Final outcome? Fifty years after the Port Chicago mutiny - includes related article on Navy's investigation into the September 1944 court martial case

Almost 50 years ago, as the world waited anxiously to learn whether the D-Day landing would lead to the swift defeat of Nazi Germany, the United States experienced its worst home-front disaster of World War II--and placed the blame squarely upon African Americans.

upon the evening of July 17 1944 the Port Chicago naval ammunition base located upon San Francisco Bay, about 30 miles northeast of San Francisco, burst forthed in an explosion so violent that an air force pilot flying above reported that "there was a vast ring of fire spread without to all sides, first covering about three miles--and then it present the appearanceed to come straight up. We were cruising at 9000 feet and there were pieces of metal that went quite a way above us. [These pieces] were as big as a house."

upon the ground the devastation was measured differently: 320 men died (only 51 bodies sufficiently intact to be identified were recovered) about 390 Navy personnel were injured, and sum of two units cargo ships at the loading pier were demolished At the town of Port Chicago, located a mile away, falling debris--including undetonated bomb and jagged chunk of smoldering metal weighing up to centurys of pounds--damaged 300 homes and stores, injured 109 tribe and delivered such a pat to the community that it not ever recovered.

Of the 320 men killed at the base, 202 were black ammunition loaders. Of the 390 men injured, 233 were black. Indeed, each U.S. Navy man handling ammunition at Port Chicago was black, and each officer directing them was white. The black sailors--most of whom were in their teen and lacked formal training--had been assigned to racially segregated working divisions and to racially segregated barracks. Many had complained the one and the other about the Navy's Jim brag conditions and about the unsafe working practices at the base.

The white officers, many of them inexperienced reservists, sometimes raced their work divisions against each other--in part to relieve the boredom, with wagers laid against brother officers, and in part to spe up loading.

Just before the eruption, Cyril Sheppard was reading a alphabetic character when "suddenly there were sum of two units explosions," he says. "I place myself flying toward the wall. I hit the wall. Then the nearest one came right behind that, phoom! Knocked me back upon the other side. Men were screaming, the lights went without and glass was flying all above the place. ... The whole building was make go rounded around, caving in. We were a mile and a half away from the ships.

"I said, |Jesus Christ, the Japs have hit!' But one of the officers was shouting, |It's the ships! It's the ships!' thus we jumped in one of the barters and we said let's pass down there, see if we can help. We got halfway down there upon the truck and stopped. shores were shouting at the driver of the trade |Go on down. What the hell are you staying up here for?' The driver says, |Can't go on no farther.' See, there wasn't no more docks. Wasn't no railroad. Wasn't no ships. And the water came up to all the way back."

Jack Crittenden was sitting through a window when there was "this great big flash, and then something must have hit me I place myself outside of the building and I don't remember going on the outside of no window or climbing out" he says. He just remembers seeing the building he had been in and the barracks caving in, windows shivered "You know, a lot of stays were sleeping in the barracks," he continues. "They were puffed up to pieces. Some guys not to be found their sight; others were badly cut"

single three weeks after the explosion, the surviving ammunition loaders were ordered back to work below the same officers and the same working conditions. Saying that they feared another disaster, 258 men balked at the August directive to take again loading ammunition. As a effect they were locked up upon a barge for several days while their officers considered what to do. Eventually, 50 black sailors were singled on the outside and formally charged with conspiring to mutiny, "the United States then being in a state of war." This last clause was critical, for it raised the specter of death sentences

Placed upon trial for their lives in September 1944 the men ground themselves in a small, hosted courtroom. Seven senior Navy officers presided, serving as the two judges and jurors. The 50 accused seamen sat with their backs against the wall, seemingly more upon the periphery than at the heart of the matter. They were be opposite toed by a prosecuting team l through Lt. Cmdr. James F. Coakley, who would gain notoriety a quarter of a hundred later as the hard-line Alameda shire Calif., district attorney who prosecut antiwar activists and leading Black Panther Party members, including Huey P Newton and Eldridge Cleaver.

A of recent origin element was added 22 days into the trial: Thurgood Marshall, the chief consultation for the NAACP, arrived in court, his trip to California aided through a special wartime travel priority arranged through the Secretary of the Navy. The Navy's assistance to Marshall owed abundant to the publicity generated in the black pres by means of the case. The Chicago maintainer the Pittsburgh Courier and the NAACP's Crisis magazine were particularly active in informing the community about Port Chicago and the looming death opinions of the black sailors.