78 years after blast, movement to exonerate Port Chicago 50 gains traction
CONTRA COSTA COUNTY – At the height of World War II, a huge explosion rocked the East Bay when two munitions ships blew up while being loaded, leading to the largest mass trial for mutiny in U.S. military history. Now, an effort is gaining momentum to exonerate the sailors convicted after the disaster.
At Port Chicago, near Pittsburg, they used segregated, all-Black units to load munitions aboard ships.
On July 17, 1944, something went wrong and two ships loaded with 5,000 tons of explosives blew up, killing 320 sailors, destroying the base and much of the nearby town.
One of the sailors who survived, Morris Soublet, later told his son Richard about the conditions at the base.
"He said, 'we were never trained to load ammunition. It was something we had to learn on our own, so we improvised. Everything that we did we improvised. We knew that we were dealing with dangerous ammunition, but there was no training and we just had to figure out how to do it on our own,'" said Richard, who lives in Oakland.
Immediately following the disaster, the surviving sailors were sent to Vallejo to resume their jobs, but 50 refused to work without getting proper training.
The so-called "Port Chicago 50" were tried and convicted—not for refusing an order, but for mutiny.
Jason Felibret is the nephew of one of the sailors killed in the blast and a former Air Force paralegal. Felibret said the trial was a sham, tainted by racism, and would never be allowed today.
"If you are given an order that is unlawful, you are not required to follow it," Felibret told KPIX 5. "And in this particular case, I believe the direction for them to continue loading munitions without any training, without any safety precautions being put in place, was tantamount to an unlawful order."
Last week, the House of Representatives passed a bill containing a resolution asking the United States Navy to fully exonerate the convicted sailors. The measure was sponsored by East Bay Reps. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) and Barbara Lee (D-Oakland).
DeSaulnier said this is actually the fourth time he's introduced the bill and the second time it's passed the House. It was defeated in the Senate before, but he says he senses the effort is gaining support.
"This is just saying the obvious, that the United States Congress exonerates these, now all deceased, American sailors for the crime that they were convicted of--mutiny," DeSaulnier told KPIX 5.
After the war, the sailors' sentences were all commuted and one was later given a full pardon, but the families of the men who had to deal with the shame want more than that.
"A full exoneration will actually clear their records. Not say, 'they're guilty and we forgive them," but actually clear their records and say that what took place was an injustice and it should not have occurred," said Dr. Nicholas Baham Chair of CSU East Bay's Ethnic Studies Department. "Their action was a work stoppage. It was not a mutiny."
Baham said it is a statement that would be important for the entire country to hear.
"This is a public acknowledgement of racism during WWII and an event that would later trigger the desegregation of the military," he said. "You don't move forward by forgetting. You move forward by recognizing the sins of the past and looking to correct those in the future."
