Finally! My husband has tried to get us into a National Park Service tour of Port Chicago Naval…read moreMagazine Memorial since Summer of 2021. We had bought plane tickets and hotel rooms to visit in December 2021, but because it's a working military base, if the military's schedule changes, you're SOL. This is not a national memorial that you can simply show up to on a whim, you'll need to contact the park service until they eventually build their future visitor center. Tours finally began again this month but because it's on a working military base, there won't be anymore tours until March 2021. We met ranger Erik (who my husband had been trying to schedule with for months) at the John Muir Historic Site and everyone on the tour group followed in their cars onto the base. It's a working base, again, so you can't just waltz in. Okay, as far as the memorial... I went to school in the Bay Area (Pleasanton) from 6th-12th grade and NEVER learnt about the historic WWII and the Civil Rights Movement events that happened on this base in Concord, California. This needs to be a place that you visit. Aside from never hearing about the largest domestic loss of life event on US soil during the war, with a blast radius that could be felt in Nevada, I learnt that at least 50 black service men were charged with mutiny here at the base. These men were sentenced to 8-15 years of hard labor for refusing to load munitions onto ships after the disaster without formal training and increased safety measures. "The Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial is a memorial dedicated in 1994 recognizing the dead of the Port Chicago disaster, and the critical role played by Port Chicago, California during World War II. The memorial is located at the Concord Naval Weapons Station near Concord, California, in the United States. The 1944 Port Chicago disaster occurred at the naval magazine and resulted in the largest domestic loss of life during World War II. 320 sailors and civilians were instantly killed on July 17, 1944, when the ships they were loading with ammunition and bombs exploded. The majority of the deaths were African American sailors working for the racially segregated military. The explosion and its aftermath led to the largest Naval mutiny in US history, and it and the subsequent trial became major catalysts for the United States Navy to desegregate following the war." - https://www.nps.gov/poch/planyourvisit/index.htm

On this National Day honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, perhaps a visit to the Port Chicago Naval…read moreMagazine National Memorial would be a suitable observance. Last Friday, I arrived at the main gate of the of Military Ocean Terminal Concord (MOTCO), formally known as the Concord Naval Weapons Station (CNWS), to await a National Park Service (NPS) Ranger who would be leading the tour. MOTCO is commanded by the U.S. Army Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC) and can be reached by taking the Port Chicago Highway North and almost to the end. The Memorial itself is located within the Tidal area of this ~7500 acre and still "active" Army base. The remaining ~5000 acres of the former CNWS is known as the Inland area and is in the process of being handed over to the City of Concord for future development. From start to finish, the tour of this newest National Park (#392) takes about 90 minutes and is well worth your time. The Site is open to the public by reservation only and made at least 2 weeks in advance. Military clearance is also required and no visits are allowed while military ships are docked and are being loaded. My host Ranger was great and told me all sorts of things I didn't know. He also helped me through the various photo restrictions that you might expect on a military base. After all, I wasn't particularly interested in finding myself on the wrong side of an Army rule. The Port Chicago disaster was a deadly munitions explosion that occurred on July 17, 1944, at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine. Munitions detonated while being loaded onto a cargo vessel bound for the Pacific Theater of Operations, killing 320 sailors and civilians and injuring more. Most of the dead and injured were enlisted black sailors and accounted for ~15% of all African-American deaths during WWII. A month later, continuing unsafe conditions inspired hundreds of servicemen to refuse to load munitions, an act known as the Port Chicago Mutiny. Fifty men, called the Port Chicago 50, were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to long prison terms. Thurgood Marshall attended some of the proceedings and later drew national attention to the plight of these men. Most were released soon after. The trial itself raised lots of questions regarding fairness, legality, and racism. It also led the Navy to be the first branch of the Military to initiate the desegregation of its forces, beginning around February 1946. It's a whole big, empty, lonely, and empty world on the other side of these Army gates. The Tidal area is stunning in its beauty and old military history, including abandoned barracks, an intact railroad observation tower, rail-side loading bunkers, the former Port Chicago Town Site, and storage buildings (and contents) that time has probably forgotten. Remember the last scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark? The base appears to be minimally staffed and includes at least a newish looking administration building, 1 fire company, security (of course), occasionally used loading dock facilities, rail switcher engines and lots of unused track, and various maintenance-related buildings. Being able to experience all this (in addition to the Memorial) from the comfort of a modern NPS van and a very knowledgeable and friendly Park Ranger was almost worth the free cost of admission alone. The Memorial itself is located along the water and at the remains of the dock where the Point Chicago Disaster occurred. The center of the Memorial consists of a simple plaza with the individual victims etched on stone tablets. There are also information boards, a pulverized metal example of the explosion, a dummy ordinance display, and a place to site and contemplate the explosion, along with the abysmal safety precautions and racial segregation practiced during that time. This dignified design is certainly an appropriate recognition for the American sailors who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country that day.