 202 were African-American. The explosion at Port Chicago accounted for 15% of all African American casualties during World War II.

The Navy decided not to give the men any time off and told them that they would continue to load munitions at another location. Some of the sailors agreed to return to work, but others wanted their case heard. Fifty sailors said that they would not load munitions until working conditions were made safer and better equipment was provided. The Navy court martialled all fifty on the grounds of mutiny. The sentence could have been death, but they received between eight and fifteen years at hard labor. Soon after the war, in January 1946, all of the men were given clemency and an opportunity for an honorable discharge. In December 1999, President Clinton pardoned Freddie Meeks of Los Angeles, one of the few surviving members of the original 50.

After the explosion, the Navy wisely instituted a number of changes in munitions handling procedures. Formalized training and certification was required before a loader was allowed on the docks. The munitions themselves were redesigned for safety while loading.

Port Chicago also led people to examine their society. There was growing resentment toward the policies of racial segregation throughout the nation. The explosion and later mutiny proceedings would help illustrate the costs of racial discrimination and fuel public criticism. By 1945, as the Navy worked toward desegregation, some mixed units appeared. When President Harry Truman called for the Armed Forces to be desegregated in 1948, the Navy could honestly say that Port Chicago had been a very important step in that process.