Admiral Wright sent his own report to the new Secretary of the Navy, James Forrestal, who’d taken over the job in May. After outlining the facts, Wright added his personal theory of the cause of the trouble. “The refusal to perform the required work arises from a mass fear arising out of the Port Chicago explosion. This fear is unreasonably associated with the handling of ammunition in ships.”
That was it, just irrational fear. The way Wright saw it, neither the Navy’s racial policies nor the chaotic working conditions on the pier played any part in the men’s refusal to return to work.
“A considerable portion of the men involved are of a low order of mentality,” the admiral commented, echoing a prejudice held by many officers. Wright defended the use of black sailors to load ammunition—and yet he admitted that it looked very bad to have only black sailors doing the loading. At the end of his report, Wright asked permission to make a major change. He wanted to begin training white sailors to work some of the shifts at Port Chicago and Mare Island.
Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal
Secretary Forrestal approved the change and passed Wright’s report to President Roosevelt. Roosevelt sent a brief note back to Forrestal, suggesting light punishments for the 208 men who had eventually agreed to go back to work. “They were activated by mass fear,” commented Roosevelt. “This was understandable.”
As for what to do with the fifty sailors still refusing to work, Roosevelt left that to the Navy. But he forwarded the report to his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, writing “for your information” on the top. This was significant, because he knew Eleanor met often with black leaders, and was an outspoken critic of racial discrimination.
He knew she’d keep an eye on the case of the alleged mutineers.
* * *
In accordance with the president’s suggestion, the Navy gave the men who had returned to work the relatively light punishment of losing three months’ pay.
The fifty young men in the Camp Shoemaker brig—half of them teenagers—were officially charged with mutiny. The fifty, Admiral Wright’s charge specified, had “conspired each with the other to mutiny against the lawful authority of their superior naval officers.”
The job of leading the prosecution went to Lieutenant Commander James Coakley. An experienced prosecutor, Coakley had served as assistant district attorney of Alameda County, California, before the war.
Coakley spent the next few weeks gathering evidence against the accused, with a special focus on Joe Small.
“Small was supposed to be the ringleader,” Edward Waldrop, one of the fifty, later explained. “What they wanted you to do, they wanted you to hang numbers on Small.”
A memo from James Forrestal addressed to the president outlines the events at Mare Island and recommends charges for those involved.
Coakley questioned many of the fifty personally. In his session with Waldrop, the lawyer demanded to know if Small had led the mutiny.
“No,” Waldrop responded.
“Well, somebody has got to be the leader,” Coakley insisted. “Everybody needs a leader.”
“Nobody made me do nothing. We don’t need a leader if you know what’s going on on that base.”
Jack Crittenden was questioned by James Tobin, the lieutenant of his division, with a marine guard looking on.
“Jack, I’m here to help you,” Tobin began. “You’re in trouble, and I’m here to help you.”
“Yeah, it looks like I’m in trouble—I got a big P on me,” Crittenden said, tapping the P for prisoner sewn to his shirt.
“Tell me what happened on the barge,” Tobin demanded.
“Lieutenant, I don’t know what went on on that barge. I was a scared jackrabbit on the barge.”
“Jack, you’re not being very cooperative.”
This became a common theme of the interrogations. The officers wanted details about the meeting on the barge, the one at which Small had spoken to the group. Coakley was convinced this gathering was a central part of Small’s secret plan, and he wanted to know exactly what had been said.
“I didn’t say the things he wanted to hear,” Crittenden remembered. “That made the marine guard so mad I thought he was going to beat me up when I came out of there.”
* * *
Guards later led Joe Small into the office of Lieutenant Louis Bannon, a legal officer at Camp Shoemaker. James Coakley was there too.
As Coakley listened, Bannon asked Small how it was that the men of Division Four had just happened to come to a stop in the road on the morning of August 9.
“How was it that the men refused to march,” asked Bannon, “or stopped marching when they were given the order ‘Column left’?”
“I guess they sensed something wrong,” Small said.
Bannon wasn’t satisfied. The refusal to march had to have been planned ahead of time, he said. “With whom had you talked about whether or not you would go down and load ships?”
“No one.”
“You had never talked to a soul about it?”
“No, sir.”
“Did anyone talk to you about it?”
“The boys did, yes, sir,” said Small. “Many of them.”
“Who were some of the boys who talked to you?” demanded Bannon.
“Practically everybody in the division.”
“Let’s get some names.”
“I couldn’t give their names unless I gave the names of the whole division. There wasn’t one that didn’t have something to say on that subject.”
“You were a leader selected by the men,” Bannon said. “They had faith in you, and the officers accepted you as a leader of the men.”
Small didn’t deny it. And he freely admitted that before August 9, many of the men had talked in the barracks about what they would do when they were ordered back to work loading ammunition. But he insisted there had been no organized plan to stop in the road, and that he had never tried to convince anyone to refuse to load.
Bannon turned to the barge meeting of August 10. He wanted to see if Small would admit to having called the men together for a talk.
Small did, explaining his goal had been to try to prevent a deadly eruption of violence between prisoners and guards.
“Did anybody else talk at that meeting besides you?” Bannon asked.
“No one else spoke at the meeting except myself, no, sir.”
* * *
Back in his cell, thinking over the questions he’d been asked, Small realized what a deep hole he was in. Clearly, the officers saw him as the leader of a carefully crafted rebellion. They believed Small, in midnight barracks meetings, had convinced the men of his division to join him in mutiny.
It simply hadn’t been like that, Small knew.
“It wasn’t discussed,” he later explained. “The Navy in their action, in their handling of our lives, had brought us down to the point where this was the necessary course of action. And there was nothing to discuss.”
But Coakley had his theory, and was determined to prove it in court.
One by one, he called in the men who had agreed to go back to work after Admiral Wright’s speech. He knew these men were hoping for light punishments, and he expected they’d be more willing to talk than the accused mutineers. Some were.
Several confirmed that there had been talk in the barracks in the nights before August 9; discussions about whether to go back to handling ammunition. Others told Coakley about the barge meeting. At Coakley’s urging, the men tried to recall the words Small had used on the barge. As is always the case with eyewitnesses, different people remembered the same scene differently. But a few told Coakley that Small had said something about sticking together and having the officers “by the balls.” No, it was “by the ass,” someone else reported. Another remembered “by the tail.”
Whatever the exact phrase, Coakley was now absolutely convinced that Small had not spoken to the men to prevent violence, as he claimed. Small’s true goal, Coakley believed, had been to keep
the group unified—to stop anyone who was wavering from giving in and going back to work.
Coakley was sure the fifty men were guilty of premeditated mutiny. He was sure that Joe Small had planned and orchestrated the whole thing.
* * *
The court-martial of the Port Chicago fifty was set to open on September 14.
The Navy hastily assigned Lieutenant Gerald Veltmann, a thirty-four-year-old lawyer from Texas, to lead the defense. Veltmann was given four young lawyers to assist him. The process was so rushed, the lawyers didn’t even have time to meet with each of the accused before the trial began.
“I figured we’d go to trial, and then get shot,” recalled Martin Bordenave.
But Veltmann was hopeful. As he raced to prepare, the defense lawyer spotted what he thought were a few weaknesses in the case against the accused mutineers.
When asked later to describe his mood in the days leading up to the court-martial, Veltmann replied, “Oh I would say it was calm. I don’t think anyone had their heads hanging down, or their tails between their legs. I wasn’t, at that time, old enough to be afraid of anybody.”
TREASURE ISLAND
ON THE MORNING of September 14, 1944, the fifty accused men put on their dark blue uniforms and lined up outside a wooden barracks on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. The views from the little island were spectacular: the skylines of San Francisco and Oakland, the Golden Gate Bridge, the blue bay busy with ships steaming in and out.
But the men were in no mood to appreciate a beautiful view. At about 10 a.m., marine guards ordered them to march into the barracks. The building had been cleared of beds and set up as a courtroom. The sailors sat down in rows of seats along the back wall. Steam pipes hung from low ceilings above their heads. The walls around them were draped with flags.
Sitting behind a curving table on one side of the crowded space were Rear Admiral Hugh Osterhaus and the six other members of the court, all high-ranking naval officers. There is no jury in a court-martial. It would be up to Admiral Osterhaus and the other officers to hear the evidence in the case—and to decide the fate of the accused.
Opposite the judges were smaller tables; one for Lieutenant Commander Coakley and his team, and one for Lieutenant Veltmann and his assistants. A few additional chairs had been crammed into the barracks for newspaper reporters. Members of the press were not normally invited to watch military trials, but this was no ordinary court-martial. This was the largest mass trial in the history of the United States Navy, and naval leaders did not want it shrouded in secrecy. Also, they hoped the public trial would serve as a stark warning to any other servicemen who may be thinking of bucking the system.
When everyone was in place, James Coakley called on each of the fifty accused in alphabetical order, asking every man the same question: “You have heard the charge and specification preferred against you; how plead you in the specification of the charge, guilty or not guilty?”
All fifty responded the exact same way: “Not guilty, sir.”
* * *
Coakley’s strategy for the trial was to methodically build the argument that there had been a conspiracy among the accused sailors—that they had planned to refuse to work, and planned to stick together no matter what. Step one was to lay out the basics of what had happened at Mare Island.
He opened the prosecution by calling Commander Joseph Tobin, Mare Island’s executive officer. He asked Tobin to give a summary of the events of August 9, the day the accused men refused to work.
Tobin explained how he’d issued orders for the three divisions from Port Chicago to load the USS Sangay. He described talking to many of the men individually after they’d stopped in the road.
Court-martial proceedings at Treasure Island, September 1944. Lieutenant Veltmann (center of photo) is seated with his team of lawyers.
“A number of the men took the attitude that they would obey any order, except to handle ammunition,” said Tobin. “To those, I explained as clearly as I could, in brief, concise wording, that the choice of duty did not rest with any individual in the naval service.”
Tobin then described how those still refusing to load were taken to the barge; how they were assembled several days later for Admiral Wright’s talk; and how, even after being told they’d be charged with mutiny, these fifty accused still would not load ammunition.
Gerald Veltmann stood to cross-examine Commander Tobin. Veltmann had never defended accused mutineers before, but he understood Coakley’s strategy. His plan was to undermine the prosecutor’s case every step of the way. Right out of the gate, Veltmann sent a clear message that he was not intimidated—he was going to aggressively challenge Coakley’s witnesses, even the high-ranking officers.
“Commander,” Veltmann began, “I believe you stated that they said they [the accused men] would obey any order except loading ammunition, is that correct?”
“The attitude of the men was that they would obey what they chose to obey,” Tobin replied.
“That wasn’t the statement a while ago, was it, Commander?”
“That is the statement of fact regardless of what was stated earlier.”
“Did they tell you they would obey any order they wanted to?” asked Veltmann.
“They implied that in the words they used.”
“Did any of these men tell you, of the ones you talked to, did any of these tell you that they were willing to obey any order except loading ammunition?”
“A number did.”
“In other words,” Veltmann concluded, “there wasn’t a complete disrespect of your authority?”
Coakley jumped to his feet. “Just a minute,” he called to the judges. “That is objected to on the grounds it is too broad and indefinite and calls for the conclusion of this witness.”
“I will withdraw the question,” Veltmann said.
But he wasn’t done with this line of questioning—in fact, it was vital to his strategy. According to the Navy’s definition of mutiny, there had to be “a deliberate purpose to usurp, subvert or override” authority. The Port Chicago men may have resisted a specific order, but had they really tried to seize power from their superior officers? If not, they were not guilty of mutiny. Making this distinction clear, Veltmann believed, was his best chance to save the defendants’ lives.
Moving on to the days following August 9, he continued to focus on the behavior of the fifty men.
“Did you ever have any riots?” Veltmann asked Tobin.
“No, we never had a riot.”
“Did you ever have any trouble, specific riotous trouble with these fifty accused during the time, the ninth, tenth, or the eleventh of August?”
“Yes, we had trouble.”
“With these fifty?”
“Yes.”
“What was the trouble?”
“Refusing to obey orders.”
“I am talking about their personal actions,” Veltmann clarified. “I mean in connection with riotous actions?”
“There was.”
“Did they storm about the depot? Just answer the question.”
“Oh, no,” said Tobin.
“Did they attack anybody?”
“No.”
“Did they back you up in your office and tell you you couldn’t order anybody to do anything?”
“No.”
“Did they interfere with the prerogatives of your office in any way?”
Again Coakley jumped up to object.
“I am going to sustain that objection,” Admiral Osterhaus told Veltmann. “The question you asked is certainly immaterial.”
“I don’t know that it is immaterial,” Veltmann argued. “It is an element of mutiny, if it please the court, to usurp the power and authority of the commanding officer.”
“The objection is sustained,” Osterhaus ruled.
But Veltmann had made his point.
* * *
For his second witness, Coakley called the man he expected to give the most damaging test
imony against the accused, Lieutenant Ernest Delucchi.
“If you recognize any of the accused, state whom,” began Coakley.
The lieutenant stepped toward the prisoners. “Banks, stand up,” he said. “Ernest Brown, third row, stand up.” Delucchi identified Joe Small, Cyril Sheppard—a total of twenty-five men of the fifty were from his division.
Coakley asked Delucchi to describe the events of the morning of August 9.
“I passed the word myself over the loudspeaker for my division, the Fourth, to turn out for work,” Delucchi explained. He described how Joe Small and the chief petty officer, Elmer Boyer, had helped get the division into formation.
“Now, while you were in front of your division,” began Coakley, “did you hear any remarks from any of the men, either in your own division or the Eighth Division, with reference to whether they would go to work or not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Will you state what the remarks were?”
“I heard at least three times the statement: ‘Don’t go to work for the white motherf—ers.’” (Delucchi used the whole word in court.)
“Did you hear any other remarks like that?”
“‘Don’t turn to for work.’”
This was devastating testimony, Coakley knew. The comments seemed to show that the men were hostile toward their officers, and planning to defy authority that day.
And it happened again on August 11, Delucchi testified. Admiral Wright had addressed the men on the baseball field, and Delucchi was walking up to his men to once again order them back to work.
“As you approached the division,” Coakley coaxed his witness, “state whether or not you heard any remarks in the ranks of the men from your division.”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
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