88-732: The Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial is a memorial dedicated in 1994 recognizing the dead of the Port Chicago disaster , and the critical role played by Port Chicago, California during World War II , in serving as the main facility for the Pacific Theater of Operations . The national memorial is located at the Concord Naval Weapons Station near Concord, California , in the United States. The 1944 Port Chicago disaster occurred at
176-565: A cargo vessel bound for the Pacific Theater of Operations detonated, killing 320 sailors and civilians and injuring at least 390 others. A month later, the unsafe conditions prompted hundreds of servicemen to refuse to load munitions, an act known as the Port Chicago Mutiny . More than 200 were convicted of various charges. Fifty of these men—called the " Port Chicago 50 "—were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to 15 years of prison and hard labor , as well as
264-552: A dishonorable discharge . Forty-seven of the 50 were released in January 1946; the remaining three served additional months in prison. During and after the mutiny court-martial , questions were raised about the fairness and legality of the proceedings. Owing to public pressure, the United States Navy reconvened the courts-martial board in 1945—that board re-affirmed convictions. Those convictions stood until 2024, when
352-912: A 30-day "survivor's leave" sometimes given by the Navy to sailors who had survived a serious incident where their friends or shipmates had died, but no 30-day leaves were granted, not even to those who had been hospitalized with injuries. White officers, however, received the leave, causing a major grievance among the enlisted men. A Naval Board of Inquiry was convened on July 21, 1944, to find out what had happened. The official proceeding lasted for 39 days and included interviews with witnesses who were officers, civilians, and enlisted men. Ordnance experts were questioned as well as inspectors who had overseen previous loading procedures. Five African Americans were questioned, none of whom later refused to load ammunition. Captain Kinne's posted division tonnage results came to light in
440-422: A barge that was used as a temporary military prison or "brig", despite having been built to accommodate only 75 men. Most of the men in the brig had not been given a direct order—they had simply been asked if they were going to load ships or not, and to step to one side if not. All said they were afraid of another explosion. Civilian stevedore contractors were called to replace the imprisoned men in loading
528-420: A brief stating that, under military law , a persistent refusal to work by two or more men—something that might be called a "strike" among civilians—was sufficient proof of a conspiracy to override superior military authority and was equivalent to mutiny. Osterhaus agreed with Coakley and refused Veltmann's motion; the trial would proceed as planned. The trial started on September 14 with each of
616-410: A chalkboard, Kinne tallied each crew's average tonnage per hour. The junior officers placed bets with each other in support of their own 100-man crews—called "divisions" at Port Chicago—and coaxed their crews to load more than the others. The enlisted men were aware of the bets and knew to slow down to a more reasonable pace whenever a senior officer appeared. The average rate achieved at Port Chicago in
704-487: A fireball seen for miles. An Army Air Forces pilot flying in the area reported that the fireball was 3 mi (4.8 km) in diameter. Chunks of glowing hot metal and burning ordnance were flung over 12,000 ft (3,700 m) into the air. The E. A. Bryan was destroyed and the Quinault Victory was blown out of the water, torn into sections and thrown in several directions; the stern landed upside down in
792-537: A man accidentally drop a naval artillery shell two feet onto the wooden pier, but there was no detonation. Carr waited until the African-American winch operator tested the repaired winch and then left the pier, thinking that the operation appeared unsafe. The enlisted men were leery of working with deadly explosives, but were told that the larger munitions were not active and could not explode—that they would be armed with their fuzes upon arrival at
880-444: A man, Division Eight chose to obey all orders. Divisions Two and Four were split by the decisions of their men: Small and 43 others chose to form a group unwilling to obey every order. These 44 were taken back to the brig and the remaining 214 were sent to barracks. On the morning of August 12, six men from Divisions Two and Four who had put themselves in the obey-all-orders group failed to show up for work call; these six were confined to
968-587: A mile from a U.S. Navy munitions depot, the Port Chicago Naval Magazine, which was later expanded and renamed the Concord Naval Weapons Station . It is now called the Military Ocean Terminal Concord. The original magazine was planned in 1941 with construction beginning shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor . The first ship to dock at Port Chicago was loaded on December 8, 1942. Munitions transported through
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#17327871293461056-474: A mutiny. The Navy held the court-martial on Yerba Buena Island , part of Naval Training and Distribution Center (later "Naval Station") Treasure Island , halfway between Oakland and San Francisco . Reporters were invited to watch the proceedings; Navy public relations officers gave reporters copies of photographs and press statements describing the trial as the first mutiny trial in World War II and
1144-406: A partial load of fuel oil, some of which was of a type that released flammable vapors as it sat, or upon agitation. The fuel, taken aboard at Shell Oil Company's Martinez refinery mid-day on July 17, would normally be sluiced to other fuel tanks in the following 24 hours. Sixty-seven officers and crew of the two ships were at their stations, and various support personnel were present, such as
1232-400: A series of lawsuits relating to the disaster, when it awarded Sirvat Arsenian of Fresno, California, $ 9,700 for the death of her 26-year-old son, a merchant marine crewman killed in the blast. She had sought $ 50,000. A memorial ceremony was held for the victims on July 31, 1944, at Port Chicago. Admiral Carleton H. Wright , Commander, 12th Naval District , spoke of the unfortunate deaths and
1320-537: A sling, was asked if he would load ammunition, to which he replied that he would not. More importantly, Veltmann sensed that the men had not conspired to seize command from their superior officers. In a pre-trial brief, Veltmann cited the definition of mutiny from Winthrop's Military Law and Precedents and asked that the mutiny charges be dismissed as the formal charges against the 50 men failed to allege that they conspired together deliberately to "usurp, subvert or override superior military authority". Coakley opposed with
1408-570: A time into No. 1 hold—the hold with a winch brake that might still have been inoperative. A boxcar delivery containing a new airborne anti-submarine depth charge design, the Mark ;47 armed with 252 lb (114 kg) of torpex , was being loaded into No. 2 hold. The torpex charges were more sensitive than TNT to external shock and container dents. On the pier, resting on three parallel rail spurs, were 16 rail cars holding about 430 short tons (390 t) of explosives. In all,
1496-457: Is a French phrase in common usage in English. Since it has been fully adopted into English and is included unitalicized in English dictionaries, it is not normally italicized despite its French origin. It has been noted that the public attention given to a particular case or event can obscure the facts rather than clarify them. As one observer states, "The true story of many a cause célèbre
1584-450: Is never made manifest in the evidence given or in the advocates' orations, but might be recovered from these old papers when the dust of ages has rendered them immune from scandal". In French, one of the meanings of cause is a legal case , and célèbre means "famous". The phrase originated with the 37-volume Nouvelles Causes Célèbres , published in 1763, which was a collection of reports of well-known French court decisions from
1672-541: Is only open to the public through reserved guided tours. On October 28, 2009, the Memorial became an official unit of the National Park System. The Port Chicago Committee is working toward expanding the current memorial to encompass 250 acres (1.0 km) of the former Port Chicago waterfront. The memorial site could include some of the railroad revetments and old boxcars from the 1940s period, as well as
1760-758: The Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial was dedicated to the lives lost in the disaster. The town of Port Chicago was located on Suisun Bay in the estuary of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers . Suisun Bay is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Carquinez Strait , which connects to San Pablo Bay , which in turn connects to San Francisco Bay . In 1944, the town was a little more than
1848-526: The Sangay . Among the prisoners, Seaman First Class Joseph Randolph "Joe" Small, a winch operator in Division Four, was asked by officers to assemble a handful of reliable men as a team of acting petty officers and to keep the other prisoners on good behavior. On August 10, there had been conflicts between the prisoners and their guards as the prisoners were marched to the mess hall for meals. There
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#17327871293461936-485: The 17th and 18th centuries. While English speakers had used the phrase for many years, it came into much more common usage after the 1894 conviction of Alfred Dreyfus for espionage during the cementing of a period of deep cultural ties with a political tie between England and France, the Entente Cordiale . Both attracted worldwide interest and the period of closeness or rapprochement officially broadened
2024-500: The 50 men pleading "not guilty". Coakley began his prosecution by calling officers from Port Chicago and Mare Island as witnesses. Commander Joseph R. Tobin of Ryder Street Naval Barracks said that he personally ordered six or seven of the men to load munitions on August 9 but was unable to verify if any others were so ordered. He said that the men he had spoken with were willing to follow any order except to load munitions; that each man expressed fear of another explosion. Tobin verified that
2112-623: The Navy James Forrestal who added his opinion that it was "mass fear" motivating the work stoppage. Forrestal told Roosevelt that white units of munitions loaders were to be added to the rotation "...to avoid any semblance of discrimination against negroes." Roosevelt forwarded a copy to his wife Eleanor , knowing of her ongoing advocacy of civil rights for African Americans . Divisions Two, Four, and Eight—reinforced with replacement sailors fresh from training at NSGL—were taken to Mare Island Navy Yard , where there
2200-539: The Navy exonerated all 256 men convicted during the courts-martial, including the Port Chicago 50. Widespread publicity surrounding the case turned it into a cause célèbre among Americans opposing discrimination targeting African Americans; it and other race-related Navy protests of 1944–45 led the Navy to change its practices and initiate the desegregation of its forces beginning in February 1946. In 1994,
2288-489: The Pacific Theater. Carl Tuggle, one of the 208, said in 1998 that a group of prisoners, including himself. were assigned menial tasks. After returning from active duty, they each received bad conduct discharges , which meant the loss of veterans' benefits . The 50 remaining men—soon to be known as the "Port Chicago 50"—were formally charged in early September 1944 with disobeying orders and making
2376-513: The Port Chicago facility at the time of the explosion—had served in the U.S. Navy from 1915 to 1922 and then returned to the Navy in 1941 to be posted aboard a general cargo ship. Prior to his being sent to command Port Chicago, Kinne had no training in the loading of munitions and little experience in handling them. Loading officers serving underneath Kinne had not been trained in handling munitions until they had been posted to Mare Island Navy Yard , after which they were considered adequate to
2464-578: The ammunition they were supposed to be loading and that continued refusal to work would be treated as mutinous conduct, which carried the death penalty in times of war. Wright, who had seen nearly 400 of his men killed in 1942 in the Battle of Tassafaronga , said that although loading ammunition was risky, death by firing squad was the greater hazard. After the admiral departed, the men were ordered to separate themselves into two groups, one for those willing to obey all orders and one for those not willing. To
2552-467: The base; Division Two was separated into a group that would stay and clean up and a group that would be moved out. This section of Division Two and all of Divisions Four and Eight were transferred to Camp Shoemaker , about 30 mi (48 km) south, where they were assigned barracks duty until July 31, 1944. The men of Divisions One, Five and Seven were reassigned other duty in distant locations and shipped out. The cleanup detail from Division Two dug into
2640-471: The brakes. Disused brakes sometimes seized up and stopped working. The winches on the SS E. A. Bryan were steam-powered and showed signs of wear, even though the ship was five months old. On July 13, 1944, when the E. A. Bryan , operated by Oliver J. Olson & Company for War Shipping Administration , docked at Port Chicago, the ship's No. 1 winch brakes were found stuck in the "off" position. This meant
2728-418: The brig, making 50 prisoners in all. These 50 were identified by the Navy as mutineers. Throughout August, all 258 sailors were taken to Camp Shoemaker and questioned. Forty-nine of the 50 mutineers were imprisoned in the camp's brig. Joe Small was placed in solitary confinement . Each of was interviewed by officers, sometimes in the presence of an armed guard. Questions focused on identifying "ringleaders" of
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2816-440: The combat theater. Handling of larger munitions, such as bombs and shells, involved using levers and, crowbars from boxcars , in which they were packed tightly with dunnage —lifting the heavy, grease-coated cylinders, rolling them along the wooden pier, packing them into nets, lifting them by winch and boom , lowering the bundle into the hold, then dropping individual munitions by hand into place. This series of actions
2904-453: The conclusion that ringleaders and agitators had forced a rebellion against authority. Veltmann pointed out that few of the accused had been ordered to load ammunition, meaning that they could not all be guilty of the charge of disobeying orders. Veltmann stressed that much of the testimony was hearsay and failed to establish a conspiracy or a mutiny. The court, however, seemed to side with Coakley on all points, settling each objection in favor of
2992-479: The cook and a second man were sailors he did not consider "up to par"; the cook in particular was prone to nervous attacks and was seen as a liability at the pier. Later in the trial, Lieutenant Carleton Morehouse—Commander of Division Eight at Port Chicago—took the stand to say that at the first sign of problems on August 9, he assembled his men and read their names off alphabetically, ordering each man to work. Ninety-six of 104 refused and were sent to
3080-571: The court to be drowsy at times, with one judge regularly nodding off. Starting on September 23 and continuing for over three weeks, each of the accused men was brought to the witness stand to testify in his defense. The general trend of the men's responses was that all of them were willing to obey any order except to load ammunition, all were afraid of another explosion, and none had been approached by "ringleaders" persuading them not to work—each had made his own decision. Each man said that he himself had not coerced others to refuse to work. Some of
3168-555: The dead were black men. Congress settled on $ 3,000 in compensation. Years later, on March 4, 1949, the heirs of eighteen merchant seamen killed in the explosion were granted a total of $ 390,000 after gaining approval of their consent decrees in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California . The government announced on August 23, 1951, that it had settled the last in
3256-412: The defense. Veltmann and his team talked to their clients—they discovered that not all of the 50 were experienced ship loaders. Two of the men had never before loaded ammunition—they were permanently assigned as cooks because of physical conditions making them unsuited to loading. The two cooks had responded "no" when asked if they would load munitions. Another of the 50, who had a broken wrist in
3344-696: The docks, they wanted us to slow up." This was the first that the newspaper reporters had heard of speed and tonnage competition between divisions at Port Chicago, and each reporter filed a story featuring this revelation to be published the next day. Naval authorities quickly issued a statement denying Green's allegation. Another one of the men gave the surprising testimony that Lieutenant Commander Coakley had threatened to have him shot after he refused to answer some questions during interrogation at Camp Shoemaker. Seaman Alphonso McPherson held fast to his testimony even when faced by Coakley in cross-examination. Coakley denied threatening anyone, exclaiming that such an idea
3432-476: The effect of having the officers "by the tail" or "by the ass". Coakley was challenged by Veltmann when he attempted to bring the men's signed statements in as evidence but the court allowed the statements to be used to refresh the men's memories of their answers to interrogation. Coakley summed up his prosecution case on September 22. His aim was to show the court that a conspiracy had taken place—the mass of accounts from officers and men appeared to support
3520-460: The enlisted men had been specifically trained for one of the naval ratings at Naval Station Great Lakes (NSGL), but the men were instead put to work as stevedores at Port Chicago. None of the new recruits had been instructed in ammunition loading. At NSGL, the enlisted African Americans who tested in the top 30% to 40% were selected for non-labor assignments. Port Chicago was manned by workers drawn from those remaining. The Navy determined that
3608-457: The existing memorial chapel, with stained-glass windows depicting the World War II operations. [REDACTED] Media related to Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial at Wikimedia Commons Port Chicago disaster The Port Chicago disaster was a deadly munitions explosion of the ship SS E. A. Bryan on July 17, 1944, at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, California , United States. Munitions being loaded onto
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3696-404: The explosion could not be determined, but implied that a mistake made by the enlisted men in the handling of the ordnance was most likely at root. No mention was made of the men's lack of training in the handling of explosives. The Navy asked Congress to give each victim's family $ 5,000. Representative John E. Rankin (D- Miss. ) insisted the amount be reduced to $ 2,000 when he learned most of
3784-421: The fires and to prevent other explosions. Injuries were treated, those seriously injured were hospitalized, and uninjured servicemen were evacuated to nearby stations. After the fires had been contained there remained the task of cleaning up—body parts and corpses littered the bay and port. Of the 320 dead, only 51 could be identified. Most of the uninjured sailors volunteered to help clean up and rebuild
3872-420: The handling and loading of explosives into ships. Even the officers did not receive training: Lieutenant Commander Alexander Holman, loading officer at Port Chicago whose duties included officer training, had initiated a search for training materials and samples, but did not organize a training class before disaster struck. Powered winches were used on cargo ships to speed the handling of heavy loads. One winch
3960-547: The inboard, landward side of Port Chicago's single 1,500 ft (460 m) pier at 8:15 a.m. on July 13, 1944. The ship arrived at the dock with no cargo, but was carrying a full load of 5,292 barrels (841,360 liters) of bunker C heavy fuel oil for its intended trip across the Pacific Ocean . At 10 a.m. that same day, seamen from the ordnance battalion began loading the ship with munitions. After four days of loading, about 4,600 tons (4,173 tonnes) of explosives had been stored in its holds. The ship
4048-418: The inquiry but Kinne stated that the competition to load the most tonnage did not make for unsafe conditions; he implied that any junior officers who said so did not know what they were talking about. The inquiry covered possible explosion scenarios involving sabotage, faulty fueling procedures, failure of the moorings of the Quinault Victory , defects in munitions, the presence of a super sensitive element in
4136-537: The largest mass trial the Navy had ever convened. Chosen to head the seven-man court was Rear Admiral Hugo Wilson Osterhaus, United States Naval Academy , class of 1900. The prosecution was led by Lieutenant Commander James F. Coakley, who had recently served as deputy chief prosecutor in Alameda County under district attorney Earl Warren . Defending the men were six Navy lawyers, with a leader and one attorney for every 10 men. Lieutenant Gerald E. Veltmann headed
4224-703: The lowest twelfth of the Navy. Officers at Port Chicago considered the enlisted men unreliable, emotional, and lacking the capacity to understand or remember orders or instructions. Black enlisted men at Port Chicago were led by black petty officers who were regarded by some workers as incompetent and ineffective in voicing their men's concerns to higher authority. Petty officers were seen as having aims fundamentally different from those of their men—they were described later as "slave drivers" and " Uncle Toms ". They and their men sometimes had an antagonistic relationship. Captain Merrill T. Kinne—commander of
4312-406: The magazine included bombs , shells , naval mines , torpedoes , and small arms ammunition . The munitions, destined for the Pacific Theater of Operations , were delivered by rail to the Port Chicago facility and then individually loaded by hand, crane, and winch onto cargo ships for further transport. Most of the enlisted men working as loaders at Port Chicago were African-American . All of
4400-432: The men agreed on several points: that there had been talk among them of a mass work-stoppage leading up to August 9, that some men (none of the accused 50) had passed around and signed a petition to avoid loading ammunition, and that Joe Small had spoken at the meeting on the prison barge and had urged the men to obey their officers and to conduct themselves in an orderly fashion. Some men said Small's speech included words to
4488-520: The men related how, following the official interrogation at Camp Shoemaker, they had been under great pressure to sign statements containing things they had not said. Some men said that, at the meeting on the barge, Joe Small had not urged a mutiny and had not uttered any phrase to the effect of having the officers "by the balls". On the witness stand, Small himself denied saying any such thing, though he would admit to it decades later in interviews. Coakley's cross-examinations began with an attempt to have
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#17327871293464576-430: The men were not aggressive or disrespectful. Lieutenant Ernest Delucchi, Commander of Division Four at Port Chicago, testified that he personally ordered only four of the 50 defendants to load munitions. Delucchi described overhearing men of Division Eight say to his men, "Don't go to work for the white motherfuckers" but, under cross-examination , was unable to identify who said it. Veltmann objected to this hearsay but
4664-409: The men who had been named as having been given direct orders to work testified that they had not been given any such order. Seaman Ollie E. Green—who had accidentally broken his wrist one day prior to the first work-stoppage on August 9—said that though he had heard an officer in prior testimony name him as one who had been given a direct order, the officer had only asked him how his wrist
4752-463: The months leading up to July 1944 was 8.2 short tons (7.4 t) per hatch per hour—commercial stevedores at Mare Island performed only slightly better at 8.7 short tons (7.9 t) per hatch per hour. There was no system at Port Chicago to ensure officers and men were familiar with safety regulations. Two formal lectures and several informal lectures were given to the enlisted men by commanding officers, but follow-up confirmation of retained knowledge
4840-481: The munitions on the pier and in the ship contained the equivalent of 2,000 short tons (1,800 t) of TNT. One hundred and two men of the Sixth Division, many fresh from training at NSGL, were busy rigging the newly built Victory ship SS Quinault Victory (also spelled Quinalt Victory ) in preparation for loading it with explosives, a task that was to begin at midnight. The Quinault Victory had
4928-484: The naval magazine and resulted in the largest domestic loss of life during World War II. A total of 320 sailors and civilians were instantly killed on July 17, 1944, when the ships they were loading with ammunition and bombs exploded. The majority of the deaths were African American sailors working for the racially segregated military. The explosion and its aftermath led to the largest Naval mutiny in US history, and it and
5016-507: The need to keep the base operating during a time of war. He gave Navy and Marine Corps Medals for bravery to four officers and men who had successfully fought a fire in a rail car parked within a revetment near the pier. The remains of 44 of the victims were interred at Golden Gate National Cemetery . Wright soon began implementing a plan to have two groups of white sailors load ammunition in rotation with black sailors: one division of 100 men at Mare Island and another at Port Chicago. No plan
5104-400: The next morning. On the afternoon of July 17, a bleeder valve on winch No. 4 required repair. Albert Carr, a civil service plumber from Pittsburg, California , was called to replace it—it was his first day at Port Chicago. Carr pulled a broken nipple out of the bleeder valve and replaced both the nipple and the valve from new stock taken from Port Chicago's shop. While at work he witnessed
5192-610: The officer was their defense counsel . After the interviews concluded, the 208 men were convicted in summary courts-martial of disobeying orders, Article 4 of the Articles for the Government of the United States Navy ( Rocks and Shoals ). ) Each was subject to forfeiture of three months' pay. A few of them were held as witnesses for the upcoming mutiny trial. The rest were split into smaller groups and shipped out to
5280-464: The ordnance, problems with steam winches and rigging, rough handling by loaders, and organizational problems within the base. The Navy determined that the tonnage contest between divisions was not at fault, although the Judge Advocate warned that "the loading of explosives should never be a matter of competition." The officers in charge were cleared of guilt. The report stated that the cause of
5368-476: The prison barge, but all of these men agreed to work after hearing Admiral Wright's speech on August 11; none of Morehouse's men were on trial for mutiny. Morehouse confirmed to Veltmann that some of his men had said they were afraid to handle ammunition. Following Morehouse, Lieutenant James E. Tobin, Commander of Division Two, took the stand. Lieutenant Tobin (no relation to Commander Joseph R. Tobin) related that 87 of his men initially refused to work but that number
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#17327871293465456-419: The prosecution. Veltmann scored a victory at the beginning of his defense: he moved and was granted that each officer's testimony could be applied only to the men they had specifically named as having been given the order to work. In principle, this ruling was favorable, but in practice it would benefit the men only if the court had been attentively keeping notes for each accused man. Instead, reporters observed
5544-423: The quality of African American petty officers at Port Chicago suffered because of the absence of high-scoring black men, and that overall levels of competence were further reduced by the occasional requirement for Port Chicago to supply drafts of men with clear records for transfer to other stations. The Navy's General Classification Test (GCT) results for the enlisted men at Port Chicago averaged 31, putting them in
5632-425: The rail cars because they had been packed so tightly. At 10:18 p.m., witnesses reported hearing a noise described as "a metallic sound and rending timbers, such as made by a falling boom." Immediately afterward, an explosion occurred on the pier and a fire started. Five to seven seconds later a more powerful explosion took place as the majority of the ordnance within and near the SS E. A. Bryan detonated in
5720-437: The same officers and conditions as before. It was a mass work stoppage, which would have been called a strike if the workers had been civilians. The Navy would not countenance such conduct. Seventy of the men changed their minds after their officers made it clear that loading ammunition was their duty. The 258 African-American sailors in the ordnance battalion who continued to refuse to load ammunition were taken under guard to
5808-494: The shore patrol guards (who were black) and the officers, because the alternative (white Marines as guards) would be worse. He said to the men, "We've got the officers by the balls—they can do nothing to us if we don't do anything to them. If we stick together, they can't do anything to us." On August 11, 1944, the 258 men from the prison barge were marched to a nearby sports field and lectured by Admiral Wright, who told them that troops fighting on Saipan desperately needed
5896-464: The signed statements admitted as evidence. Veltmann objected that each statement was obtained under duress and was not voluntary. Coakley characterized the statements as not being confessions requiring voluntary conditions but merely "admissions" that had no such requirement. Osterhaus ruled that Coakley could not introduce the statements as evidence but that he could ask the defendants questions based on what each man's signed statement contained. Some of
5984-424: The singular) is an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy , outside campaigning , and heated public debate . The term continues in the media in all senses. It is sometimes used positively for celebrated legal cases for their precedent value (each locus classicus or "case-in-point") and more often negatively for infamous ones, whether for scale, outrage, scandal , or conspiracy theories . The term
6072-661: The subsequent trial became major catalysts for the United States Navy to desegregate following the war. The national memorial , administered by the National Park Service , was authorized by Pub. L. 102–562 on October 28, 1992. The memorial was dedicated in 1994 and is located on the grounds of the Military Ocean Terminal Concord (MOTCO), formerly the Tidal Area of the Concord Naval Weapons Station . The memorial
6160-468: The surrounding town were severely damaged. Shattered glass and a rain of jagged metal and undetonated munitions caused more injuries among military personnel and civilians, although no one outside the immediate pier area was killed. Nearly $ 9.9 million worth of damage ($ 171.4 million in 2023) was caused to U.S. government property. Seismographs at the University of California, Berkeley sensed
6248-482: The task by the Navy. In April 1944, when Captain Kinne assumed command of Port Chicago, the loading officers had been pushing to load the explosive cargoes quickly—10 short tons (9.1 t ) per hatch per hour. The desired level had been set by Captain Nelson Goss, Commander Mare Island Navy Yard, whose jurisdiction included Port Chicago Naval Magazine. Most loading officers considered this goal too high. On
6336-415: The three-man civilian train crew and a Marine sentry. In total, nine Navy officers and 29 armed guards watched over the procedure. A U.S Coast Guard fire barge with a crew of five was docked at the pier. An officer who left the docks shortly after 10 p.m. noticed that the Quinault Victory ′s propeller was slowly turning over and that the men of Division Three were having trouble pulling munitions from
6424-621: The two shock waves traveling through the ground, determining the second, larger event to be equivalent to an earthquake measuring 3.4 on the Richter magnitude scale . All 320 of the men at the pier died instantly, and 390 or more civilians and military personnel were injured, many seriously. Among the dead were the five Coast Guard personnel posted aboard the fire barge. African-American casualties totaled 202 dead and 233 injured, which accounted for 15% of all African-American casualties during World War II . Naval personnel worked to contain
6512-421: The water 500 ft (150 m) away. The Coast Guard fire boat CG-60014-F was thrown 600 ft (180 m) upriver, where it sank. The pier, along with its boxcars, locomotive, rails, cargo, and men, was blasted into pieces. Nearby boxcars—waiting within their revetments to be unloaded —were bent inward and crumpled by the force of the shock. The port's barracks and other buildings and much of
6600-428: The winch could be operated freely, but lacked critical stopping capability if steam pressure was interrupted. The ship's chief mate and chief engineer examined the winch, but it was not determined whether the brake was made operational. During loading operations on July 15 the winch at No. 2 hold began making a hammering noise. An application of grease quieted it through the night until its main bearing could be replaced
6688-529: The work-stoppage and on what was said by whom at the meeting on the prison barge. The men were asked to sign statements summarizing the interrogation, but the officer's version rarely matched the enlisted man's recollection of the interview. Some men, upon seeing that the written statements did not reflect what they had said, refused to sign. Others felt they had no choice but to sign—they were being ordered to do so by an officer. Several men refused to give any statement at all. Others spoke freely, thinking that
6776-599: The wreckage of the pier and began tearing out the damaged portions. Beginning in August, Divisions Four and Eight and both sections of Division Two moved to the Ryder Street Naval Barracks in Vallejo, California , across a short channel from Mare Island , where they were assigned barracks duties with no ship-loading. The men were in a state of shock; all were nervous. Many of them inquired about obtaining
6864-410: Was a personal affront. Veltmann responded that this line of evidence was news to him, too. The next day, Coakley gave the press a statement accusing Veltmann of coaching McPherson. Cause c%C3%A9l%C3%A8bre A cause célèbre ( / ˌ k ɔː z s ə ˈ l ɛ b ( r ə )/ KAWZ sə- LEB( -rə) , French: [koz selɛbʁ] ; pl. causes célèbres , pronounced like
6952-473: Was about 40% full by the evening of July 17. At 10 p.m. on July 17, Division Three's 98 men were loading E. A. Bryan with 1,000-pound (450 kg) bombs into No. 3 hold, 40 mm shells into No. 5 hold and fragmentation cluster bombs into No. 4 hold. Incendiary bombs were being loaded as well; these bombs weighed 650 lb (290 kg) each and were "live"—they had their fuzes installed. The incendiary bombs were being loaded carefully one at
7040-399: Was also a brief fight in the mess hall, and some prisoners were seen sharpening spoons into makeshift knives. Small sensed a general air of rebelliousness among the prisoners. To counteract the rising tension and offset the disaster he saw coming, Small convened a short meeting that evening aboard the crowded barge and told the prisoners to "knock off the horseplay", stay out of trouble and obey
7128-478: Was an ammunition depot and loading piers. On August 8, 1944, the USS ; Sangay docked to be loaded with naval mines and other munitions. The next day, 328 men were assembled and marched off. When they heard the orders "Column left" and "Forward March" to march toward the ammunition loading dock, the entire group stopped and would not continue. All said they were afraid and that they would not load munitions under
7216-415: Was doing, to which he responded "not so good." At the end of his testimony, Green told the court that he was afraid to load ammunition because of "them officers racing each division to see who put on the most tonnage, and I knowed the way they was handling ammunition it was liable to go off again. If we didn't want to work fast at that time, they wanted to put us in the brig, and when the exec came down on
7304-533: Was forwarded to use black officers to command the black sailors, and no plan included any form of desegregation. This was the start of the Port Chicago Mutiny. Wright sent an incident report of this mutiny to Washington, D.C., telling his superior officers that the men's "refusal to perform the required work arises from a mass fear arising out of the Port Chicago explosion." Wright's report was passed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt by Secretary of
7392-616: Was not performed. Safety regulations were posted at a single location at the pier, but not in the barracks; Kinne did not think the enlisted men would understand such lists. Later the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) responded to word of unsafe practices by offering to bring in experienced men to train the battalion; the Navy leadership declined the offer, fearing higher costs, slower pace, and possible sabotage from civilian longshoremen. No enlisted man stationed at Port Chicago had received formal training in
7480-421: Was operated at each of the ship's five cargo holds . During loading operations, the winches were worked hard and required maintenance to remain operable. Winch brakes—a safety feature provided for stopping the load from falling if the winch's main power was lost—were not often used by skilled winch operators, as loads could be more quickly maneuvered using power settings rather than by application of
7568-423: Was overruled after Coakley explained it was evidence toward conspiracy. On September 15, Delucchi continued his testimony, saying that some of his men told him they would obey all orders and perform all work except loading ammunition because they were afraid of it. Delucchi confirmed that a cook and a man with a broken wrist were among the 25 men in his division that now sat among the 50 accused. Delucchi added that
7656-676: Was reduced to 22 after Admiral Wright talked about the firing squad . Tobin said he put three additional men in the brig the next morning when they, too, refused to work, saying they were afraid. Tobin affirmed that one of the accused men from Division Two was permanently assigned the job of cook because he weighed 104 lb (47 kg) and was considered too small to safely load ammo. The next few days of testimony were filled with accounts from African-American enlisted men from Divisions Two, Four, and Eight, who were not standing accused of mutiny. Some of these men had already been convicted of disobeying orders in summary courts-martial. The testimony of
7744-416: Was rough enough that damaged naval shells sometimes leaked identification dye from their ballistic caps. Commander Paul B. Cronk, head of a Coast Guard explosives-loading detail tasked with supervision of the working dock, warned the Navy that conditions were unsafe and ripe for disaster. The Navy did not change its procedures and Cronk withdrew the detail. The Liberty ship SS E. A. Bryan docked at
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