The Port Chicago Mutiny

by Robert L. Allen

During World War II, Port Chicago was a segregated naval munitions base on the outer shores of San Francisco Bay. Black seamen were required to load ammunition onto ships bound for the South Pacific under the watch of their white officers—an incredibly dangerous and physically challenging task. On July 17, 1944, an explosion rocked the base, killing 320 men—202 of whom were black ammunition loaders. In the ensuing weeks, white officers were given leave time and commended for heroic efforts, whereas 328 of the surviving black enlistees were sent to load ammunition on another ship. When they refused, fifty men were singled out and charged—and convicted—of mutiny. It was the largest mutiny trial in U.S. naval history. First published in 1989, The Port Chicago Mutiny is a thorough and riveting work of civil rights literature, and with a new preface and epilogue by the author emphasize the event’s relevance today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, United States, 20th Century, American History, Race

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Robert Lee Allen is an American activist, writer, and Adjunct Professor of African-American Studies and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Allen received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, San Francisco, and previously taught at San José State University and Mills College.

Reviews

[Tony Mercer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Relatively unknown, the Port Chicago disaster was possibly the largest man-made explosion in history to that point (occurring 1 year before the Trinity nuclear test), killing 320 soldiers (2/3 of whom were African American). The resulting work strike by African American soldiers demanding training and safer working conditions led to the “Port Chicago 50” being tried and convicted of mutiny, all sentenced to 15 years in prison and hard labor, and dishonorably discharged. It occurred north of Oakland in 1944 as segregated African American sailors were forced to load munitions, mostly bombs, into the holds of ships headed to the Pacific fleet. These sailors, many who had joined the military looking for a better future outside of the Jim Crow south and poverty stricken inner cities, were not deployed to the Pacific fleet, but rather were forced to work in dangerous conditions, with no real training, in 24 hour shifts loading, filling quotas. It is still unclear exactly what triggered the explosion, but two ships were docked and nearly full when something triggered the explosion, which one US military pilot flying overhead estimated was a 3 mile in diameter fireball. This book is well written and details the incident using interviews with some of the sailors as well as a number of publicly available military records, including the proceedings of the court martial trial. It brings to life the conditions of these sailors, their fears, hopes, and daily routines. A fast and important read about a group sailors, emblematic of African Americans of the 1940’s, whose hard work, aspirations for equality, devastating tragedy, and attempts to protest were met with disdain and eventually forgotten as their history was pushed aside and overwritten. I highly recommend.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

my professor wrote this, so i kinda have to give it a good review!

but really, it's sheds light on a little known incident in history, and is a good model of how to go about one's own qualitative research.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

The quote “History is written by the victors” is attributed to Winston Churchill. I’d like to modify it - in the United States the history taught in our schools is written by white people.

The Port Chicago Mutiny was an incredibly important event in the history of the United States, the US Navy, and in racial relations. Unfortunately, until I read this book, I had never heard of it. Fortunately Robert L. Allen put in years of research and wrote a book to bring this event, and the people involved, into the limelight.

In 1944 the Navy, like the other branches of the US Military, was completely segregated and run by “Jim Crow” laws. Completely Black units were assigned the extremely demanding and dangerous task of loading ammunition and munitions onto the naval ships. While Black men had signed up to fight Hitler and his racist agenda, the armed forces assigned them to menial tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and manual labor. Few were given the chance to actually fight in the war, advance in rank, or even leave the United States.

Port Chicago was a Naval base outside of San Francisco, California where tons of munitions were loaded onto ships for the war in the Pacific. With little training, Black men were given the task of loading the ships while the all white officers supervised and made side bets on whose unit could load the ships the fastest. Safety was definitely not a concern despite the Black enlisted men constantly complaining about the working conditions, lack of training, and dangerous conditions.

On July 17th, 1944 Port Chicago blew up! Three hundred and twenty men were killed, many more wounded, the base destroyed, and the nearby town obliterated. A board of inquiry could not decide what caused the accident but alleged it was somehow the untrained and overburdened Black servicemen’s fault.

The Navy decided to send the survivors to a nearby base to load more ships; no leave, no psychological counseling, no recognition of what they had gone through. Enough was enough and the majority of the survivors refused to load any more ships. The Navy decided to charge fifty of the men, that they had decided were ringleaders, with mutiny - a charge that in wartime can be a capital offense.

Robert Allen has written a scholarly, personal, revealing book about the events leading up the the Port Chicago disaster, what came afterwards, and how this event contibuted to the armed forces dismantling their segregationalist policies.

This book is eye opening. Allen lays out, chapter by chapter, explanation by explanation, what happened at Port Chicago, how the Navy responded, and how this event was instrumental in changing the racist policies of the US military and the US society in general. Unfortunately, most of the men involved bore the scars till their dying day.

Please read this book - it will fill in many of the blanks from your US History classes. And a very large thank you to Robert Allen for not only writing this book but helping both the survivors and himself in their healing process.

[Royce Ratterman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Riviting, captivation and a great historical overview filled with a treasure trove of details.
Having worked in Port Chicago (new part) on homes moved from the explosion area (old part), I found this book's contents very interesting.
"All 320 of the men working on the ships and the pier had been killed instantly, and another 390 people in the surrounding area were injured, many of them maimed by shattered glass and debris. Among the dead were 202 black troops, who would later account for 15 percent of all the African Americans killed during World War II."
In typical historical repressive fashion, Democrats, specifically 'racist' Congressman John Elliott Rankin (D-Mississippi) used his influence to reduce the $5000 payout voted for and approved for 1944 Port Chicago/Navy victims' families to $3000 because most were 'Negroes'.
Read for personal research. Overall, a good book for the researcher and enthusiast.
Number rating relates to the book's contribution to my needs.
Note:
John E. Rankin (March 29, 1882 – November 26, 1960) was a Democratic congressman who served for sixteen terms from the U.S. State of Mississippi, from 1920 to 1952. He supported racial segregation, white supremacy, and antisemitism.

[Riley Haas · Rating 3 out of 5]

"I was actually completely unaware of the occurrence of the Port Chicago explosion or subsequent "mutiny," so this book was quite eye-opening.
I don't want to open this can of worms, but I think I have too: unfortunately this account is too focused on race and the individual, subjective experiences of the African American seamen who participated in the work stoppage. I say this because Allen has assembled a lot of damning information about Navy policies and actions that caused this explosion - and the successful blaming of the explosion on black sailors - but by focusing so much on the memories of a few participants, and particularly Small's, and by focusing almost entirely on the issue of race, Allen has opened him up to charges of bias, no matter how unfounded. I am a big believer that the purpose of a book like this is to change the minds of people who might still believe the Navy's prosecution of the 50 "mutineers" was justified, but the way it is written that will never happen.
For me, the gold standard in exposing Naval institutional incompetence is All the Drowned Sailors, this book is nowhere near as rigorous, or thorough, or, frankly, compelling. I recognize what Allen was trying to do, but I think he would have been more successful in condemning the ass-covering actions of the Navy if he had approached the event as a story of institutional incompetence at multiple levels, rather than just a story of institutionalized racism.
I don't mean to say this book isn't any good: it is informative, thought-provoking, outrage-provoking and as complete coverage of this disaster as is out there, but I do think it could have been elevated to the status of classic had the race aspect merely been a part of a general indictment of human error in institutions rather than the raison d'etre of the whole book. And I think that allowing the Navy to indict itself via history would have probably been more effective than relying almost entirely on the memories of the survivors. (One of Allen's major problems is his reverential attitude towards the survivors he met, and his entirely skeptical attitude towards the official testimony of white officers; he should have reservations about all witness testimony in general.)
Still, if you have any interest in the history of disasters, the military or the navy, obvious miscarriages of justice, or the treatment of African Americans in the '40s, you should read this book. It's not perfect, but I know it's the best treatment of this terrible event out there."

[Dravell]

WW2,( San Fran Bay )Port Chicago, California. 420 tons worth of ammunitions detonated at once, 320 dead-of which 220 were Black enlisted naval men- 319 injured, 225 stood ten toes and refused to returned to work loading ammunition after surviving an near Atomic Bomb explosion, yet not being allowed survivor's leave to regroup or visit families. Out 0f 225, 50 black naval men were charged with Mutiny during war time which (if found guilty) carries the punishment of death by firing squad. The largest Mutiny charge in the history of the country (only rivaled by THEE AMISTAD case of 1890) } They also were blamed for the initial explosion even though they complained of being rushed by bet making officers, complained of the lack of safety training from the navy on handling war bombs and complained that the navy's segregation policy made only black men (who signed up to be sailors) handle ammunitions (until after the court case). Joe Smalls was the leader of this movement, and it along wth other work stoppages by black soldiers in the pacific forced the navy to drop its policy pf segregation, not because of moral righteousness, but bc the navy felt segregation allowed black men the opportune to conspire and mutiny against the Navy. Asshats.I would like to read more abt the details of those other work stoppages

[JerryDeanHalleck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Excellent, objective, book on one of the bloodiest USA homefront disasters in WW II. Over 420 black sailors who were loading ammo on board ships were killed or wounded/injured. that Represents over 15 percent of the total African American losses (2,800) in WW II. After the explosion over 50 black sailors mutinied rather than go back to docks and continue to load Ammo.

Allen shows the Navy Ammo loading command was inexperienced and incompetent and the black sailors had good reason to refuse to got back to work. There was a trial and fifty were convicted and imprisoned. They were later pardoned in January 1946.

This book is well researched, well written, and covers the an interesting somewhat forgotten episodes.

[Sarah Harper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible little known story of courageous African American naval draftees handling dangerous ammunition without safety guidelines. When an explosion occurs, the African American navy workers realize the extraordinary extent of discrimination they have suffered and decided out of fear to not endanger their lives further. Great research and readable history book.

[Ollie Z Book Minx · Rating 4 out of 5]

The conclusion loses some of the power of the narrative but still an engaging and informative read.

#24in48

[Vienna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this for a school project and it is a really interesting story, but the book was just boring. It was really informational, but I had to force myself to read it every day.

[Jill White · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sad, shameful time in our history.

[Randy Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recently I visited a historical exhibit at the San Francisco Public Library about the Port Chicago 'Mutiny' . While the exhibit had a few artifacts and hall hangings, I was surprised that there wasn't a single book about the event on display. It made me think that the event hadn't garnered the attention necessary to lead to a book long explanation of what happened. Fortunately I was wrong and Mr. Allen's book give us the human face to this event with this deadly explosion costing the lives of more than 300 people during WW2.

The outline of this story is thus: during WW2 all the arm forces were segregated. In the Navy, black men were only allowed low-level positions including the potentially dangerous one of loading ammunition onto ships going into battle into the Pacific. After complaining about the dangers involved in this work at the Northern California based Port Chicago facility, an explosion rocked the dock, the nearby town and the barracks where most of the men were housed. More than two hundred of the men killed were African Americans all of them handling ammunition. Despite an investigation, no actual cause was identified. The men that witnessed the explosion were quickly sent to other sites back to loading ammunition. These men told their officers they were scared and traumatized and would obey all order other than loading ammunition. This was called a work stoppage, determined to constitute a mutiny and ended with fifty of the more than 200 workers going on trial for their life. Mostly a show trial with the outcome already determined, all fifty were convicted.

This was in 1944 but soon the Navy desegregated and then under President Truman' order, all the arm forces become desegregated by 1948. The convicted men were all freed by then but they never exonerated for the egregious wrong done to them.

The book walks us through the experience of the explosion, the communicated desire by the workers not to load ammunition and the subsequent trial for mutiny mostly seen from the perspective of the African Americans who did the dangerous work. We meet the supposed 'ringleader,' Joe Small who recounts these events of thirty years earlier.

There were so many things that demand revisiting. First, the fact that these dangerous jobs were foisted only onto African Americans draftees, that they were encouraged to compete for doing the work quickly which meant job safety was a secondary concern. Worse, the navy didn't provide adequately training and when the men complained, their concerns were dismissed and ignored. Once the explosion happened, the men weren't given a suitable explanation for the cause nor told that job safety measures were being taken to correct the problems. The men didn't act in concert in the work stoppage and also never said they wouldn't load ammunition under any circumstances but only that they were fearful of doing so. The navy took this as a refusal and then worked to create a divide between those who reluctantly agreed to go back to work and those that stuck to their guns and continued to refuse to work.

Some men were court-marshalled even though their behavior was the same as those that were put on trial for mutiny. It is questionable that the facts of the men's behavior required a court-marshal let alone to be charged with mutiny. The Navy was eager to make an example of these men to put other African American servicemen and women on notice of what would happened if they got out of line.

I'm so glad this book was written on this sad but hardly unique example of systematic racism that has been a part of America's history and which we still see today in the form of cops harassing and sometimes killing black men for no reason other than racism. And I'm so glad that Mr. Allen focused his attention at the human side of an event that got overlooked at the time and thereafter because it didn't fit the narrative of brave Americans fighting evil Nazis.

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the few published works on the events that took place at Port Chicago, CA in 1944. If you don't know what happened at Port Chicago, I suggest looking it up because I hadn't heard of it prior to it's inclusion in a novel regarding an unrelated subject. Allen's book includes substantive primary sources, including narrative by one of the enlisted men charged and convicted with mutiny. It sheds light on some of the segregationist policies and practices of the US Navy during World War II and how those policies were changed afterward.

It gets three stars because Allen goes beyond presenting a book about the facts of the incident. A final section is a psychological and sociological thesis, where Allen tries to explain why events played out in the manner they did. I'd have preferred a book strictly historical in nature.

[Martin Brzezinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book covers a little known event during the Second World War involving racial discrimination and the military on a Naval base. When reckless demands and careless practices of officers create a deadly disaster, the enlisted men are expected to return to work as if nothing happened and are prosecuted as mutineers when they balk.

[Ann]

I got this book for a paper, and found it a very enjoyable read. I enjoy reading about Naval history, especially World War II Naval history. I would recommend this book to anyone that likes this topic.

[Therese Wiese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Account of the 1944 munition explosion in Port Chicago (northern CA) and the subsequent mutiny trial of 50 black soldiers who refused to return to work. Very interesting reading. Very dark period in our military history.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read the same as the Port Chicago monument is a must see. I think I had heard about Port Chicago but had no idea about the facts. 320 men died..... Mostly Black Men. 50 were tried for mutiny. Read the book, visit the Memorial near SanFrancisco!

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another big deal in maritime history. This one involving civil rights. Its a story that should be told.