MUTINEERS OR SCAPEGOATS?

On July 17, 1944, the SS E. A. Bryan, a newly commissioned Liberty ship, was moored to a pier at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, California, to load ammunition, bombs, and artillery rounds for the upcoming invasion of Tinian, in the Northern Mariana Islands. Under the glare of dockside lights, nearly 100 African-American stevedores rushed to transfer the munitions from depot to ship. Nearly all of them were young, and few were noncommissioned officers.

At around 10:18 p.m. there was a loud noise from the pier. Witnesses later described the sound as “metallic” and like that of “rending timbers, such as made by a falling boom.” An instant later the blew apart in a massive explosion that destroyed virtually everything in an 800-yard radius. Another Liberty ship, the SS , was tied up on the other side of the pier; the explosion tore it to pieces and threw what remained of its stern more than 100 yards into the main channel. A huge fireball rose into the night sky and mushroomed nearly three miles across, throwing fiery debris as high as 12,000 feet. The 320 men who were aboard the or working on the pier beside it were instantly