Episode 69: The Port Chicago explosion

Disaster Area

Truecrime, Explosions, Aviationaccidents, Floods, Fires, Earthquakes, History, Shipwrecks, Volcanoes, Disaster, Hurricanes, Planecrashes, Disasters, Tornadoes, Massshootings, Society & Culture

4.2 • 839 Ratings

🗓️ 1 March 2018

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The black servicemen who loaded munitions onto ships at Port Chicago Naval Magazine knew it was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. They were hardly trained, rushed to load ships heading for the Pacific theater in World War II, and feared every day that this might be the day one dropped bomb blew them all to smithereens. On July 17, 1944, Port Chicago's number finally came up. But the tragedy which occurred there was not the end of the story.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, this is Jennifer Metteries, and before I get started today, let's just take care of the usual housekeeping.
0:07.0	If you'd like to help support the podcast as usual, you can do so with a one-time donation through PayPal at disaster area at mail.com, and on a per-episode basis through Patreon at www.com slash disaster area podcast. You can also follow the
0:25.4	podcast on Facebook at Disaster Area Podcast and on Twitter and Instagram at Disaster Area Pod.
0:32.0	And please think about rating and reviewing the podcast on iTunes or whichever other podcast application you might listen to it on.
0:40.7	And as always, the sources for each new episode can be found at disaster area podcast.wordpress.com.
0:47.6	I also just want to warn ahead of time in case you're not really big on racial discrimination,
0:53.8	hearing about that sort of thing.
0:55.5	It's a trigger for you.
0:57.0	Or if you don't really want to hear curse words, there's one or two coming up.
1:01.6	So I just wanted to warn ahead of time for that.
1:04.8	So with that in mind, thank you very much for listening and welcome to disaster area.
1:16.2	Music you very much for listening and welcome to disaster area. Episode 69. The Port Chicago Explosion. July 17, 1944.
1:23.9	320 killed, 390 injured.
1:28.3	So this month is Black History Month, so it seems fitting that while looking for new disasters to research for the podcast, I stumbled across a book on Amazon on a disaster which is an important part of African American history.
1:42.3	There are two parts to this disaster, the tragedy itself,
1:46.5	and the tragedy of the injustice which followed in its aftermath. Today, as we watch the
1:51.2	news in the United States, we're seeing teenagers who faced extraordinary tragedy who are
1:56.3	standing up and refusing to take it anymore. In the midst of World War II, one group of African-American
2:02.9	Navymen were witnessed to a terrible disaster they'd seen coming for weeks, if not months,
2:08.0	and pushed to avoid having the same thing happen again, even if it meant the worst this country
2:13.2	could throw at them. Now, Port Chicago, California lies about 30 to 35 miles north of San Francisco.
2:20.5	To get there by ship requires you to pass under the Golden Gate Bridge in the waters of San Francisco's
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -2584 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Disaster Area, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Disaster Area and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.