Port Chicago Mutiny

Rating:
Summary: Traitors looking for redemption!
Review: Although this event itself was quite tragic, these men were traitors and they were by definition mutinous. Pardoning them befouls the good names of the men that died there and the other 200+ men who went back to work. This whole movement is simply an NAACP backed propaganda story to later recover some monitary value from the Navy and the government. It's ridiculous! Don't waste your money on this book.

Rating:
Summary: Discrimination in the U.S. Navy.
Review: I give Allen credit for writing about a little known event in our nation's and WWII history. This was the explosion caused by the mishandling of ammunition at the Port Chicago Naval Station in California. Over 300 people died as a result of this explosion, the majority of them black ammunition handlers. When the Navy tried to redirect the remaining black ammunition handlers to another yard, they refused to handle any more ammunition. If I were them, I would too. The Navy then selected a representative 50 of the 250 soldiers who refused to handle any more ammunition, and court martialed them with long prison sentences. That was injustice.
This is an interesting story. However, Allen's leftist rantings tended to alienate the reader from the story. Bob, most people agree that what the U.S. Navy did to these 50 sailors was wrong, but why slant the story so radically. Allen's writings was not as smooth as most writers, so I tended to slog through this very interesting story. The story could have been better written and the slant should have been left out. More detail about the explosion could also have been included in this short book, without slighting the main theme of discrimination of the U.S. Navy.

Rating:
Summary: Dry paper catches fire easy
Review: No don't burn this book-buy it and read it and become aware ofone of yet another sickening US military action. This time the framingof black sailors who wouldn't work the day after hundred of their buddies were blown to smitherines because of unsafe loading of a munitions ship.

The US Navy behavior was despicable.

It's a little dry, to remain aloof. But dry paper catches fire easy.

Rating:
Summary: The Port Chicago Mutiny
Review: This excellent book details the aftermath of the Port Chicago ammunition ship explosions during WW2, with particular emphasis on the "mutiny" of Black sailors detailed to handle the loading of ammunition ships. Those familiar with Port Chicago will find the book brings back details of the operations there, which had changed substantially in the years leading up to the Vietnam Era, and will provide interesting insights to the way Black sailors were treated. Their tragic end and the sacrifices of those who organized and participated in their work-stoppage made ammunition handling
safer for those who came after them, and as an ammunition ship sailor once assigned to Port Chicago, I'm included. A movie was made which closely follows this book's story.