tyb
>>16044584, >>16044853 pb
Massive fire erupts at California's Port of Benicia
There's some rich history in Benicia-Benicia Arsenal
The Port Chicago Disaster, 17 July 1944: Leadership Lessons Learned
At approximately 10:19 PM on 17 July 1944, two massive explosions just seconds apart devastated the U.S. naval magazine at Port Chicago, California. Three hundred and twenty officers and enlisted men were killed instantly when two ships—SS Quinault Victory and SS E. A. Bryan—being loaded with ordnance and ammunition for operations in the Pacific theater blew up. The detonations smashed the almost fully loaded E. A. Bryan to bits and blew large pieces of Quinault Victory over 500 yards away into Suisun Bay. Witnesses reported seeing an immense column of fire that mushroomed, creating a magnificent yellow-orange light. The blasts equaled an estimated 5,000 tons of TNT or an earthquake of 3.4 magnitude on the Richter scale. In addition to the 320 individuals killed in the blasts, another 390 were injured. African Americans constituted nearly 75 percent of the 320 fatalities and 60 percent of the 390 hurt. It was the worst home front disaster of World War II. The search for survivors quickly became a recovery effort. Freddie Meeks, an African American Sailor, recalled the shock of putting body parts into baskets as he absorbed the loss of life and the destruction that occurred. Only 51 bodies remained intact for identification, and the smell of burning flesh hung in the air. The blasts had obliterated virtually everything within 1,000 feet, including cargo ships, the pier, boxcars, a 45-ton diesel locomotive, the joiner shop, a Coast Guard barge, and a nearby wharf still under construction. In the ensuing days, the men stationed at Port Chicago who survived the disaster were transferred to Mare Island Ammunition Depot in nearby Vallejo. On 21 July 1944, Admiral Carleton H. Wright, Commandant of the Twelfth Naval District, convened a court of inquiry led by Captain Albert G. Cook, Jr., commanding officer of Mare Island, with the assistance of Captains John S. Crenshaw and William B. Holden and Lieutenant Commander Keith Ferguson. After interviewing 120 witnesses over a 39-day period, the court cleared the white officers at Port Chicago of any culpability or liability and stated that it could not confirm the exact cause of the initial explosion. The court’s 1,200-page report implied that, whatever the blast’s origin, the African American ammunition handlers must have had something to do with it.
The Navy had grudgingly accepted African Americans for general service in the spring of 1942, but only in segregated units, giving priority to discriminatory social norms rather than using all available persons to alleviate manpower shortages in the military and civilian sectors. At President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s urging, the General Board of the Navy expanded the range of jobs reserved for African Americans to include stevedore, members of construction battalions, and other labor-intensive ratings. Few African Americans received orders for surface ships or submarines in any capacity other than stewards and messmen. Most of those assigned to Port Chicago had hoped to do more than manual labor in U.S. naval uniform and lamented that their job offered little hope for promotion or transfer to a more desirable rating. They enjoyed minimal opportunities for rest and relaxation at the base, since loading went on 24 hours a day. Adding insult to injury, black Sailors could not enter the mess hall until white Sailors had finished their meals.
moar
https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/world-war-ii/1944/port-chicago/port-chicago-lessons-learned.html
>they tested one of the first nukes there
have heard that from moar than one old codger when lived in BA
That was supposedly it…disguised as an accident