Port Chicago Disaster

Date: July 17, 1944 • Location: Bay Point, United States

Laden with munitions for World War II, two ships exploded at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California, killing 320 people and injuring more than 400 others.

The Port Chicago disaster was a deadly munitions explosion of the ship SS E. A. Bryan on July 17, 1944, at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, California, United States. Munitions being loaded onto a cargo vessel bound for the Pacific Theater of Operations detonated, killing 320 sailors and civilians and injuring at least 390 others. Most of the dead were African-American sailors.