Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly
Speaker 1: frying Day's podcast is coming out on July sevent nineteen,
Speaker 1: which is the seventy fifth anniversary of the Port Chicago disaster.
Speaker 1: This was the worst state side disaster in the United
Speaker 1: States during World War Two, and then, apart for being
Speaker 1: just a horrific tragedy, the disaster itself and it's aftermath,
Speaker 1: we're just threaded through with racism and injustice from beginning
Speaker 1: to end. And this is also a listener request We've
Speaker 1: gotten from a lot of folks, including Larry, Jeff Nicholas, Michael, William,
Speaker 1: Sarah and Joanne. So for a little bit of background,
Speaker 1: the Port Chicago Naval Magazine was on the Sissoon Bay,
Speaker 1: roughly forty miles that's about sixty four kilometers northeast of
Speaker 1: San Francisco. After Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and
Speaker 1: it became clear that the Navy's existing facility at Mayor
Speaker 1: Island wouldn't be enough to meet wartime needs on its own,
Speaker 1: Port Chicago was built not far away. To help fill
Speaker 1: that gap, The first ship was loaded there almost exactly
Speaker 1: a year after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December eighth,
Speaker 1: ninety two. Port Chicago instantly became a major supply point
Speaker 1: for the U. S. Pacific Fleet, and its main purpose
Speaker 1: was to move munitions. Everything from bullets to bombs was
Speaker 1: sent to Port Chicago by rail. Then the box cars
Speaker 1: would be stored behind concrete barricades until it was time
Speaker 1: to load their contents onto a ship that was waiting
Speaker 1: at the pier. At first, loading details were filling one
Speaker 1: ship at a time, but in May of nineteen forty four,
Speaker 1: the pier was widened to allow for two ships to
Speaker 1: be loaded simultaneously. In July of nineteen forty four, eight
Speaker 1: hundred men were working at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine.
Speaker 1: There were white officers, marine guards, and civilians. The civilians
Speaker 1: were mostly skilled workers like crane operators and locomotive engineers,
Speaker 1: and there were also one thousand, four hundred thirty one
Speaker 1: black enlisted men, most of whom were in their late
Speaker 1: teens or early twenties, and they worked on loading details.
Speaker 1: This racial segregation where everybody in one job was black
Speaker 1: and everybody in another job was white. That was pretty
Speaker 1: standard for the U. S. Navy in nineteen forty four.
Speaker 1: The Navy didn't allow black men to enlist at all
Speaker 1: from nineteen nineteen to nineteen forty one. At that point,
Speaker 1: the only black men in the Navy had been in
Speaker 1: the Navy from before that, and we're allowed to stay
Speaker 1: until they retired after nineteen forty one. Once the Navy
Speaker 1: began allowing black recruits, all of the black recruits to
Speaker 1: the Navy were assigned to the messman's service, so that
Speaker 1: is cooking, serving food, and clearing tables. Secretary of the
Speaker 1: Navy Frank Knox felt that assigning black men to other
Speaker 1: parts of the Navy would quote provoke discord and demoralization,
Speaker 1: but after a lot of advocacy from civil rights organizations,
Speaker 1: he announced that black men would be allowed into the
Speaker 1: Navy under any enlistment rating that they qualified for. That
Speaker 1: announcedent came on April seventh of nine two, but even then,
Speaker 1: black men didn't really have equal opportunities in the Navy.
Speaker 1: They could not be commissioned officers, and they were primarily
Speaker 1: assigned to do manual labor regardless of what they were
Speaker 1: qualified or trained to doom, and that was exactly how
Speaker 1: things worked at Port Chicago. There were a few black
Speaker 1: petty officers who essentially worked as crew foreman, but otherwise
Speaker 1: black enlisted men were doing manual labor while reporting to
Speaker 1: white officers. The segregation at Port Chicago also went beyond
Speaker 1: rank and work assignments. The black enlisted men had a
Speaker 1: separate barracks which was closer to the pier than the
Speaker 1: white men's barracks. Everyone used a common mess hall, but
Speaker 1: the black men had to wait until the white men
Speaker 1: were finished before they could use it. The black seamen
Speaker 1: also didn't have a lot of opportunities for recreation because
Speaker 1: of the port didn't have its own recreation facility until
Speaker 1: shortly before the disaster was badly damaged in the disaster.
Speaker 1: The nearest town that was also called Port Chicago was
Speaker 1: very small and it did not particular we welcome the
Speaker 1: black men from the Navy. Working at Port Chicago was
Speaker 1: a high pressure situation. Loading details worked in eight hour
Speaker 1: shifts twenty four hours a day, and the typical work
Speaker 1: cycle moved through three days of loading, a duty day
Speaker 1: that involved some kind of other work or maybe a
Speaker 1: training session or a lecture. Then there were three more
Speaker 1: days of loading and then a day off, so in
Speaker 1: each eight day period, each man worked for seven days,
Speaker 1: including six eight hour days of loading. In addition to
Speaker 1: this twenty four hour work cycle, the loading details were
Speaker 1: expected to work as fast as possible. On average, the
Speaker 1: men in Port Chicago were loading eight point two tons
Speaker 1: of munition per hatch per hour. Port Chicago was a
Speaker 1: sub command of Mayor Island and Captain Nelson Goss was
Speaker 1: in command there. Gos set a goal of ten tons
Speaker 1: per hatch per hour. That was more than any of
Speaker 1: the other Navy facilities were managing, and that was more
Speaker 1: than professional civilian stevedores could do. So the officers also
Speaker 1: created and in increasingly competitive spirit, among all the loading details.
Speaker 1: In the words of Semen first Class Joseph Randolph Small
Speaker 1: known as Joe Quote, we were always in competition to
Speaker 1: see which division could load the most ammunition in one
Speaker 1: eight hour shift. In April of Captain Meryl T. Kenney
Speaker 1: started the practice of posting each shift's total. The expectation
Speaker 1: was that when you came on duty, you would do
Speaker 1: everything you could to beat that number. There were also
Speaker 1: reports of officers placing bets against one another about whose
Speaker 1: details could load the fastest was made. The atmosphere at
Speaker 1: the pier extremely fast paced and even chaotic. Boxes of
Speaker 1: ammunition and small bombs and other smaller items were often
Speaker 1: passed hand to hand. Bucket brigade style. Large bombs were
Speaker 1: rolled down inclines or moved with hand trucks or electric mules.
Speaker 1: Loads of munitions would be lowered through the ship's hatches
Speaker 1: and big cargo nets, and then the men unloaded the
Speaker 1: nets and stacked up their contents in the hold. It
Speaker 1: was really common during this process for the bombs to
Speaker 1: collide with each other, or with the wall to the hold,
Speaker 1: or to be dropped for short distances. Men also did
Speaker 1: things like using crowbars to shove bombs into place when
Speaker 1: they were too high for them to reach. The men
Speaker 1: who were carrying out all this high speed work had
Speaker 1: virtually no training in how to do it. They got
Speaker 1: a little instruction on the basics of loading and unloading,
Speaker 1: but they got almost none in how to safely handle
Speaker 1: ammunitions and explosives. The same was true for the officers
Speaker 1: that they reported to, most of whom were reservists who
Speaker 1: had been called up to active duty. They had almost
Speaker 1: no experience handling munitions either, along with very little training
Speaker 1: and how to command enlisted men. Although many of the
Speaker 1: items being loaded were safe even if they were handled roughly,
Speaker 1: there was still inherently hazardous work involved, and even a
Speaker 1: small accidental detonation could be catastrophic. The Navy itself also
Speaker 1: had no loading manual covering this type of work. The
Speaker 1: only standards that the men at Port Chicago had to
Speaker 1: go on came from an Interstate Commerce Commission guide that
Speaker 1: was really about moving small amounts of munitions in peacetime.
Speaker 1: There was a coast Guard detail who was supposed to
Speaker 1: be on site to ensure that the safety regulations that
Speaker 1: did exist or being followed, but the leadership at Port
Speaker 1: Chicago thought that detail was unnecessary, so virtually everyone involved
Speaker 1: with moving munitions at Port Chicago was learning by doing,
Speaker 1: with a focus that was on speed rather than safety.
Speaker 1: The International Longshoreman's and Warehouseman's Union repeatedly raised concerns about
Speaker 1: this whole thing, and had offered to provide training for
Speaker 1: Port Chicago's loading details, but that offer was apparently ignored.
Speaker 1: Captain Goss had also made it clear that he didn't
Speaker 1: want to contract with civilian Stevodoors to do this work.
Speaker 1: He thought that they were too expensive and that their
Speaker 1: unions were going to be a pain to deal with.
Speaker 1: He also had a poor opinion of civilian Stevodoors in general.
Speaker 1: Many Stevodoors were black or Filipino, and in his words quote,
Speaker 1: most of the men obtainable from these races do not
Speaker 1: compare favorably with those of the white race. He wasn't
Speaker 1: happy when he learned that the enlisted men at Port
Speaker 1: Chicago would all be black. Multiple men working at Port
Speaker 1: Chicago in four also reported raising concerns about safety and
Speaker 1: being told that the munitions that they were handling weren't live.
Speaker 1: They were told things like there were no detonators in place,
Speaker 1: so therefore these things couldn't explode no matter how they
Speaker 1: were handled. This did lead to a sense of complacency
Speaker 1: at times, especially because time went on without a serious incident.
Speaker 1: To be clear, this was unquestionably critical work. It made
Speaker 1: a meaningful difference to the US war effort in the Pacific,
Speaker 1: and someone needed to do it. Many of Port Chicago's
Speaker 1: enlisted men expressed a sense of pride and accomplishment for
Speaker 1: their ability to keep these materials moving quickly, but it
Speaker 1: was not the work that they had been trained to do.
Speaker 1: They had gone through basic training to be sailors, but
Speaker 1: instead they were working as stevedor's while being paid much
Speaker 1: less than they would be if they were civilians. And
Speaker 1: many expressed a sense of foreboding that at some point
Speaker 1: all of that rushing around was going to get somebody
Speaker 1: killed or The disaster that occurred on July seventeen ninety
Speaker 1: four was probably worse than any of the men imagined.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that after a sponsor break. Two ships
Speaker 1: were at Port Chicago on the evening of July seventeenth,
Speaker 1: ninety four. The S S. E. A. Brian had arrived
Speaker 1: on July and by the seventeenth it's hold was about
Speaker 1: half full. It was loaded with about five thousand tons
Speaker 1: of explosives, including about one thousand, seven eighty tons of
Speaker 1: high explosives. And there was the S. S. Quinalt Victory
Speaker 1: that arrived at about six pm on the seventeenth and
Speaker 1: was being prepared for loading. The actual load was scheduled
Speaker 1: to start about midnight. Both ships were also carrying their
Speaker 1: fuel for the voyage across the Pacific, and there were
Speaker 1: sixteen box cars at the pier, which contained four hundred
Speaker 1: thirty tons of explosives that were waiting to be loaded
Speaker 1: onto the ships. At ten eighteen PM, two explosions ripped
Speaker 1: through the port about six seconds apart, punctuated by a
Speaker 1: series of smaller explosi shans. One shift of men had
Speaker 1: just gone to bed at ten PM, and survivors who
Speaker 1: were still awake said the first explosion was so bright
Speaker 1: that it looked like sunrise. Seismographs in Berkeley recorded this
Speaker 1: as an earthquake that measured three point four on the
Speaker 1: Richter scale. Three hundred twenty men were killed instantly. This
Speaker 1: included every person who was on duty at the pier
Speaker 1: or on the ships that were docked there. The blast
Speaker 1: itself was also so powerful that only fifty one sets
Speaker 1: of remains were ever identified. About four hundred other military
Speaker 1: personnel were injured, as well as some civilians. Because the
Speaker 1: ports Sick Bay was destroyed, survivors had to be evacuated
Speaker 1: to other military facilities in the area. Two hundred and
Speaker 1: two of the three d and twenty men who were
Speaker 1: killed were black. That's about two thirds of the fatalities
Speaker 1: and two hundred thirty three of the people injured, or
Speaker 1: about two thirds were black as well. This one disaster
Speaker 1: accounts for fifteen percent of the casualties among Black servicemen
Speaker 1: in World War Two. The black men killed were all
Speaker 1: munitions loaders. The white men killed included the crews of
Speaker 1: both of the ships, the armed guards who were stationed
Speaker 1: there and at the pier, several officers, and some civilians,
Speaker 1: including three civilian civil service employees of the U. S. Navy.
Speaker 1: For listeners who have heard our classic episode on the
Speaker 1: Halifax disaster, which also involved a munition ship that exploded
Speaker 1: in a port, the destruction from this explosion is going
Speaker 1: to sound eerily familiar. The Black Sailor's barracks sustained heavy damage,
Speaker 1: many of the men who were seriously injured were in
Speaker 1: their bunks at the time, and the Brian was essentially obliterated.
Speaker 1: It was destroyed so completely that almost none of its
Speaker 1: wreckage was ever recovered. The Queenal was destroyed as well,
Speaker 1: with its largest piece of wreckage blown five hundred feet
Speaker 1: into the bay. This piece of the ship was also
Speaker 1: rotated one degrees in the blast and flipped upside down.
Speaker 1: An Air Force pilot reported seeing flaming metal debris the
Speaker 1: size of suitcases flying past his plane. The damage extended
Speaker 1: far beyond the pier. Some of the box cars containing
Speaker 1: munitions were destroyed and others caught fire. Several men who
Speaker 1: arrived on the scene had to fight this fire by
Speaker 1: climbing onto the burning cars, which were still filled with explosives,
Speaker 1: and running hoses through the holes that were created by
Speaker 1: falling debris. Several men were awarded the Navy and Marine
Speaker 1: Corps Medal, which is the Department of the Navy's highest
Speaker 1: non combat medal, for fighting this fire. One was Pharmacist
Speaker 1: Mate third Class John Andrew Haskins, Jr. Who was the
Speaker 1: first black member of the Hospital Corps to earn this award.
Speaker 1: Captain Kenney was also awarded the Bronze Star. The town
Speaker 1: of Port Chicago, about a mile inland, was heavily damaged
Speaker 1: as well. One people in the town's movie theater managed
Speaker 1: to escape before that building's roof caved in after being
Speaker 1: struck by debris. Shrapnel was flung for miles, and a
Speaker 1: chunk of steel weighing about three hundred pounds it's roughly
Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty six kilograms landed in the middle
Speaker 1: of main Street. The disaster caused an estimated twelve million
Speaker 1: dollars in property damn and the effects went on and on.
Speaker 1: Coast Guard vessels that were out in the bay were
Speaker 1: nearly swamped by a wall of water that was thrown
Speaker 1: up by the blast. Crews had to search the landscape
Speaker 1: for unexploded ordinance for miles. The town of Port Chicago's
Speaker 1: only grocery store was heavily damaged and most of its
Speaker 1: stock had to be discarded. Windows were shattered for at
Speaker 1: least fifteen miles or four kilometers from the side of
Speaker 1: the blast. This was obviously an incredibly traumatic event for
Speaker 1: everyone who worked at the port, as well as those
Speaker 1: in the town of Port Chicago and their friends and families,
Speaker 1: but there were immediate disparities in how that trauma was handled.
Speaker 1: White officers who asked for it were granted thirty days
Speaker 1: of leave. Black seamen who made the same request were refused,
Speaker 1: and they were instead tasked with the cleanup and recovery effort,
Speaker 1: which included handling the remains of people that they had
Speaker 1: known and been friends with. A memorial was scheduled for July,
Speaker 1: and the Navy asked for the families of each of
Speaker 1: the men who had been killed to be given five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, but after learning that so many of the
Speaker 1: men who were killed were black, Mississippi Congressman John Rankin
Speaker 1: insisted that that amount be reduced to two thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Congress eventually agreed on a three thousand dollar settlement. In
Speaker 1: the immediate aftermath of the disaster, officers, including Captain Kinney,
Speaker 1: praised the conduct of the enlisted men who helped with
Speaker 1: the recovery effort and clean up. Rear Admiral Carlton H.
Speaker 1: Wright said, quote, I am gratified to learn that, as
Speaker 1: was to be expected, Negro personnel attached to the Naval
Speaker 1: Magazine Port Chicago, performed bravely and efficiently in the emergency
Speaker 1: at the station last Monday night. These men, in the
Speaker 1: months that they served at that command, did excellent work
Speaker 1: in an important segment of the district's overseas combat supply system.
Speaker 1: As real Navy men, they simply carried on in the
Speaker 1: crisis attendant on the explosion in accordance with our services
Speaker 1: highest traditions. But the tone changed drastically, very quickly once
Speaker 1: the Navy started investigating the incident. A Naval Court of
Speaker 1: Inquiry was convened on July twenty one four, with three
Speaker 1: senior naval officers and a judge advocate presiding. Testimony went
Speaker 1: on for thirty nine days. They heard from a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty five witnesses, only five of whom were black,
Speaker 1: and much of the Navy's testimony was inherently racist, claiming,
Speaker 1: contrary to what had just been said, that the men
Speaker 1: had not been provided with more training because they were
Speaker 1: not capable of learning. Officially, the Court of Inquiry found
Speaker 1: no one specifically at fault for the disaster, and listed
Speaker 1: eight different possible causes for the blast, including munitions being
Speaker 1: handled too roughly, failure of loading gear, and sabotage. But
Speaker 1: it also heavily implied that the munitions loaders who had
Speaker 1: been killed bore most of the blame. To quote the
Speaker 1: judge advocate quote. The consensus of opinion of the witnesses
Speaker 1: and practically admitted by the interested parties, is that the
Speaker 1: colored enlisted personnel are neither temperamentally or intellectually capable of
Speaker 1: handling high explosives. As one witness has stated, sixty of
Speaker 1: the lowest intellectual strata of the men sent out of
Speaker 1: Great Lakes were sent to Port Chicago. These men it
Speaker 1: is testified, could not understand the orders which were given
Speaker 1: to them, and the only way they could be made
Speaker 1: to understand what they should do was by actual demonstration.
Speaker 1: That is an admitted fact, supported by the testimony of
Speaker 1: the witnesses that there was rough and careless handling of
Speaker 1: the explosives being loaded aboard ships at Port Chicago. Just
Speaker 1: a few weeks after the disaster at Port Chicago, many
Speaker 1: of the surviving men were ordered back to work, and
Speaker 1: we're going to get to what happened after that after
Speaker 1: we paused for another quick sponsor break. In the days
Speaker 1: after the explosion of the Port Chicago Naval Magazine, the
Speaker 1: surviving enlisted men were traumatized and on edge. Everyone was, obviously,
Speaker 1: but these men were increasingly also anxious about the idea
Speaker 1: of returning to the same job under the same conditions
Speaker 1: as before so many of them. Some kind of major
Speaker 1: incident had seemed inevitable, and now almost a third of
Speaker 1: them were injured or dead, and the survivors had gotten
Speaker 1: no explanation of what caused the accident or how to
Speaker 1: prevent the same thing from happening again. A lot of
Speaker 1: the men looked up to Joe Small, who at twenty three,
Speaker 1: was older than many of them. He also struck people
Speaker 1: as intelligent and willing to stick up for them. So
Speaker 1: as it started to seem increasingly likely that they were
Speaker 1: going to be put back to workloading munitions, several of
Speaker 1: the men asked Small what he was going to do.
Speaker 1: Small said that he wouldn't go to workloading munitions again,
Speaker 1: and he and several of the men drafted a petition
Speaker 1: asking to be transferred to some other duty, but they
Speaker 1: never gave it to anyone. And then on August nine,
Speaker 1: twenty eight, men who had been moved to Mayor Island
Speaker 1: Navy Yard were ordered to go back to workloading munitions.
Speaker 1: The details on this are a little unclear. Officers maintained
Speaker 1: that they gave a direct order, while the enlisted men
Speaker 1: maintained that they were marched toward the loading pier and
Speaker 1: stopped when they realized where they were going. Regardless of
Speaker 1: that detail of whether a formal order was officially given,
Speaker 1: more than two hundred fifty men refused to return to
Speaker 1: loading the ships. Many of them said they were willing
Speaker 1: to follow any other order that they were given. Others
Speaker 1: said that they would start loading again if they got
Speaker 1: some training. Some wanted new officers, penning the blame for
Speaker 1: the disaster on that constant pressure to load as fast
Speaker 1: as they could. Several wanted to be transferred somewhere that
Speaker 1: they could do the kind of work that they had
Speaker 1: been trained to do after joining the navy, so that
Speaker 1: they could be sailors rather than Stevedor's. They made it
Speaker 1: clear that they were willing to risk their lives in combat.
Speaker 1: They were just not willing to return to work under
Speaker 1: the exact same conditions that had just caused the deaths
Speaker 1: of hundreds of men. In Small's words, quote I wasn't
Speaker 1: trying to shirk work. I don't think these other men
Speaker 1: were trying to shirk work. But to go back to
Speaker 1: work under the same conditions with no improvements, no changes,
Speaker 1: the same group of officers that we had, was just
Speaker 1: we thought there was a better alternative. On August eleven,
Speaker 1: Admiral C. H. Right spoke to the men who were
Speaker 1: refusing to work. He let twenty five or so of
Speaker 1: them explain what their grievances were, and in his account,
Speaker 1: they did so quote freely and respectfully. But his response
Speaker 1: to them was to say, quote, they tell me that
Speaker 1: some of you men want to go to see. I
Speaker 1: believe that's an expletive lie. I don't believe any of
Speaker 1: you have enough guts to go to see. I handled
Speaker 1: ammunition for approximately thirty years and I'm still here. I
Speaker 1: have a healthy respect for ammunition. Anybody who doesn't as crazy.
Speaker 1: But I want to remind you men that mutinous conduct
Speaker 1: in time of war carries the death sentence, and the
Speaker 1: hazards of facing a firing squad are far greater than
Speaker 1: the hazards of handling ammunition. The men saw this as
Speaker 1: a death threat, and two hundred eight of them agreed
Speaker 1: to go back to work instead. They were imprisoned in
Speaker 1: a barge in the bay, and once they were released,
Speaker 1: they faced summary courts martial. They were discharged for bad
Speaker 1: conduct and forfeited three months of pay. On August, Captain
Speaker 1: Goss gave a written report to Admiral Wright and which
Speaker 1: he said that there were quote agitators, ring leaders among
Speaker 1: these men, and that that had been the case since
Speaker 1: the Black seamen were first assigned to Port Chicago. Goss
Speaker 1: also considered himself to be an expert on to use
Speaker 1: his term negroes, and he described the black sailors at
Speaker 1: Port Chicago as unusually argumentative and sensitive about discrimination. He
Speaker 1: maintained that quote extreme care and patients has been exercised
Speaker 1: both at Mayor Island and Port Chicago to avoid discrimination.
Speaker 1: And he recommended that the fifty men who were refusing
Speaker 1: to work be charged with mutiny. And that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: Some of the fifty men were still refusing to work.
Speaker 1: Others were perceived as ring leaders of the work stoppage,
Speaker 1: and a few maintained that they were neither. They were
Speaker 1: just being punished because they were disliked. These men, nicknamed
Speaker 1: the Port Chicago fifty, faced trial before a panel of
Speaker 1: officers starting on September four, nineteen forty four. The trial
Speaker 1: was held at Treasure Island Naval Base. Admiral Hugo. S.
Speaker 1: Osterhouse presided over the seven man trial board. All of
Speaker 1: the trial board was white. This was the largest mass
Speaker 1: mutiny trial in U. S Naval history. The defense's primary
Speaker 1: strategy was to argue that what these men had done
Speaker 1: did not qualify as mutiny and to try to have
Speaker 1: that charge dismissed. Lieutenant Gerald E. Veltman, who led the defense,
Speaker 1: used a definition from Winthrop's Military Law and Precedence, which
Speaker 1: defined mutiny as quote unlawful opposition or resistance to or
Speaker 1: defiance of superior military authority with a deliberate attempt to usurp, subvert,
Speaker 1: or override the same. He argued that the men had
Speaker 1: simply refused to follow an order, that they had not
Speaker 1: tried to usurp, subvert, or override anything. He also reiterated
Speaker 1: that many of the men said that they had never
Speaker 1: actually been given an actual order. The prosecution countered with
Speaker 1: a different definition from the same source tread quote collective
Speaker 1: in subordination or simultaneous disobedience of a lawful order by
Speaker 1: two or more persons is an endeavor to make a
Speaker 1: revolt or mutiny. So if two people refused to work,
Speaker 1: that's mutiny. The trial board ultimately decided that this second
Speaker 1: definition was the one that stood, and they did not
Speaker 1: dismiss the mutiny charge. Future Supreme Court Justice, They're good.
Speaker 1: Marshall was the chief Council for the n Double A
Speaker 1: CP at the time, and he arrived in San Francisco
Speaker 1: on October tenth. He observed the trial for twelve days
Speaker 1: and interviewed all of the fifty defendants. Then Double A
Speaker 1: CP also held a press conference at which they're good.
Speaker 1: Marshall said, quote, this is not fifty men on trial
Speaker 1: for mutiny. This is the Navy on trial for its
Speaker 1: whole vicious policy toward negroes. Negroes in the Navy don't
Speaker 1: mind loading ammunition. They just want to know why they
Speaker 1: are the only ones doing the loading. Marshall also noted, quote,
Speaker 1: they have told me they were willing to go to
Speaker 1: jail to get a change of duty because of their
Speaker 1: tour rific fear of explosives, But they had no idea
Speaker 1: that verbal expression of their fear constituted mutiny. Afterward, the
Speaker 1: a c P also published a pamphlet publicizing this whole
Speaker 1: case and the fact that the men had not been
Speaker 1: refusing to work period. They had just been refusing to
Speaker 1: work without some changes that might protect their lives. By
Speaker 1: the end of the proceedings, the defense had noted that
Speaker 1: the men on trial had been respectful and had obeyed
Speaker 1: every other order they had been given, something that was
Speaker 1: acknowledged by officers on the stand. They had also gotten
Speaker 1: expert testimony from a Navy psychiatrist who had argued that
Speaker 1: the explosion was so traumatic that the men could reasonably
Speaker 1: be expected to refuse their orders out of sheer self preservation.
Speaker 1: This psychiatrist Lieutenant P. H. Pembroke also pointed out that
Speaker 1: no sort of psychiatric assistance had been offered to any
Speaker 1: of the enlisted men in the days that followed this
Speaker 1: horrific disaster. Chaplain J. M. Flowers had also taken the
Speaker 1: stand and said that he had spoken to some of
Speaker 1: the men about trying to put aside their fears to
Speaker 1: help their fellows, using the analogy of being in the
Speaker 1: same foxhole as someone else. He reported that one of
Speaker 1: the sailors had answered quote, in the foxholes, a man
Speaker 1: has a chance to fight back. Throughout all of this,
Speaker 1: the defense did not try to build a case that
Speaker 1: the men had been the targets of discrimination based on
Speaker 1: their race, but it is clear that the men themselves
Speaker 1: believed that they had been the nu A CP, which
Speaker 1: had existed for thirty five years at this point, thought
Speaker 1: the same. And it is possible that at least some
Speaker 1: of the men on trial thought that their work stoppage
Speaker 1: might lead to civil rights gains within the Navy beyond
Speaker 1: just the safety issues. But if they did, that wasn't
Speaker 1: something that they talked about at the trial. From the
Speaker 1: prosecution's standpoint, the men who were on trial had repeatedly
Speaker 1: refused to follow orders, and they had encouraged others to
Speaker 1: do the same, and that constituted mutiny. The Poor Chicago
Speaker 1: fifty were all found guilty of mutiny on October nine,
Speaker 1: after about eighty minutes of deliberation that included a lunch
Speaker 1: break that was less than two minutes of deliberation per charge. Initially,
Speaker 1: all fifty of them were sentenced to fifteen years in prison,
Speaker 1: including hard labor, but ultimately some of the sentences were
Speaker 1: reduced because of the men's youth and their lack of
Speaker 1: previous conduct issues. More than half of them were under
Speaker 1: twenty one years old. In the end, ten of them,
Speaker 1: including the ones who were described as ring leaders, were
Speaker 1: sentenced to fifteen years, and that included semen small. Thirty
Speaker 1: five were sentenced to between ten and twelve years, and
Speaker 1: the remaining were sentenced to eight years. They were all
Speaker 1: incarcerated at Terminal Island Disciplinary Barracks in San Pedro, California. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Navy leadership maintained that race was not a factor in
Speaker 1: decisions at Port Chicago or in the mutiny proceedings, but
Speaker 1: in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. They had noted
Speaker 1: that the all black loading details could quote create an
Speaker 1: appearance of discrimination. Admiral Wright had recommended that white details
Speaker 1: relieve the black loading crews from time to time, and
Speaker 1: in the end, two white units were assigned to Port
Speaker 1: Chicago when it was up and running again. Third Good
Speaker 1: Marshall filed an appeal brief in April of nineteen forty five,
Speaker 1: and by this point the Double A CP had been
Speaker 1: covering the disaster and the trial and its magazine, The Crisis,
Speaker 1: and Eleanor Roosevelt had sent a copy of the Double
Speaker 1: A CPS pamphlet on the incident to Secretary of the
Speaker 1: Navy James V. Forrest All, encouraging him to take quote
Speaker 1: special care in the case. Although Marshall's request for an
Speaker 1: appeal was denied, the Navy did re examine one aspect
Speaker 1: of the case. The prosecution's case had included hearsay evidence,
Speaker 1: which had been admitted. The trial board considered what the
Speaker 1: case would have looked like without that evidence on June twelfth.
Speaker 1: In the end, the Navy upheld the convictions and sentences.
Speaker 1: The Port Chicago fifty were the only people who faced
Speaker 1: charges After this disaster, there was never really any examination
Speaker 1: of whether the officer's actions or the Navy's policies had
Speaker 1: played a role That hearsay evidence is basically that some
Speaker 1: of the officers said that they had heard the enlisted
Speaker 1: men encouraging each other not to go back to work,
Speaker 1: but none of them a pinpoint any particular person that
Speaker 1: they heard this from, but that was still considered admissible
Speaker 1: in nive. The Navy started desegregating its ranks, including announcing
Speaker 1: that training facilities would be integrated. In June of that year,
Speaker 1: Black crews were assigned to a few small combat ships
Speaker 1: as well. Then that December, Secretary forest All announced that
Speaker 1: quote in the Administration of Naval Personnel, no differentiation shall
Speaker 1: be made because of color. This was motivated not just
Speaker 1: by the Port Chicago case, but also by other racial
Speaker 1: conflicts within the Navy, including a riot involving black seabees
Speaker 1: and white Marines on Guam in December of nineteen four.
Speaker 1: The Port Chicago fifty remained incarcerated until the end of
Speaker 1: World War two. First, their sentences were reduced by a year,
Speaker 1: and then in January of nineteen forty six, all but
Speaker 1: three were released In return to the Navy. Two of
Speaker 1: the men who were not released were in the hospital
Speaker 1: at the time, and one was not released because of
Speaker 1: his conduct while incarcerated. From there, they were sent overseas
Speaker 1: to work for a year as rehabilitation. The CBS who
Speaker 1: had been part of the riot on Guam went through
Speaker 1: a similar process. After that, they were discharged under honorable conditions.
Speaker 1: That's not the same thing as an honorable discharge, and
Speaker 1: some of the men maintained that it kept them from
Speaker 1: being able to collect veterans benefits afterwards, which is something
Speaker 1: that the Navy has denied. The mutiny convictions still stood, though,
Speaker 1: and that made it hard for a lot of the
Speaker 1: men to find work once they returned to civilian life.
Speaker 1: A lot of them also talked about carrying a sense
Speaker 1: of shame and anger about it for the rest of
Speaker 1: their life. On February six, the Navy banned segregation and
Speaker 1: formally made black sailors quote eligible for all types of assignments,
Speaker 1: in all ratings, in all facilities, and in all ships.
Speaker 1: More than two years later, on July President Harry S.
Speaker 1: Truman signed Executive Order one, which desegregated the US Armed Forces.
Speaker 1: The Navy was already compliant with the order when Truman
Speaker 1: signed it. That doesn't mean that there was no discrimination
Speaker 1: or racism in the Navy, just that the Navy had
Speaker 1: already complied with the technical points of the order. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the military facility at Port Chicago was repaired and it
Speaker 1: became an even bigger port for munitions loading, but the
Speaker 1: town of Port Chicago was determined to be too close
Speaker 1: to the port for safety. This led the Navy to
Speaker 1: file a series of lawsuits petitioning to have it torn down.
Speaker 1: The Navy was finally successful in nineteen sixty eight, and
Speaker 1: it purchased all the property through Eminent domain and then
Speaker 1: raised the buildings. The base was later renamed Conquered Naval
Speaker 1: Weapons Station and now it's Military Ocean Terminal Conquered. Although
Speaker 1: the Port Chicago disaster was a major news story when
Speaker 1: it happened and led to protests and advocacy on behalf
Speaker 1: of the men on trial and black sailors in general,
Speaker 1: for decades afterward, information about it was classified. The secrecy
Speaker 1: contributed to a conspiracy theory that the explosion was caused
Speaker 1: by a nuclear device. This theory grew after a document
Speaker 1: called History of the ten thousand Ton gadget was found
Speaker 1: in a box of photography supplies at a rummage sale
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty. That box was reportedly donated by a
Speaker 1: man who had worked at Los Alamos, and the document
Speaker 1: describes a mathematical model for a nuclear detonation and ends
Speaker 1: with step eleven quote ball of fire, mushroom out at
Speaker 1: eighteen thousand feet in typical Port Chicago fashion. So the
Speaker 1: logical explanation for this is that after the disaster, scientists
Speaker 1: from Los Alamos came to Port Chicago to study the
Speaker 1: effects of an explosion that was similar in power to
Speaker 1: what they were trying to develop. That definitely happened. Captain
Speaker 1: William Parsons, ordinance director at Los Alamos, arrived on July
Speaker 1: twenty then submitted a memo summarizing his findings on July.
Speaker 1: His memorandum cites several eyewitnesses as reporting that a column
Speaker 1: of fire rose up and then mushroomed out from the explosion.
Speaker 1: But the conspiracy theory maintains that quote typical Port Chicago
Speaker 1: fashion is not a reference to a mushroom cloud created
Speaker 1: by the accidental detonation of conventional weapons that was as
Speaker 1: powerful as a nuclear blast. Instead, it is supposedly a
Speaker 1: reference to a mushroom cloud created by an actual nuclear
Speaker 1: detonation in Port Chicago and then covered up. Yes, some
Speaker 1: people go so far as to say that it was
Speaker 1: an actual intentional nuclear debt nation basically bombing apport on
Speaker 1: purpose to see what the effects would be. But there's
Speaker 1: never been any evidence of any other like indication of
Speaker 1: nuclear activity, any of the types of post nuclear explosion
Speaker 1: issues you would have. No, the person who has been
Speaker 1: the biggest uh advocate of this whole conspiracy theory wrote
Speaker 1: a whole book about it, piecing all kinds of stuff together.
Speaker 1: But like, it's one of those things that's so far
Speaker 1: fetched that there's not a lot of historians that are
Speaker 1: like rebutting it because it's so far, so far off
Speaker 1: the realm of what's reasonable or imaginable. Um. But like
Speaker 1: a lot of nuclear scientists have said no, this, Like
Speaker 1: part of the argument has to be whether there was
Speaker 1: enough nuclear material available to make a bomb of this
Speaker 1: type in ninety four, and a lot of nuclear scientists
Speaker 1: are like, no, there wasn't. UM. People have also noted,
Speaker 1: like we when we did our our podcasts about the
Speaker 1: Thousand Cranes and the bombings of Heroshman and Nagasaki, Like
Speaker 1: we talked about how the nuclear after effects went on
Speaker 1: for years and years and these uh spikes and all
Speaker 1: kinds of cancers and like that, And there's no radiation
Speaker 1: sickness associated with Port Chicago to the no UM, especially
Speaker 1: not among all of the people in the town who
Speaker 1: were a mile away and would have had that would Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I can totally see how these pieces of these
Speaker 1: like little pieces of data, like the fact that it
Speaker 1: says Port Chicago and that document and um, the huge
Speaker 1: magnitude of the explosion, Like I can see how people
Speaker 1: would piece these things together and draw that conclusion. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, especially the idea that the United
Speaker 1: States would have intentionally bombed one of its own ports
Speaker 1: during wartime as an experiment, like, yeah, that's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a long walk, Yeah, a mission critical port
Speaker 1: during wartime, like it was how munitions were getting like
Speaker 1: the vast majority of munitions were getting to the Pacific.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen nineties, the Navy reviewed the Port Chicago case,
Speaker 1: and on January the Board for Correction of Naval Records
Speaker 1: acknowledged that racism was present in the Navy and at
Speaker 1: Port Chicago in Nino, but maintained that it did not
Speaker 1: play a part in the events that transpired. The Secretary
Speaker 1: of Defense at the time was William J. Perry, who said, quote,
Speaker 1: sailors are required to obey the orders of their superiors,
Speaker 1: even if those orders subject them to life threatening danger.
Speaker 1: In nineteen any nine, President Bill Clinton pardoned Freddie Meeks,
Speaker 1: who had been part of the Port Chicago fifty Meeks
Speaker 1: was one of a very few survivors still living at
Speaker 1: the time, and he was the only one to apply
Speaker 1: for a presidential pardon. In the words of Joe Small
Speaker 1: back in when the Navy stood by their convictions, quote
Speaker 1: we don't want a pardon because that means you're guilty,
Speaker 1: but we forgive you. We want the decisions set aside
Speaker 1: and reimbursement of all lost pay. In two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial was dedicated. It's
Speaker 1: part of the National Park System, but it's also on
Speaker 1: an active military base, so if you want to visit there,
Speaker 1: you have to have advanced reservations and a government issue
Speaker 1: I d H and go through a security check to enter.
Speaker 1: The security is a lot tighter than at most other
Speaker 1: monuments of a similar sort because it is on an
Speaker 1: active base. There are a lot of moments of holding back,
Speaker 1: growling and expletives in that episode. Yeah. Um, people have
Speaker 1: been asking us the talk about this for a really
Speaker 1: long time, and because it is so similar to the
Speaker 1: Halifax disaster in terms of the nature of the explosion
Speaker 1: and the damage that it caused, Like Halifax was a
Speaker 1: lot more destructive in terms of how much property was
Speaker 1: destroyed and how many people were killed. Because the Halifax
Speaker 1: is that disaster happened like right there in Halifax, and
Speaker 1: there were a lot of populated buildings immediately around the
Speaker 1: area and like a lot more people, a lot more
Speaker 1: civilians there that the docks. But Port Chicago was not
Speaker 1: nearly as well populated, and then the shape of the
Speaker 1: landscape stopped the spread of the explosion from going as far.
Speaker 1: So like the death toll is not as staggering as
Speaker 1: in Halifax, but if you look at the pictures, it's
Speaker 1: really similar in terms of things just being flattened. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that was frustrated and researching it
Speaker 1: is how how like there were these clear, discriminatory, segregated
Speaker 1: tears through the whole entire thing that played out in
Speaker 1: the same way as like so many other segregated situations
Speaker 1: that we have talked about on the show, but unlike
Speaker 1: some of them that have been later investigated, Like we've
Speaker 1: talked about a lot of knowledge, We've talked about a
Speaker 1: lot of incidents that like, when they happened, it was
Speaker 1: clear that like racism was a factor, and then fifty
Speaker 1: years later, uh, somebody will go back through the whole
Speaker 1: records and have like a truth and Reconciliation commission or
Speaker 1: something like that and say, Okay, this is the documentation
Speaker 1: of how this played out and how discrimination played a
Speaker 1: part in it. And with this particular thing, it's been
Speaker 1: more like, yeah, they're discrimination existed, but it didn't really
Speaker 1: affect this, but that wasn't part of this. Yes, it
Speaker 1: kind of comes across that way. Frustrating. Yeah, hopefully in
Speaker 1: a more upbeat zone. Do you have some listener my
Speaker 1: own I view? It's from Katrina. It is a little
Speaker 1: more uh. It is also about a disaster, but it
Speaker 1: is more upbeat and it says my name is Katrina.
Speaker 1: I am a longtime listener from Perth, Australia. Just dropping
Speaker 1: you a line after I listened to the general slocum disaster.
Speaker 1: My little tidbit of trivia is much more lighthearder than
Speaker 1: the episode though, and it's all to do with cork.
Speaker 1: Inferior cork is the reason why most wine bottles in
Speaker 1: Australia have metal caps. Apparently there was a war between
Speaker 1: some European wine labels and Australian labels around the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1: This was as the Australian wine industry started making some
Speaker 1: waves and getting noticed. To try to block this these
Speaker 1: new upcomers, some of the older European brands convinced cork
Speaker 1: suppliers to send inferior corks to the Australian market, so
Speaker 1: the wineries in Australia were forced to invent a new
Speaker 1: closure into the screw cap. I think this is also
Speaker 1: why we have wine in a bag, although I'm not
Speaker 1: entirely sure on that one. Unfortunately, I can't remember the
Speaker 1: documentary in which I saw this, so my details may
Speaker 1: be wrong, but and I cannot send you something with
Speaker 1: more information. But either way, it's a cute story. Keep
Speaker 1: up the good work, ladies. I'm always impressed with a
Speaker 1: sensitivity and enthusiasm to approach each topic, especially the ones
Speaker 1: The reveal histories that have been hidden for so long
Speaker 1: due to racism, sexism, and homophobia. And then she goes
Speaker 1: on with some podcast suggestions. Uh, your friend in history, Katrina,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for this email, Katrina. I did
Speaker 1: not go through and like verify the trajectory of screw
Speaker 1: caps and cork, but the idea of needing a different
Speaker 1: type of closure for the bottle because of poor quality
Speaker 1: cork is definitely a thing. Like in more recent years
Speaker 1: there have been worldwide cork shortages. Uh, and that is
Speaker 1: why a lot more a lot of wine bottles and
Speaker 1: things now instead of having a cork closure will have
Speaker 1: a like a more rubber stopper or a screw cap
Speaker 1: or something like that. So thank you Katrina for sending
Speaker 1: a more lighthearted aspect of poor quality cork. If you
Speaker 1: would like to write to us about this or any
Speaker 1: other podcast or a history podcast at how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. And then we're all over social media at
Speaker 1: miss in History. That is where you will find our Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram,
Speaker 1: and Twitter. You can come to our webs which is
Speaker 1: missed in History dot com and find show notes about
Speaker 1: the episodes Holly and I have worked on together and
Speaker 1: a searchable archive of every episode ever, and you can
Speaker 1: subscribe to our show on Apple podcast, i heart Radio
Speaker 1: app and wherever else do you get your podcasts. Stuff
Speaker 1: you Missed in History Class is a production of my
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