The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily.

On July 17, 1944, one of the worst disasters to befall the American military during World War II occurred.

It didn't occur in Europe or the Pacific, however.

It took place on US soil.

The events leading up to this calamity and its aftermath permanently shaped the U.S. military.

Learn more about the Port Chicago disaster and the lasting changes have brought about on this episode of

Everything Everywhere Daily. The town of Port Chicago is located on the Sassoon Estuary which flows into the north end of the San Francisco Bay.

About a mile from where the town was located

was one of the primary munitions facilities for the United States Pacific Theater,

the Port Chicago Naval Magazine, later renamed the Concord Naval Weapons Station.

During World War II, the facility served as an armaments depot for munitions that were going to support the war in the Pacific.

Bombs, bullets, shells, mines, torpedoes, and all manner of explosives were sent here from production

facilities from around the country.

At Port Chicago, they would be loaded on the ships and sent to other ships thousands of miles away.

In the 1940s the loading and unloading of ships was mostly a time consuming and manual

process.

It wasn't like today where everything is in shipping containers and they can be loaded and unloaded without

anyone ever touching them. In 1944, there were at least two ships being loaded 24 hours a day

at Port Chicago. The work done at Port Chicago was hard physical labor that was

both dangerous and important to the war effort. Because there weren't enough

civilian dock workers to load the naval ships, the Navy had to take over the task and assign sailors to do the work.

When the United States entered the war, the military was still racially segregated.

...