The Port Chicago Naval Magazine Explosion, July 17, 1944
The Port Chicago Naval Magazine explosion became the worst home-front disaster of World War II. On July 17, 1944, the massive detonation of 3.5 million pounds of high explosives killed 320, injured 390, and caused an estimated $12.5 million in property damage (in 1944 dollars).
Port Chicago, about 30 miles north of San Francisco, was developed into a munitions facility when the Naval Ammunition Depot at Mare Island, Vallejo, California, could not fully meet the war effort. By the summer of 1944, expansion of the Port Chicago facility allowed for loading two ships simultaneously around the clock. Unfortunately, safety requirements were overlooked in the rush to keep up chaotic loading schedules. Nevertheless, white naval officers and senior enlisted personnel assigned generally segregated African-American units to the dangerous loading operations. For the most part, these men had not been trained in handling munitions.
On the evening of July 17, the SS Quinault Victory and S.S.E.A. Bryan, two merchant ships, were being loaded. Their holds were packed with 4,600 tons of explosivesbombs, depth charges and ammunition. Another 400 tons of explosives were nearby on rail cars. Approximately 320 workers had been on or near the pier when, at 10:18 p.m., a sequence of huge explosions over several seconds destroyed everything and everyone in the vicinity. It was reported that blasts were felt as far away as Nevada and the resulting damage extended as far as San Francisco. Most of the buildings in Port Chicago were damaged and people were literally knocked to the ground. Fire and smoke could be seen almost two miles into the air. It was rumored that a pilot of a plane flying at 9,000 feet in the area reported that metal chunks from the explosion flew past him.
The massive explosions resulted in the loss of a number of ships and a locomotive. The S.S. E.A. Bryan, a 7,212-ton ammunition ship disappeared into the night. No single large piece of it was ever found, and the 320 men working on the ship and the pier disappeared up into a column of flame and destruction. Docked on the opposite side of the pier was the empty S.S. Quinault Victory, a 7,606-ton ship that disappeared into small pieces scattered over a distance of four miles. In addition, a U.S. Coast Guard fire barge No. 60014F and the U.S YP (Patrol Craft) Miahelo II were destroyed. Furthermore, small boats 1/2-mile distant from the pier were swept by a 30-foot wall of water. Moreover, not a single piece of a 12-ton diesel locomotive on the pier was ever identified. After the disaster, Navy divers found a crater in the river bottom created by a force exceeding that of 5,000 tons (five-kiloton) of high explosives. The force of the explosion greatly exceeded the combined potential explosive force of the 1,780 tons of TNT and torpex which were loaded on the Bryan.
African-Americans made up nearly two-thirds of the people killed at Port Chicago and represented 15% of all African-Americans killed during World War II. The surviving sailors in these units, who helped put out the fires and saw the horrors firsthand, were quickly reassigned to Mare Island Naval Station. Less than a month later, when ordered to load more munitions, but still having received no training, 258 African-American sailors refused to carry out these orders. Two hundred and eight of them were then sentenced to bad conduct discharges and pay forfeiture. The remaining 50 men were put on trial by a general court martial and sentenced to between eight and 15 years at hard labor, though two years later 47 of the 50 men were paroled to active duty and later given general discharges. Then NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall sat in on most of the proceedings and declared to no avail that he saw a prejudiced court. Nearly five decades later, in 1994, a review of the trials revealed race played a large factor in the harsh sentences, and in December 1999, President Clinton pardoned Freddie Meeks, one of the only three convicted sailors still known to be alive.
The Navy eventually bought out the town of Port Chicago, and the depot itself was incorporated into the Concord Naval Weapons Station. Concord was a major shipping point for ammunition during the Vietnam War and the site of many anti-war demonstrations. The Port Chicago disaster eventually led to the implementation of far safer procedures for loading ammunition. In addition, greater emphasis was put on proper training in explosives handling and the munitions themselves were altered for greater safety. The active military side of the facility, Concord Naval Weapons Station was renamed again as the Military Ocean Terminal Concord (MOTCO) and now operated by the Army. There is a 5-acre Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial Site, administered by the National Park Service, and is located at MOTCO at the site of the explosion.
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