WASHINGTON -- Forty-three members of Congress led by Representative George Miller (D-CA) today urged the U.S. Postal Commission to issue a stamp to honor the 320 American sailors and merchant seamen who were killed in the Port Chicago Naval Magazine explosion of July 17, 1944.

"At this difficult time, when the danger to young men and women in the military is on the mind of every American, we should honor those whose sacrifice in earlier conflicts has never been fully recognized," said Miller. "The issuance of a stamp memorializing the men who gave their lives at Port Chicago is especially appropriate right now."

In a letter sent to members of the Citizen Stamp Advisory Commission, the lawmakers asked that a stamp be issued to commemorate the largest Home Front loss of life during World War II. Three hundred twenty sailors and merchant mariners - mostly black sailors who served as munitions loaders - died in the accidental explosion, including ten percent of all black Navy fatalities suffered during the entire war.

“The Port Chicago disaster meets the criteria established for stamp selection as an event of ‘widespread national appeal and significance’,” said Miller, “and for that reason I strongly support the issuance of a stamp honoring the men who served and died at Port Chicago. Some of those who served at Port Chicago still survive, as do the children and grandchildren of those who perished. This stamp would honor their memory and this event.”

Awareness of the historic significance of the Port Chicago disaster has grown in recent years as a result of Miller's efforts to focus attention on the largely overlooked tragedy. In 1992, Congress created a National Monument on the site of the blast, near Concord, California in the San Francisco East Bay. There have also been commemorative resolutions by several states, numerous documentaries, student history projects and a full-length film. Events surrounding the explosion and its aftermath are credited with convincing President Harry S. Truman to order the desegregation of the armed forces four years later.

The full text of the letter follows

Citizen Stamp Advisory Commission
C/o Stamp Development
U.S. Postal Service
475 L’Enfant Plaza, SW
Room 5670
Washington, D.C. 20260

Dear Members of the Commission:

We are writing to urge that the Citizen Stamp Advisory Commission initiate research that will lead to the issuance of a stamp memorializing the 320 American sailors and merchant seamen who were killed in the Port Chicago Naval Magazine explosion of July 17, 1944.

The disaster resulted in the largest Home Front loss of life during World War II, including ten percent of all black Navy fatalities suffered during the entire war.

Port Chicago has great significance in the history of African Americans, the history of the military, and social and judicial history of the mid-20th century. Sailors at the facility - all of them African Americans working under the supervision of white officers - loaded bombs and other weapons onto ships for transport to the Pacific Theater. On July 17, 1944, an enormous explosion destroyed the base and much of the nearby town; two Liberty ships were completely wrecked; locomotives disintegrated. Altogether, 320 men lost their lives and dozens more were horribly wounded.

The Congress created the Port Chicago National Historical Monument at the site of the explosion in 1992 with the active support of veterans’, legal and civil rights organizations. In recent years, numerous film documentaries (The History Channel, The Learning Channel), frequent news reports, and even a TV movie and an episode of a popular TV drama based on the explosion and its aftermath testify to the broad interest in the subject.

Following the explosion, a refusal by some of the survivors led to a controversial court martial that ultimately involved President and Mrs. Roosevelt, and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. The issues raised by that trial helped persuade President Truman to integrate the armed forces only four years later - a landmark in the mid-century move for civil rights in America.

Additional basic research on the Port Chicago story can be found at the following web sites: http://www.usmm.org/portchicago.html, http://www.cccoe.k12.ca.us/pc/ and http://www.historychannel.com/portchicago/.

We believe the Port Chicago disaster meets the criteria established for stamp selection as an event of “widespread national appeal and significance” and for that reason we strongly support the issuance of a stamp honoring the men who served and died at Port Chicago. Some of those who served at Port Chicago still survive, as do the children and grandchildren of those who perished. With World War II veterans passing away at the rate of 1,100 a day, we very much hope the Citizen Stamp Advisory Commission will recommend the issuance of a commemorative stamp to these lost sailors of World War II before it is too late for them to know their country remembers and honors them.

Sincerely,

George Miller
Jan Schakowsky
Patrick Kennedy
Albert Wynn
Artur Davis
Joe Baca
Zoe Lofgren
Robert Brady
Diane Watson
William Lacy Clay
Lloyd Doggett
Barbara Lee
Lois Capps
Eddie Bernice Johnson
Eni Faleomavaega
Stephanie Tubbs Jones
John Conyers
Bob Filner
Major R. Owens
Robert Matsui
Chaka Fattah
Barney Frank
Martin Frost
Henry Waxman
Lane Evans
Donald M. Payne
Melvin L. Watt
Howard L. Berman
Eleanor H. Norton
James E. Clyburn
William O. Lipinski
Sheila Jackson Lee
Jesse L. Jackson, Jr.
Tom Lantos
Marcy Kaptur
Raul M. Grijalva
Gregory W. Meeks
Carolyn C. Kilpatrick
Danny K. Davis
Robert Wexler
J.R. Pitts
Charles B. Rangel
Jim McGovern