Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro announced the full exoneration of the remaining 256 Black defendants of the 1944 Port Chicago general and summary courts-martial that followed a disastrous explosion at the California ammunition-handling facility.
Del Toro made the announcement Wednesday on the 80th anniversary of the disaster that claimed 320 lives, injured 400 others, destroyed a train and two cargo ships – SS Quinault Victory and SS E.A. Bryan – and caused damage to the nearby town of Port Chicago.
After the latest review of the case and related materials, the General Counsel of the Navy concluded that there were significant legal errors during the courts-martial. The defendants were improperly tried together despite conflicting interests and denied a meaningful right to counsel, the release said.
The courts-martial also occurred before the Navy’s Court of Inquiry finalized its report on the Port Chicago explosion, which would have informed the defense and contained 19 substantive recommendations to improve ammunition loading practices.
Most of those killed in the explosion were Black Americans. In the announcement, Del Toro expressed his condolences to the families of those who died.
At the time of the explosion, the two ships berthed pierside were getting loaded with more than 4,600 tons of anti aircraft ammunition, aerial bombs, high explosives for underwater munitions and smokeless powder. The 16 rail cars carried another 429 tons of explosives, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command’s account of the explosion.
The account continues: “At 2218 (10:18 PM) a dull clang (possibly caused by a falling cargo boom) and a sound of splintering wood preceded a blinding flash and heavy detonation on the pier, followed within seconds by smaller detonations and then the massive explosion of munitions in E. A. Bryan’s holds. The ship, most of the pier, all structures within a 1,000-foot radius, and many of the flatcars disintegrated.
“The explosion blew Quinault Victory into large pieces that sank in the waters of Suisun Bay. A Coast Guard fire barge was blown away from the munitions pier and sank, taking its 5-man crew with it. The 320 individuals in the immediate proximity of the blasts – Navy personnel on the loading details, a Marine Corps sentry, the ships’ Navy Armed Guard and merchant mariner crews, and civilian employees – were killed instantly. Of these, the remains of only 51 were identifiable afterward.”
In its news release issued Wednesday, the Navy noted that “white supervising officers at Port Chicago were given hardship leave, while the surviving African-American sailors were ordered back to work. The circumstances surrounding the disaster were reflective of the Navy’s personnel policies at the time, which barred African-American sailors from nearly all seagoing jobs. Most of the Navy ordnance battalions assigned to Port Chicago Naval Magazine and similar facilities were comprised of African-American enlisted personnel and white officers.”
The Naval History account added: “The chain of command focused primarily on maintaining a high operations tempo with periodically increased loading quotas.” After 39 days of meeting, the Court of Inquiry’s report in 1944 “raised no questions concerning the white officer’s leadership responsibilities” to train the ammunition handlers.
In the absence of clarity about the explosions or further safety training, 258 Black sailors refused to resume ammunition handling at Mare Island Naval Weapons Station, where they had been transferred following the destruction of Port Chicago. After threats of disciplinary action by Rear Adm. Carleton Wright, commander of the 12th Naval District, 208 of the sailors returned to work. But the Navy subsequently convicted all of them at a summary court-martial for disobeying orders, the release added.
What drew national attention to racial policies in the Navy and safety procedures in the sea service were the general courts-martials of the 50 sailors who refused to return to work and were tried together.
The courts-martial took place over 33 days on Yerba Buena Island in San Francisco Bay.
Seaman First Class Joseph Small testified: “I made up my mind I would obey any order to return to work except to handle ammunition. I was afraid of it,” the Oakland Tribune reported. He denied that he ever said, “if we stuck together nothing could happen to us.”
Arguing for the defendants in his appeal to Navy Secretary James Forrestal, Thurgood Marshall, an NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney at the time and a future Supreme Court Justice, said what happened was the “normal reaction of deep and terrifying fear” by those who witnessed such a disaster. “Some of these men were placed on detail to clear up the debris. They had to pick up pieces of their comrades in baskets – an arm, a leg, a torso, and they were still suffering from the shock of that experience when ordered to load the transport on August 9,” news accounts reported.
The New Pittsburgh Courier, a Black newspaper, reported that the prosecution’s argument at the courts-martial alleged the sailors’ meetings following the explosion included circulating “Don’t Work” lists, showing the sailors’ “defiance and a persistent and deliberate refusal to do military duty.” That “fulfilled the specification for mutiny and conspiracy,” and it didn’t matter “whether they have talked together or even known one another” beforehand.
After about 30 minutes of deliberation, all 50, now referred to as the “Port Chicago 50,” were convicted of mutiny. They were sentenced to a dishonorable discharge, 15 years of confinement at hard labor, reduction in rate to E-1 and total forfeitures of their pay. During later reviews of the general courts-martial, the Navy suspended the dishonorable discharges and reduced the period of confinement from 15 years to 17 to 29 months. One conviction was also set aside for mental incompetency.
In the aftermath of the conviction, Forrestal ordered the board to reconvene, but this time “disregarding previously allowed hearsay evidence.” The board reaffirmed its original verdict.
Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt then successfully petitioned Forrestal to reduce the confinement time. After their release, the sailors went to various ships in the Pacific, but were still restricted in their duties by Navy racial segregation policy at the time. When their enlistments ended, they received general discharges under honorable conditions.
Twenty-five years ago, Seaman 2nd Class Freddie Meeks petitioned then-President Bill Clinton for a pardon. In an interview with the New York Times, he said: ”After all these years, the world should know what happened at Port Chicago … It should be cleared up that we did not commit mutiny, and we were charged with that because of our race.”
Clinton granted the pardon to the 79-year-old Meeks.
“The Port Chicago 50, and the hundreds who stood with them, may not be with us today, but their story lives on, a testament to their courage and the unwavering pursuit of justice,” Del Toro said in the release. “They stand as a beacon of hope, forever reminding us that even in the face of overwhelming odds, the fight for what’s right can and will prevail.”
As part of it’s announcement, the Navy issued a call for family members of the defendants to reach out for more information.
