It was standing room only Wednesday afternoon at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl as veterans and community members gathered to honor the anniversary of the West Loch Disaster.
The West Loch disaster was a deadly — and often forgotten — World War II incident in Hawaii that prompted major reforms in the U.S. military due to the disproportionate death toll of Black service members.
At the anniversary, hosted by the cemetery, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency and the Obama Hawaiian Africana Museum, organizers initially put out 75 chairs. But as attendees rolled in, they put out 75 additional chairs as more guests arrived and many were left standing in the back watching and listening intently.
“My spirit is glowing,” Deloris Guttman, a local historian and the director of the Obama Hawaiian Africana Museum, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “Of all the years that we’ve had it, this is the best turnout we’ve ever had.”
This year’s anniversary takes place after the DPAA recently disinterred several of the unidentified dead from the disaster buried at Punchbowl as part of a new effort to finally attach names to the remains and bring closure to the families. John M. Figuerres, acting deputy director of DPAA, said that 73% of the DNA samples the agency believes it needs to identify the dead already has been collected.
Figuerres told attendees “this is a remarkable achievement, made possible not only by federal efforts, but by committed individuals in our community, many sitting here today.” He singled out Guttman and her staff at the Obama Hawaiian Africana Museum for research and outreach to families.
On May 21, 1944, American sailors, Marines and soldiers were working on several vessels docked at West Loch loading weapons and supplies to support Operation Forager, the invasion of the Japanese-occupied Mariana Islands. But at at 3:08 p.m. something caused an explosion aboard LST-353 near its bow, igniting the explosive munitions and fuel on board, causing a chain reaction.
The blast sent flaming debris raining down on other ships, ultimately destroying five more vessels. The explosions blew men apart and maimed them, and those who survived the immediate blast had to contend with flames and smoke. Fuel leaked onto the surface of the water and caught fire as survivors tried to escape. Many burned to death, suffocated from smoke or drowned in the loch.
By the time the smoke cleared, at least 163 people were dead and 396 injured — though some historians suspect shoddy record-keeping by Army officials in a rush to keep Operation Forager on track could have as many as 100 more uncounted.
The blasts and smoke during the incident could be heard and seen for miles by surrounding communities. But to ensure that Operation Forager was not delayed and that the U.S. military didn’t reveal potential weaknesses, the military ordered a press blackout. Four days after the incident, officials released a notice acknowledging an explosion had occurred causing “some loss of life, a number of injuries and resulted in the destruction of several small vessels.”
“(There was) no public accounting, no decorations, no headline tributes. Families of the dead were not told what happened. Survivors were ordered not to speak up,” Figuerres said. “It became one of the least-known disasters of World War II, not because it mattered less, but because it was hidden more. … Yet here we are today, decades later, on the anniversary of the disaster, as we begin the process to add their names into history, and because remembrance is part of our national duty.”
A disproportionate number of the dead and wounded were Black members of the Army’s segregated 29th Chemical Decontamination Company. During the war Black troops were often assigned menial, thankless and sometimes dangerous tasks that were considered undignified by white military leaders.
That included handling munitions and hazardous materials. Two months after the West Loch disaster, another munitions explosion at Port Chicago in California killed 320 sailors and wounded 390, most of them Black. Survivors at Port Chicago mutinied a month later as they protested continued unsafe conditions.
The West Loch and Port Chicago disasters led the Navy to change the way it handled munitions, as well as played a key role in spurring desegregation of the military. But the West Loch disaster would remain secret until the military finally declassified all files on the incident in 1962.
Tom Leatherman, the National Park Service’s superintendent for the Pearl Harbor National Memorial, was previously superintendent of the Port Chicago site in California.
“As I reflect this year, as I have in the past, on how we honor those people who lost their lives here at West Loch and there at Port Chicago, I can’t help but continue to repeat that we honor them by not just remembering their names and mourning their loss,” he said. “We have to honor them by making sure that we fully understand this history and that we need to understand the role segregation, racism, discrimination had in putting those men in harm’s way and not properly acknowledging their contributions to the war effort.”
Dr. Adam Robinson, a retired admiral who served as the 36th surgeon general of the Navy and went on to work at the Department of Veterans Affairs before retiring as director of the VA Pacific Islands Health Care System in March, said “the rigor utilized and the safety instructions for loading these munitions were quite different in those years, and they were quite different from the standards today. It is not an exaggeration to also assume that minority citizens were not given the same consideration or respect that is often taken for granted. In short, the safety and health needs and requirements were not met.”
During his remarks, Robinson seemingly took aim at efforts by the new administration of President Donald Trump to dismantle diversity programs and downplay aspects of American history such as slavery.
Robinson said “our nation was forged in the cauldron of otherness. We struggled as different people with different colors, languages, customs, ways of thinking and attitudes toward liberty, life and happiness into a society which has until recently, accepted and nurtured diversity. Whether you like it or not ladies and gentlemen, we are a diverse nation.”
Theo Alexander, a Navy veteran and commander of the AMVETs West Loch Post, has worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the disaster and has been a consistent organizer in commemoration events. He told the Star-Advertiser he was happy to see a record turnout this year and said he hoped to see more members of the public next year.
“Keep them coming, because we need more attention on this,” he said. “There have been 80 years of opportunity to acknowledge the people that have served the military, the less-known people who served the military. And to be unknown for 80 years after their service, I think it’s really important to what we’re doing today to be able to acknowledge and then reconnect these unknown soldiers who are now known with their families.”
