My grandfather was apart of this group. He felt ill the day of the explosion and went to the infirmary. Came back to find out all of his mates had been killed. Some call it lucky but he developed severe PTSD before that was even really understood and Agoraphobia. I remember growing up and staying at home with him while everyone else went on holiday because he refused to leave the house for years Thank you so much Simon for covering this. I've shared it with members of my family.
I'm so sorry your grandfather went through this. Not enough is made of the effect the explosion had on those who experienced it. I read that only 51 bodies could be identified. A local newspaper at the time noted that most victims were "atomized". I cannot imagine how that would affect a person who knew someone who simply no longer existed. As President Roosevelt said at the time, the refusal to load ammunition onto ships -- (not really a mutiny at all) was reasonable, since, he said, they were "activated by mass fear."
Considering one's employees to be ignorant and incompetent is bad enough. Holding that belief and yet not only letting them near dangerous cargo but actively encouraging them to work as fast as possible is utterly inconceivable.
Does it need to be refrigeratored or dry that's what we got an thats all we offer logistics don't care what it is its jobs is moving an sitting still aint moving
This is so depressing and horrifying. The fact that even after all that, the navy refused to acknowledge the racism and it took them decades too late to even admit. My heart breaks for these men, that was cruel
its very bad, but at least they weren't on the front lines being shot at directly, entire ships went down with more deaths than that and at the Somme in WW1 50 thousand men died in one day, not saying this wasn't a tragedy at Chicago but there were so many tragedies during WW1 and WW2
@Timtheranger that might actually be worse. These men *wanted* front-line roles but prejudice abd segregation denied them thst. Those who died in battle are at least honored and remembered and celebrated. These men were simply forgotten.
@@vic5015 explain that to the non prepared and disgracefully undertrained British private soldiers in WW1 who were sent to the front lines and never awarded or recognized, the fact is you are saying that people should be more recognized because of the color of their skin when the behaviour you are complaining about was widespread across many nations, how come you didn't realize about the British privates treatment? have you looked into what happened to Russian soldiers who ran out of Conflict and were shot by their own side immediately? how many men died this way? look it up
@@vic5015I absolutely agree. Those who die in battle are remembered by so many people, but these men were literally forgotten. It’s sickening that the uniform that I and so many of my brothers and sisters bled and died in is stained by something like this.
@@connorriley7511 i mean… i have lived here for 30 years. My grandfather was in the Navy. And lived 15 minutes from where this happened. You would think that I, if not most people, would have heard of this.
Absolutely shameful. No one should be treated like they were, but to work hard for your country -- in a time of war, no less -- and to be treated as subhuman and expendable is especially degrading and grotesque.
It is really sad when all minorities fought and died for this country and were treated like crap before, during and after. Ever hear of the Nisei soldiers? Young Japanese American men who fought in Europe. I should point out that a lot of these young men came out of the interment camps to put on the uniform and fight for the county who had literally taken everything from them. And they fought as hard as anyone else. Their motto was, "Go for broke." From Wikipedia _On 12 November, General Dahlquist ordered the entire 442nd to stand in formation for a recognition and award ceremony. Of the 400 men originally assigned, only eighteen surviving members of K Company and eight of I Company turned out. Upon reviewing the meager assemblage Dahlquist became irritated, ignorant of the sacrifices that the unit had made in serving his orders. He demanded of Colonel Virgil R. Miller, "I want all your men to stand for this formation." Miller responded simply, "That's all of K company left, sir."_ Ignorance and bigotry all around
Nothing compared to the JAAP munitions explosion outside Chicago. That blast was heard over 60 miles away up in Wisconsin. Doing a video on that currently as I live right by it.
@@tangyorange6509 that’s nothing? This Port Chicago explosion is orders of magnitude larger than the JAAP explosion youre referencing. Port Chicago was the third largest non-nuclear explosion ever recorded.
The *largest accidental non-nuclear explosion in history* occurred in Halifax harbour, in Nova Scotia, Canada in 1917, when two ships (one carrying explosives) collided. Exploding with the equivalent to roughly *3 kilotons of TNT.* The water in the harbour evaporated, and the inrushing sea caused a tsunami 60 feet high which swept into the town of Halifax. The cloud from the explosion rose over 20,000 feet, and the blast destroyed or damaged every home and factory within a sixteen mile radius - a total of 12,000 buildings. Approx 1,782 people were killed, by the blast, debris, fires, or collapsed buildings, and an estimated 9,000 others were injured. WWI
I think he looks great. He had a string of videos where he was just casually wearing a plain white t-shirt. Maybe he decided that he wanted to be back dressing more professional? Or, it is possible he's a huge Miami Vice fan.
I worked a summer job in a blasting cap factory back in the 1970's in college (the plant hired the adult children of workers, my dad worked there). There was a lot of safety there but as the caps used mercury and lead compounds, they had a high rate of cancer and other diseases with their workers and nearby residents.
Guaranteed we see the same with solar panel production plants in the future. A lot of lead and other heavy metals in that production and it produces lead dust that is impossible not to occasionally breathe in. The one I worked at did not use respirators but did do quarterly lead testing on common surfaces at least
I work with explosives (fireworks displays). The idea that safety was so absolutely disregarded by management is terrifying. Sure, if you work in an office building, missteps can be bad - an accounting typo could cost incredible amounts of money, after all. This, though, can easily cost people their lives if even the slightest thing goes wrong. A box falls on the ground. A cell phone frequency wave connects at just the wrong angle. You don’t 👏 mess 👏 with 👏 safety 👏
I'm disgusted that along with the campaigns to pardon the workers who were unjustly penalized for seeking safer conditions, there were no corresponding campaigns to indict those officers who were deliberately putting the workers in harms way & persecuting them for objecting to this. They should be stripped of all military honors.
My husband works in shipping. He once got a call from "a new guy" working at the dock. He said that "there is one container that has the heating unplugged. Should I plug it back in?". My husband asked him to give him a sec, he'll just quickly check what's in the container. GUESS WHAT😂 the container was filled with a substance that explodes on contact with oxygen, dust, if it's warmer than just a few degrees Celsius, if it's looked at funny... and there was enough of it to erase a major Norwegian city off the map. 💀 sooooo thank goodness for all the people who CHECK!! The person on the dock was already holding the plug in his hands. Guys, if he plugged it in, it would have been the last thing he did.
Oh my god Simon is the new champion in doing a video closest to where I live Concord, California the location of port Chicago is down the road on Port Chicago Highway. He has beat Arino of Game Center CX when Arino visited in USA and stopped in Antioch California.
How about one of Britain's worst, in rural Staffordshire in 1943? Wartime restrictions prevented anyone talking about the great ammo dump explosion which blew away three villages.
Great recap of this story! The horrible treatment of these men and the 'too little, too late' response by the US Navy is appallingly disgusting. Was this explosion greater than the Halifax explosion? I think not.
My father's grandparents lived through the Halifax, Canada explosion. They lived across the harbor from the explosion, but the shockwave from the explosion knocked a tree over onto the street!
Suisun is pronounced sue-SOON. FYI. Suisun Bay currently houses a giant mothball fleet. They parked extra ships from WWII there and they remain there to this day.
I don’t think they’re still there, as the Cape Borda and Cape Breton were removed to Mare Island dry docks in 2017 for inspection enroute to Texas for scrapping. Unless you mean the vessels that MARAD oversees, but I don’t know if those count as the “ghost fleet” most people think of. Also, thanks for posting the correct pronunciation of Suisun lol. Came here to do that myself.
Oh thank god someone else corrected the pronunciation because I know I would have been attacked if I did. Also, hello from Fairfield! Interesting history around here.
Hey Simon, There was nearly a bigger one in New York harbor during the war. Although it had the potential to be larger than the one in Halifax Nova Scotia, It was Averted by some very heroic efforts!... It's a fascinating tale, and you should tell it for us.. You're a Splendid narrator!
And barely 4 months later USS Mount Hood blew up in Seeadler Harbor on Manus Island. The report showed careless handling of ammunition and poor leadership. Lessons not learnt.
This incident is something that I would have thought I would have learned while I was stationed at Travis AFB, just outside Fairfield, California. We weren't told anything about this chapter of the local history, though. And it's unfortunate we weren't, because as much as we think we're done with the past, the fact is that the past _isn't_ through with us! This is why anyone interested in understanding our futures must recognize that we _don't_ all share the same presents or the same pasts. And here's a little note for Simon and the writers, just in case nobody else has mentioned it. "Suisun" is pronounced "soo soon".
When the sailors were exonerated this summer, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro spoke about the importance of historical truth. You're absolutely right, history isn't through with us. The past is the seed of the present, that will bear its fruit in the near future. Next month, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists will tell us whether the doomsday clock is still at 90 seconds to midnight. Headlines suggest it may have moved up a bit? And that is why we all need to know the whole truth about Port Chicago, including the link to the Manhattan Project and the creation of the atomic bomb. There is so much more to the story.
The story of the Port Chicago 50 was the basis of Mutiny, a made-for-television movie written by James S. "Jim" Henerson and directed by Kevin Hooks, which included Morgan Freeman as one of three executives producers.
Convenient that only after most of the men were dead and could no longer seek compensation that they get "exonerated". The U.S. Navy got off cheap all things considered.
Not convenient, intentional. The US Military will only ever apologize when it knows both the guilty and victimized parties are long dead, and thus have no one to answer to in the court of public opinion. It's a half-baked way of retaining a sense of neutrality in the face of evidence of wrong doing. It's not right, but it is the way it works.
I lived and worked for a time behind the Concord Naval Weapons station not a mile from where the piers were. You can still drive through there and see the foundations of the community that was destroyed in the blast.Not for certain if this is true but Ive heard that debris from the explosion where thrown clear up onto Mt Diablo some 12 miles away as the crow flies.Sad chapter in Ameroican history.Please pray for all those poor souls..l
And every single family member of these workers, should be given restitution for all of the pay that was missed, the interest on it, the damage to the futures, and so many other issues... The restitution should be not just money, it should be opportunity. Every single member of those families should be given free college and any needed schooling or tutoring to be able to benefit from the college as well as equivalent of the original GI Bill, but for the members two or three generations after the original one. It is disgusting that this happened, and it is disgusting that the only way we can actually do anything about it other than clearing their records is financial, but it should be done
Wow, The episode of Looney Tunes where the ending is Bugs Bunny hammering artillery rounds in a factory to see if they're duds is actually pretty dark when you think about it.
Every video, every article, every time we talk about these events, we keep their memory alive and do a service to their legacy. We cannot change history but we can keep it from becoming lost and forgotten. This is one of many historical events that was once lost and now needs to be kept alive. Can’t remember the channel, but there was one doing a great job of uncovering tragedies and travesties of the settler’s push for westward expansion and the atrocities upon Native American tribes and vice versa as each group fought to find or keep land. So many stories that have never been told that need someone to tell them. Simon, clickbait-y, capitalist, crazy channel hosting man… at least he’s doing his part.
Exactly we can always remember in a time of extreme danger and war traitors and slackers refused to do their job. Maybe Marines who were sent to Guadalcanal should’ve gone on strike because it was too dangerous?
Well, we went from atomic bombs to thermonuclear weapons, but yes, the secrecy is still in place. We are still ducking information that is still being covered. But now it is time to rise and discover -- while there is still time. (The doomsday clock was set at 90 seconds to midnight last January.)
Cronk: "Ohh yeah, it's all coming together!" Edit: After finishing the video, I need to add that it's disgusting that the treatment of humans caused the accident. And that it was handled like it was after the accident.
One of my sailor friends was walking across on the walkway on the east side of the Carquinez Bridge in Vallejo, about 9 miles away. The force of the explosion blew him across the bridge to the west side, where the safety fence railing prevented him from going over and falling 140ft to the water.
I was living in nearby Benicia, CA at the time on the eve of being born. My father told me that some of the neighborhood houses were shifted on their foundations from the concussion. Consider the soldiers purposely exposed to nuclear radiation and the agent orange fiasco. Bureaucracies don't like admitting admitting their errors, the Military in particular.
These men were helping win a war against literal evil. That they were treated with this level of cruelty and disrespect because of their race is hideous, and the lowering of compensation afterwards for it is just the icing on the most disgusting cake ever baked. And I mean, obviously their "lack of intelligence" was a racist stereotype (IQ tests were biased in a number of ways and often used to reinforce stereotypes in the same way as phrenology): they would've known VERY well what to do with those safety requirements if they had been able to frickin' *see them* but even if they *were* less intelligent... why the f*** were people letting the guys handle such dangerous, volatile cargo in the first place?
A PLUMBER fixed a crane?! That is even more amazing than the rest of this absurdity to me... Edit to add: ...nope. Nope. Nevermind; "this taking 80 years to correct" is the most absurd part of this. It was only corrected in JUNE OF THIS YEAR?! Oh my word..!
So he went, "i dont think these guys can remember instructions so instead of puting signs with reminders and having people check knowledge and answer questions we will completely ignore safety." Yaaaaa great plan, great plan. The workers would have obviously been smarter and more capable than this guy thought. But like from personal experience as someone who forgets things easily that just means i try to keep *more* reminders for myself around. Not less!
Worked there during desert storm, we were taking barges from pier two to mare island you can hear our prop hitting bombs just under the surface, really spooky being at the location of pier 1
I heard that name, and immediately for freaked out, I'm a Kinney, not Kinne. I've heard the story before but didn't realize the one who was responsible for this mess in the first place, and I am grateful that it's not one of my Kin
I'm not sure if a similar event happened, but in australia, indigenous men who fought were treated just as bad, unable to vote, claim benefits, enter bars/places for members of the military, and were generally just unrecognised for their efforts
I was stationed at NWS Concord as part of the naval security force from 1988-1991. Not having heard about the Port Chicago explosion until then and being a history buff, I was interested to learn all I could about it. Seeing the remains of the city of Port Chicago after the government bulldozed it (street signs in the middle of open fields, for example), the scars on the hillside from the explosion, and the remaining pier pilings from Pier 1 that were all that remained of the pier. It was also common for the ships dredging the channel in the Sacramento River to come across artillery shells in the mud that were thrown when the ships exploded. History aside, the biggest story from back then was the protests outside the main gate over US involvement in El Salvador. One of the protestors got run over by an ammunition train crossing Port Chicago Highway. From that point on, there was at least one "professional" protestor camped in front of the base. We even had a major protest outside the main gate (one of many) with thousands of people. Desert Shield/Storm was tough with the coldest winter in years, below freezing temperatures on graveyards, and a heightened alert status against terrorists because most of the bombs that were being sent for the air war came through Concord. Good times. After the base closures in the late 90's and early oughts, the Navy sold the tidal (river) part of the base to the Army and it was renamed the Military Ocean Terminal Concord. The inland part of the base was closed and there are plans to develop the real estate.
I was stationed there in the early 80" while in the Coast Guard, working out of the Fire Station which converted into the station offices. Pieces of the ship are still embedded in the hillside.
@jdubhub68 I was there at the same time as you, I was a wg4, we worked a few night shifts out on the piers it was so cold we wrapped ourselves up with saran wrap before getting dressed, we were coming in from the tidal area to inland when the dude got hit by the train, from where we were it looked like the guy was trying hard to get up and away from the train but the guy next to him put his hand on his shoulder so he could get up faster and that's why he lost his legs.
I don't imagine you learned anything about the link to the Manhattan Project? digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7921&context=nwc-review
The naval base as a whole still looks like garbage. The buildings are deteriorating and most of the area is still blocked off. I didn't learn about the history of port chicago even growing up here until my dad mentioned it when talking about proposed development of the old arms storage hills into apartments when I was a teenager. They have been talking about that for over 20 years though, so not sure any of it will ever get cleaned up.
My uncle was blown to bits. Only his torso and head found. He was the base chauffeur. He was white of Italian decent. Ironically he was from Chicago, Illinois
Japanese Americans had it particularly bad back then. I never knew of this story but i have heard a similar story of The D Barracks Boys at Fort McClellan. My daughter is grand daughter to one of the 21 men locked up.
I've heard of this story before on another channel and it made my blood boil. Refusing to work under ridiculously unsafe conditions is completely reasonable. And they were accused of treason?! The officers should have been condemned of treason! Deliberately forcing people to work in those conditions knowing the risks to life and overall productivity if it did go south is treason if I ever saw it.
I grew up in Solano county. It's pronounced "sew-soon" not Suisun. I grew up in Fairfield. I knew a woman who was living in Benicia at the time this happened. She was a kid and had been playing outside when she headed into the house. Just as she touched the screen door, the shockwave arrived. The door was blown off it's hinges and all the windows in the house broke. She had no idea how she had done it, but she was sure she'd been in big trouble for breaking the door and the windows. I ashed if she heard the explosion and she either for got, or didn't hear it at all.
Typical govt, typical.... 80 years later "whoops our bad" *whistles as they walk away*.... veterans always getting the shaft from the govt. The fact we havent all gotten together and overthrown the govt, speaks volumes to the patience of the veterans 💁♂️
Considering it was ww2, I'd say it was a manufacturing defect in the explosives. Port Chicago disaster and just a little while later, the uss mount hood explosion. Both in the pacific. Both navy. Both hot climates I've worked in an explosive plant and seen how it's made and stored. Even saw first hand when things went wrong. 2019. And surprisingly, they couldn't figure out what happened. Strange. Not taking away from the unsafe conditions that were present but im really leaning towards a defect in operation, that maybe made an unsafe environment even worse
Does anyone remember this story i can vaguely recall? - a shipment of a 250 ish pound (i think) crate of nitroglycerin to San francisco and a man saw oil leaking from it, decided to open it with a hammer and pry bar and yeah... leveled a 1/4 mile block with a concrete building.
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
My grandfather was apart of this group. He felt ill the day of the explosion and went to the infirmary. Came back to find out all of his mates had been killed. Some call it lucky but he developed severe PTSD before that was even really understood and Agoraphobia. I remember growing up and staying at home with him while everyone else went on holiday because he refused to leave the house for years Thank you so much Simon for covering this. I've shared it with members of my family.
I'm so sorry your grandfather went through this. Not enough is made of the effect the explosion had on those who experienced it. I read that only 51 bodies could be identified. A local newspaper at the time noted that most victims were "atomized". I cannot imagine how that would affect a person who knew someone who simply no longer existed. As President Roosevelt said at the time, the refusal to load ammunition onto ships -- (not really a mutiny at all) was reasonable, since, he said, they were "activated by mass fear."
Considering one's employees to be ignorant and incompetent is bad enough. Holding that belief and yet not only letting them near dangerous cargo but actively encouraging them to work as fast as possible is utterly inconceivable.
Makes you wonder who was the true ignorant and incompetent one.
Agreed!
Sounds like someone studied business or personnel management.
@@williestyle35 sounds simply like common sense to me
Does it need to be refrigeratored or dry that's what we got an thats all we offer logistics don't care what it is its jobs is moving an sitting still aint moving
This is so depressing and horrifying. The fact that even after all that, the navy refused to acknowledge the racism and it took them decades too late to even admit.
My heart breaks for these men, that was cruel
This is a tragedy that needs to be heard about more. These men were not even given the safety and protection that animals in the military were
Tells you how the Navy regarded them.
Thank you for telling this story, it's about bloody time people learn (more) about this.
Ppl have learned this lesson to many times Halifax Lebanon Beirut this video what changed besides the location
@@jbstepchildI think it is because this is a case of racist practices which sets this apart from all those other major explosions.
How these men were treated sickens me.....
its very bad, but at least they weren't on the front lines being shot at directly, entire ships went down with more deaths than that and at the Somme in WW1 50 thousand men died in one day, not saying this wasn't a tragedy at Chicago but there were so many tragedies during WW1 and WW2
@Timtheranger that might actually be worse. These men *wanted* front-line roles but prejudice abd segregation denied them thst. Those who died in battle are at least honored and remembered and celebrated. These men were simply forgotten.
@@vic5015 explain that to the non prepared and disgracefully undertrained British private soldiers in WW1 who were sent to the front lines and never awarded or recognized, the fact is you are saying that people should be more recognized because of the color of their skin when the behaviour you are complaining about was widespread across many nations, how come you didn't realize about the British privates treatment? have you looked into what happened to Russian soldiers who ran out of Conflict and were shot by their own side immediately? how many men died this way? look it up
@@vic5015I absolutely agree. Those who die in battle are remembered by so many people, but these men were literally forgotten. It’s sickening that the uniform that I and so many of my brothers and sisters bled and died in is stained by something like this.
Finally someone covers this. Im always sketched by how buried this story has been.
This is something that should be taught in every History class.
I live here. Drive by Port Chicago daily on my commute and am in my 30s. Never heard of this until about a year ago.
I’m surprised that you’re surprised that a navy involved explosion on a mafia run union dock got swept under the rug.
@@connorriley7511 i mean… i have lived here for 30 years. My grandfather was in the Navy. And lived 15 minutes from where this happened. You would think that I, if not most people, would have heard of this.
I learned about it in high school🤷🏼♂️
Absolutely shameful. No one should be treated like they were, but to work hard for your country -- in a time of war, no less -- and to be treated as subhuman and expendable is especially degrading and grotesque.
It is really sad when all minorities fought and died for this country and were treated like crap before, during and after. Ever hear of the Nisei soldiers? Young Japanese American men who fought in Europe. I should point out that a lot of these young men came out of the interment camps to put on the uniform and fight for the county who had literally taken everything from them. And they fought as hard as anyone else. Their motto was, "Go for broke." From Wikipedia _On 12 November, General Dahlquist ordered the entire 442nd to stand in formation for a recognition and award ceremony. Of the 400 men originally assigned, only eighteen surviving members of K Company and eight of I Company turned out. Upon reviewing the meager assemblage Dahlquist became irritated, ignorant of the sacrifices that the unit had made in serving his orders. He demanded of Colonel Virgil R. Miller, "I want all your men to stand for this formation." Miller responded simply, "That's all of K company left, sir."_ Ignorance and bigotry all around
Right on Simon!!! I grew up 20 minutes away from port Chicago! I still live really close by, definitely a tragedy
My Dad told me that he felt the Port Chicago Explosion fro Richmond, CA, about 25 miles away. People thought the Japanese were attacking.
Nothing compared to the JAAP munitions explosion outside Chicago. That blast was heard over 60 miles away up in Wisconsin. Doing a video on that currently as I live right by it.
YOUCH!
@@tangyorange6509 that’s nothing? This Port Chicago explosion is orders of magnitude larger than the JAAP explosion youre referencing. Port Chicago was the third largest non-nuclear explosion ever recorded.
The *largest accidental non-nuclear explosion in history* occurred in Halifax harbour, in Nova Scotia, Canada in 1917, when two ships (one carrying explosives) collided. Exploding with the equivalent to roughly *3 kilotons of TNT.* The water in the harbour evaporated, and the inrushing sea caused a tsunami 60 feet high which swept into the town of Halifax. The cloud from the explosion rose over 20,000 feet, and the blast destroyed or damaged every home and factory within a sixteen mile radius - a total of 12,000 buildings. Approx 1,782 people were killed, by the blast, debris, fires, or collapsed buildings, and an estimated 9,000 others were injured. WWI
Looking good, Simon rocking his 'Miami Vice' outfit.😂
You beat me to it. Came here to say just that.
My first thought: when did Simon start slinging cocaine??
I think he looks great. He had a string of videos where he was just casually wearing a plain white t-shirt. Maybe he decided that he wanted to be back dressing more professional? Or, it is possible he's a huge Miami Vice fan.
It's known he loves KFC so maybe he went with the Kernel Sanders
@@iggywow brilliant thought. This has got to be the reason.
I worked a summer job in a blasting cap factory back in the 1970's in college (the plant hired the adult children of workers, my dad worked there). There was a lot of safety there but as the caps used mercury and lead compounds, they had a high rate of cancer and other diseases with their workers and nearby residents.
Mercury and lead fulmanate scare me to my core . 😢
Guaranteed we see the same with solar panel production plants in the future. A lot of lead and other heavy metals in that production and it produces lead dust that is impossible not to occasionally breathe in. The one I worked at did not use respirators but did do quarterly lead testing on common surfaces at least
Imagine you are flying at an altitude of 5000 ft and your plane is being shot down with a tree log.
I work with explosives (fireworks displays). The idea that safety was so absolutely disregarded by management is terrifying. Sure, if you work in an office building, missteps can be bad - an accounting typo could cost incredible amounts of money, after all. This, though, can easily cost people their lives if even the slightest thing goes wrong. A box falls on the ground. A cell phone frequency wave connects at just the wrong angle. You don’t 👏 mess 👏 with 👏 safety 👏
Another case point where safety regulations are written in blood.
safety first!
@@atempestsinisterthey usually are. Especially in the military.
that is not a story of mistakes but a criminal and intentionally discriminatory behaviour by high ranking officials.
I'm disgusted that along with the campaigns to pardon the workers who were unjustly penalized for seeking safer conditions, there were no corresponding campaigns to indict those officers who were deliberately putting the workers in harms way & persecuting them for objecting to this. They should be stripped of all military honors.
My husband works in shipping. He once got a call from "a new guy" working at the dock. He said that "there is one container that has the heating unplugged. Should I plug it back in?". My husband asked him to give him a sec, he'll just quickly check what's in the container.
GUESS WHAT😂 the container was filled with a substance that explodes on contact with oxygen, dust, if it's warmer than just a few degrees Celsius, if it's looked at funny... and there was enough of it to erase a major Norwegian city off the map. 💀
sooooo thank goodness for all the people who CHECK!! The person on the dock was already holding the plug in his hands. Guys, if he plugged it in, it would have been the last thing he did.
Oh my god Simon is the new champion in doing a video closest to where I live Concord, California the location of port Chicago is down the road on Port Chicago Highway. He has beat Arino of Game Center CX when Arino visited in USA and stopped in Antioch California.
How about one of Britain's worst, in rural Staffordshire in 1943? Wartime restrictions prevented anyone talking about the great ammo dump explosion which blew away three villages.
Great recap of this story! The horrible treatment of these men and the 'too little, too late' response by the US Navy is appallingly disgusting.
Was this explosion greater than the Halifax explosion? I think not.
Halifax , Canada
The Navy's history truly is appalling and more people need to know that!!
My father's grandparents lived through the Halifax, Canada explosion. They lived across the harbor from the explosion, but the shockwave from the explosion knocked a tree over onto the street!
I think the Houston city(I think that’s the name of the place) explosion a few years later was like two or three times deadlier than this.
Wow I had no clue about this, I passed that place daily I lived around the corner from there until last year.
Suisun is pronounced sue-SOON. FYI. Suisun Bay currently houses a giant mothball fleet. They parked extra ships from WWII there and they remain there to this day.
I don’t think they’re still there, as the Cape Borda and Cape Breton were removed to Mare Island dry docks in 2017 for inspection enroute to Texas for scrapping. Unless you mean the vessels that MARAD oversees, but I don’t know if those count as the “ghost fleet” most people think of.
Also, thanks for posting the correct pronunciation of Suisun lol. Came here to do that myself.
Nah they are gone now.
Oh thank god someone else corrected the pronunciation because I know I would have been attacked if I did. Also, hello from Fairfield! Interesting history around here.
SAME. HOME NAMES NEED HONORING. @@girlkamikazi
Is this a threat? Are you going to sue soon?
Waiting for the video on the beruit ammonium nitrate explosion
Hey Simon, There was nearly a bigger one in New York harbor during the war. Although it had the potential to be larger than the one in Halifax Nova Scotia, It was Averted by some very heroic efforts!... It's a fascinating tale, and you should tell it for us.. You're a Splendid narrator!
And tell about the link between the Port Chicago explosion and the creation of the atomic bomb.
Lived in Benicia for 8 years in the 80's and never heard about this. Enlightening.
And barely 4 months later USS Mount Hood blew up in Seeadler Harbor on Manus Island. The report showed careless handling of ammunition and poor leadership. Lessons not learnt.
Simon please do one of these videos on the explosion of the USS Solar! Was sort of like an East coast version of this story
This incident is something that I would have thought I would have learned while I was stationed at Travis AFB, just outside Fairfield, California. We weren't told anything about this chapter of the local history, though. And it's unfortunate we weren't, because as much as we think we're done with the past, the fact is that the past _isn't_ through with us! This is why anyone interested in understanding our futures must recognize that we _don't_ all share the same presents or the same pasts.
And here's a little note for Simon and the writers, just in case nobody else has mentioned it. "Suisun" is pronounced "soo soon".
When the sailors were exonerated this summer, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro spoke about the importance of historical truth. You're absolutely right, history isn't through with us. The past is the seed of the present, that will bear its fruit in the near future. Next month, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists will tell us whether the doomsday clock is still at 90 seconds to midnight. Headlines suggest it may have moved up a bit? And that is why we all need to know the whole truth about Port Chicago, including the link to the Manhattan Project and the creation of the atomic bomb. There is so much more to the story.
The story of the Port Chicago 50 was the basis of Mutiny, a made-for-television movie written by James S. "Jim" Henerson and directed by Kevin Hooks, which included Morgan Freeman as one of three executives producers.
Amazing video! Please update the websites! Olivier said he’d try and get hold of you about it 😊
This explosion shattered every window in the cities of Pacheco Concord and Martinez.
Convenient that only after most of the men were dead and could no longer seek compensation that they get "exonerated". The U.S. Navy got off cheap all things considered.
Not convenient, intentional. The US Military will only ever apologize when it knows both the guilty and victimized parties are long dead, and thus have no one to answer to in the court of public opinion.
It's a half-baked way of retaining a sense of neutrality in the face of evidence of wrong doing. It's not right, but it is the way it works.
I’ve been hoping for someone like Drach to cover this story. I’ve always found it fascinating and tragic. Thanks for covering it.
I lived and worked for a time behind the Concord Naval Weapons station not a mile from where the piers were. You can still drive through there and see the foundations of the community that was destroyed in the blast.Not for certain if this is true but Ive heard that debris from the explosion where thrown clear up onto Mt Diablo some 12 miles away as the crow flies.Sad chapter in Ameroican history.Please pray for all those poor souls..l
I see whistle boi i click 👌🏻
😂
Careful, you might end up in the basement with the writers
And every single family member of these workers, should be given restitution for all of the pay that was missed, the interest on it, the damage to the futures, and so many other issues... The restitution should be not just money, it should be opportunity. Every single member of those families should be given free college and any needed schooling or tutoring to be able to benefit from the college as well as equivalent of the original GI Bill, but for the members two or three generations after the original one. It is disgusting that this happened, and it is disgusting that the only way we can actually do anything about it other than clearing their records is financial, but it should be done
Wow, The episode of Looney Tunes where the ending is Bugs Bunny hammering artillery rounds in a factory to see if they're duds is actually pretty dark when you think about it.
thats racist
@@RovingTroll it honestly wouldn't be the first time
Looney Toons were intended for adults.
@@ferretyluv I know that's what makes it great
Simon is killing the Miami Vice look.
There are certain people today who
would bring back this type of travesty. 😮
That's a fact!
Sad to say but it is not slavery from 200 years ago we need to be worried about........
RIP to the innocent victims of this cluster. 80 damn years to clear these men. What the hell is wrong with our society...
0:10 ww2 looking weird..... nice m16........ 🤔😒
Vietnam.
@@qubexit’s irony. Simon was talking about WW2 but showed clips from Vietnam…
I had never heard of this before, thanks for doing a video on it
Every video, every article, every time we talk about these events, we keep their memory alive and do a service to their legacy. We cannot change history but we can keep it from becoming lost and forgotten. This is one of many historical events that was once lost and now needs to be kept alive. Can’t remember the channel, but there was one doing a great job of uncovering tragedies and travesties of the settler’s push for westward expansion and the atrocities upon Native American tribes and vice versa as each group fought to find or keep land. So many stories that have never been told that need someone to tell them.
Simon, clickbait-y, capitalist, crazy channel hosting man… at least he’s doing his part.
Exactly we can always remember in a time of extreme danger and war traitors and slackers refused to do their job. Maybe Marines who were sent to Guadalcanal should’ve gone on strike because it was too dangerous?
Thanks for good reporting something missing today
Seems not much has changed in society to this day 😢
Well, we went from atomic bombs to thermonuclear weapons, but yes, the secrecy is still in place. We are still ducking information that is still being covered. But now it is time to rise and discover -- while there is still time. (The doomsday clock was set at 90 seconds to midnight last January.)
Nailing the Son y Crockett Miami Vice look Simon 👀👌
Cronk: "Ohh yeah, it's all coming together!"
Edit: After finishing the video, I need to add that it's disgusting that the treatment of humans caused the accident. And that it was handled like it was after the accident.
One of my sailor friends was walking across on the walkway on the east side of the Carquinez Bridge in Vallejo, about 9 miles away. The force of the explosion blew him across the bridge to the west side, where the safety fence railing prevented him from going over and falling 140ft to the water.
I was living in nearby Benicia, CA at the time on the eve of being born. My father told me that some of the neighborhood houses were shifted on their foundations from the concussion.
Consider the soldiers purposely exposed to nuclear radiation and the agent orange fiasco. Bureaucracies don't like admitting admitting their errors, the Military in particular.
Here I was thinking the Texas City port explosion, which killed hundreds, was the largest non nuclear explosion on U.S. soil
Jeezusss even the explosion isn't even talked about ever, let alone the deplorable social dimension.
Looking pretty Crispy in that white blazer my boy! 😎💯
These men were helping win a war against literal evil. That they were treated with this level of cruelty and disrespect because of their race is hideous, and the lowering of compensation afterwards for it is just the icing on the most disgusting cake ever baked.
And I mean, obviously their "lack of intelligence" was a racist stereotype (IQ tests were biased in a number of ways and often used to reinforce stereotypes in the same way as phrenology): they would've known VERY well what to do with those safety requirements if they had been able to frickin' *see them* but even if they *were* less intelligent... why the f*** were people letting the guys handle such dangerous, volatile cargo in the first place?
A PLUMBER fixed a crane?! That is even more amazing than the rest of this absurdity to me...
Edit to add: ...nope. Nope. Nevermind; "this taking 80 years to correct" is the most absurd part of this. It was only corrected in JUNE OF THIS YEAR?! Oh my word..!
So he went, "i dont think these guys can remember instructions so instead of puting signs with reminders and having people check knowledge and answer questions we will completely ignore safety." Yaaaaa great plan, great plan.
The workers would have obviously been smarter and more capable than this guy thought. But like from personal experience as someone who forgets things easily that just means i try to keep *more* reminders for myself around. Not less!
Worked there during desert storm, we were taking barges from pier two to mare island you can hear our prop hitting bombs just under the surface, really spooky being at the location of pier 1
There was one other explosion that was equal to or worse than this one. That was the 1917 Halifax Canada explosion.
Never ceases to amaze the things they don't tell You about in School related history.
Never heard about this …. Like never. Wow 😮
Have you done one of these on the Halifax explosion?
Mississippi, shame it hasn't changed a bit in all these years.
A great telling!
I heard that name, and immediately for freaked out, I'm a Kinney, not Kinne. I've heard the story before but didn't realize the one who was responsible for this mess in the first place, and I am grateful that it's not one of my Kin
50 f#$% years later ! One of so many stories of this genre........
I'm not sure if a similar event happened, but in australia, indigenous men who fought were treated just as bad, unable to vote, claim benefits, enter bars/places for members of the military, and were generally just unrecognised for their efforts
I was stationed at NWS Concord as part of the naval security force from 1988-1991. Not having heard about the Port Chicago explosion until then and being a history buff, I was interested to learn all I could about it. Seeing the remains of the city of Port Chicago after the government bulldozed it (street signs in the middle of open fields, for example), the scars on the hillside from the explosion, and the remaining pier pilings from Pier 1 that were all that remained of the pier. It was also common for the ships dredging the channel in the Sacramento River to come across artillery shells in the mud that were thrown when the ships exploded.
History aside, the biggest story from back then was the protests outside the main gate over US involvement in El Salvador. One of the protestors got run over by an ammunition train crossing Port Chicago Highway. From that point on, there was at least one "professional" protestor camped in front of the base. We even had a major protest outside the main gate (one of many) with thousands of people. Desert Shield/Storm was tough with the coldest winter in years, below freezing temperatures on graveyards, and a heightened alert status against terrorists because most of the bombs that were being sent for the air war came through Concord. Good times.
After the base closures in the late 90's and early oughts, the Navy sold the tidal (river) part of the base to the Army and it was renamed the Military Ocean Terminal Concord. The inland part of the base was closed and there are plans to develop the real estate.
I was stationed there in the early 80" while in the Coast Guard, working out of the Fire Station which converted into the station offices. Pieces of the ship are still embedded in the hillside.
@jdubhub68 I was there at the same time as you, I was a wg4, we worked a few night shifts out on the piers it was so cold we wrapped ourselves up with saran wrap before getting dressed, we were coming in from the tidal area to inland when the dude got hit by the train, from where we were it looked like the guy was trying hard to get up and away from the train but the guy next to him put his hand on his shoulder so he could get up faster and that's why he lost his legs.
I don't imagine you learned anything about the link to the Manhattan Project? digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=7921&context=nwc-review
Man why was you not my history teacher ffs the trajectory of my life would have been so different lmao
Simon is looking very 1980s Miami Vice. Giving off major Don Johnson vibes in that outfit.
We lived in CaliFAGnia at this time. I remember it well as we lived in oakland. RIP to all of those who lost their lives.
80 ish years for some semblance of justice, that really is fucked up.
The Miami Vice look - kudos!
Jesus Simon. Close that door bro. I can't deal with it
just 80 years? that was fast...
Why did your editor show Vietnam footage when you were talking about World War II?
It’s just stock footage but yes, I was suspicious about showing a black man handing stuff to a white man while talking about WWII.
>Port Chicago
>it's in fucking California
Really begs the question, how the hell did it get its name?
Same. Oh٫ it's in Chicago! NOPE.
I've always wondered that. Chicago comes from a Potowatami word, local to the Great Lakes. Why would it be given to a port 2,000 miles away?
@@CortexNewsService I looked into it. It was renamed in 1931 from Bay Point by Walter Van Winkle. He named it for the city of Chicago
They did a lot of strange, dumb things back then. Just don't let it happen any more.
The naval base as a whole still looks like garbage. The buildings are deteriorating and most of the area is still blocked off. I didn't learn about the history of port chicago even growing up here until my dad mentioned it when talking about proposed development of the old arms storage hills into apartments when I was a teenager. They have been talking about that for over 20 years though, so not sure any of it will ever get cleaned up.
Loving the Miami Vice style jacket
Few remember the great pop rocks and soda explosion of 1980
Lest we forget❤❤❤
Suisun Bay (sue-soon)! I live 15 mins from Port Chicago…such a sad history
My uncle was blown to bits. Only his torso and head found. He was the base chauffeur. He was white of Italian decent. Ironically he was from Chicago, Illinois
Id love to see a video done on the great lakes storm of 1913
That last drone shot is a refinery a good 15 minutes away from port Chicago but go off
I love that Simon confidently pronounced Suisin when no one here in the bay area, including my self, knows how to say that word with any certainty.
Last time I was this early, the US was the land of the free.
Oh wait it never was 😂
Japanese Americans had it particularly bad back then. I never knew of this story but i have heard a similar story of The D Barracks Boys at Fort McClellan. My daughter is grand daughter to one of the 21 men locked up.
I've heard of this story before on another channel and it made my blood boil. Refusing to work under ridiculously unsafe conditions is completely reasonable. And they were accused of treason?!
The officers should have been condemned of treason!
Deliberately forcing people to work in those conditions knowing the risks to life and overall productivity if it did go south is treason if I ever saw it.
wasn't this already covered on this channel? or maybe on one of your other 15 channels?
Looks like it.
Researched well
Although we also need to know more about the link to the Manhattan Project and the creation of the atomic bomb.
Thank you, I’ve never heard of this disgraceful episode of our history.
I grew up in Solano county. It's pronounced "sew-soon" not Suisun.
I grew up in Fairfield. I knew a woman who was living in Benicia at the time this happened. She was a kid and had been playing outside when she headed into the house.
Just as she touched the screen door, the shockwave arrived. The door was blown off it's hinges and all the windows in the house broke.
She had no idea how she had done it, but she was sure she'd been in big trouble for breaking the door and the windows.
I ashed if she heard the explosion and she either for got, or didn't hear it at all.
what did she say?
Humans have to learn (and relearn) lessons the hard way (or harder way...or infamous harder'er way)
Typical govt, typical.... 80 years later "whoops our bad" *whistles as they walk away*.... veterans always getting the shaft from the govt. The fact we havent all gotten together and overthrown the govt, speaks volumes to the patience of the veterans 💁♂️
It’s nice to know the last video audio quality was a one off issue.😅
Hollywood should make a movie out of this story!
Messines in World War 1 -- I'd love to know more about that.
Considering it was ww2, I'd say it was a manufacturing defect in the explosives.
Port Chicago disaster and just a little while later, the uss mount hood explosion. Both in the pacific. Both navy. Both hot climates
I've worked in an explosive plant and seen how it's made and stored. Even saw first hand when things went wrong. 2019.
And surprisingly, they couldn't figure out what happened. Strange.
Not taking away from the unsafe conditions that were present but im really leaning towards a defect in operation, that maybe made an unsafe environment even worse
Does anyone remember this story i can vaguely recall? - a shipment of a 250 ish pound (i think) crate of nitroglycerin to San francisco and a man saw oil leaking from it, decided to open it with a hammer and pry bar and yeah... leveled a 1/4 mile block with a concrete building.
Not mistakes of the past. These were deliberate actions that define the present and future. As with many similar stories.
Well, what do you know? And what do you know about the link to the Manhattan Project and the creation of the atomic bomb?
This is so horrible and sad.