The Color of War

April 1, 2012
In July 1944, hundreds of seaman, mostly black, died in an explosion while loading ammunition aboard ships at Port Chicago, in northern California, while mostly white American troops battled on Saipan across the Pacific. Using diaries, memoirs, transcripts and interviews, Campbell (The Ghost Mountain Boys: Their Epic March and the Terrifying Battle for New Guinea--The Forgotten War of the South Pacific, 2007, etc.) jumps back and forth between both stories. Saipan does not lack competent histories, but Campbell's description of the explosion revives a little-known landmark in race relations. He reminds readers that, after Pearl Harbor, black Americans yearned to fight and demanded equality in the rigidly segregated military. Franklin Roosevelt had no objection but refused to oppose his entire cabinet, and readers will squirm as otherwise admirable figures (Marshall, Stimson, Knox, Eisenhower) deliver unctuous homilies on black inferiority. As always, only Eleanor got it right. Yielding slightly, the Navy expanded black job categories from one (messman) to include shore-based labor. At Port Chicago they worked under white officers, most of whom knew little about handling explosives, and the Navy refused to heed warnings from the stevedore's union. After the disaster, hundreds refused to resume work. Many reconsidered after threats from superiors; the Navy charged the remainder with mutiny, a far more serious offense than refusal to obey orders. The trial generated sympathetic headlines, but the court convicted all defendants, sentencing them to long prison terms. Both senior admirals and the Defense Department considered this overkill, and the Navy released everyone within six months. It also abolished its Jim Crow policy, two years before President Truman did the same for other services. A fine account of a little-known milestone in the battle for civil rights.

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April 15, 2012
The segregated navy of WWII sets Campbell's theme for simultaneous events in July 1944, the battle of Saipan and an ammunition explosion at Port Chicago in the San Francisco Bay area that killed and injured more than 700 people. Both events boast bibliographies that Campbell has consulted. His originality consists in his interviews with marines and sailors and in mining his access to their unpublished papers. He accordingly crafts his work as individual narratives fitted into the big-picture frame of capturing the Mariana Islands from Japan and shipping the munitions for that campaign. The latter was extremely hazardous work, assigned largely to black sailors whose expectations of fighting in combat or being promoted to more desirable occupations than stevedore were dashed. Campbell also recounts incidents of routine racism the blacks encountered, from boot camp to loading dock. Reinforcing the point with quoted bigotry from commanders of the ammo depot, Campbell ends the book with the fallout of the Port Chicago disaster: no blame for the white officers but court-martials for dozens of black sailors. Excellent battle narrative and black history rolled into one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)