Latest news with #WestLochDisaster
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Community honors West Loch disaster anniversary
RELATED PHOTO GALLERY 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.'
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
West Loch Disaster remembrance planned
The Obama Hawaiian Africana Museum and the Defense POW /MIA Accounting Agency will host a remembrance ceremony Wednesday at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl honoring the anniversary of the deadly 1944 West Loch Disaster. On May 21, 1944, service members 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. At 3 :08 p.m. something caused an explosion aboard LST-353 near its bow. The blast killed serv icemen on board and rained burning debris on nearby vessels. The debris ignited fuel and munitions stored on their decks, setting off an explosive chain reaction. By the time the smoke cleared, explosions and debris had destroyed six LSTs, killing at least 163 people and injuring 396—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. More than half of the soldiers were Black troops from the 29th Chemical Decontamination Unit. The handling of the West Loch disaster and its aftermath would in time contribute to calls for the desegregation of the U.S. military after World War II. Many of the dead were buried at Punchbowl as unknowns, where they rested for decades. But in 2024 the DPAA exhumed the remains of the unknowns in an effort to identify them based on a mix of DNA testing and historical research. According to a media release by the Obama Hawaiian Africana Museum, speakers at the event will talk about an emerging DPAA partnership with the Obama Hawaiian Africana Museum to engage with people who may be related to the West Loch dead to collect additional DNA to support efforts to identify the remains. The ceremony will be at 2-3 p.m. Wednesday at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl, 2177 Puowaina Drive.
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Military launches new effort to ID unknown soldiers from West Loch Disaster
AUSTIN BOUCHER / U.S. ARMY / OCT. 7 Members of the Defense POW /MIA Accounting Agency walk beside a casket during a disinterment ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. At least 163 people were killed and 396 injured in a series of explosions triggered by an accident that occurred while troops loaded weapons and munitions onto amphibious landing ships at the West Loch peninsula of Pearl Harbor. 1 /4 AUSTIN BOUCHER / U.S. ARMY / OCT. 7 Members of the Defense POW /MIA Accounting Agency walk beside a casket during a disinterment ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. At least 163 people were killed and 396 injured in a series of explosions triggered by an accident that occurred while troops loaded weapons and munitions onto amphibious landing ships at the West Loch peninsula of Pearl Harbor. ARIEL OWINGS / U.S. AIR FORCE / NOV. 4 U.S. service members from the Defense POW /MIA Accounting Agency participate in a disinterment ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Eight sets of remains were disinterred as part of the West Loch Project, an ongoing effort to identify service members who died in the West Loch Disaster during World War II. 2 /4 ARIEL OWINGS / U.S. AIR FORCE / NOV. 4 U.S. service members from the Defense POW /MIA Accounting Agency participate in a disinterment ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Eight sets of remains were disinterred as part of the West Loch Project, an ongoing effort to identify service members who died in the West Loch Disaster during World War II. U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES / 1944 Above, billowing black smoke from the disaster could be seen for days. 3 /4 U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES / 1944 Above, billowing black smoke from the disaster could be seen for days. STAR-ADVERTISER / 2019 An escort boat cruises past wreckage of LST 480 in Walker Bay at Hanaloa Point during the 75th-anniversary observance of the May 1944 West Loch Disaster, when 34 amphibious landing ships were clumped together and being loaded with weapons and munitions when a chain-reaction explosion occurred. 4 /4 STAR-ADVERTISER / 2019 An escort boat cruises past wreckage of LST 480 in Walker Bay at Hanaloa Point during the 75th-anniversary observance of the May 1944 West Loch Disaster, when 34 amphibious landing ships were clumped together and being loaded with weapons and munitions when a chain-reaction explosion occurred. AUSTIN BOUCHER / U.S. ARMY / OCT. 7 Members of the Defense POW /MIA Accounting Agency walk beside a casket during a disinterment ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. At least 163 people were killed and 396 injured in a series of explosions triggered by an accident that occurred while troops loaded weapons and munitions onto amphibious landing ships at the West Loch peninsula of Pearl Harbor. ARIEL OWINGS / U.S. AIR FORCE / NOV. 4 U.S. service members from the Defense POW /MIA Accounting Agency participate in a disinterment ceremony at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Eight sets of remains were disinterred as part of the West Loch Project, an ongoing effort to identify service members who died in the West Loch Disaster during World War II. U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES / 1944 Above, billowing black smoke from the disaster could be seen for days. STAR-ADVERTISER / 2019 An escort boat cruises past wreckage of LST 480 in Walker Bay at Hanaloa Point during the 75th-anniversary observance of the May 1944 West Loch Disaster, when 34 amphibious landing ships were clumped together and being loaded with weapons and munitions when a chain-reaction explosion occurred. The U.S. military is working on a new effort to identify the remains of service members killed in the infamous World War II-era West Loch Disaster. On May 21, 1944, as American troops prepared for the invasion of Japanese-occupied Saipan in the Northern Marianas, a series of explosions in West Loch killed at least 163 people and injured 396, though some historians have alleged that shoddy record keeping by military officials in a rush to keep the operation on track may have left more uncounted. The Oahu-based Defense Prisoner of War /Missing in Action Accounting Agency began exhuming the remains of unidentified victims of the disaster in October and disinterred the last eight Jan. 27. In the aftermath of the carnage, 50 of the bodies recovered were identified using a mixture of dog tags found with them and dental records, while about 49 other bodies recovered from the wreckage were buried as 'unknowns ' at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Punchbowl Crater—or so it was thought. The violent explosions blew bodies apart, making it difficult to properly sort the remains. 'We see a lot of commingling within these sets, so multiple individuals or bones of multiple individuals are mixed together, ' said Reshma Satish, the lead anthropologist working on the project. 'I've been doing a lot of the analyses on these cases, and I have not actually had a single case that's been one person.' With the list of dead greater than the number buried, the graves at Punchbowl might actually contain far more people than believed. Don 't miss out on what 's happening ! Stay in touch with breaking news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It 's FREE ! Email 28141 Sign Up By clicking to sign up, you agree to Star-Advertiser 's and Google 's and. This form is protected by reCAPTCHA. The DPAA, which is headquartered at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, conducts operations across the globe to find and identify missing American service members. The West Loch Disaster has always been an area of interest, but there were deep doubts about actually being able to identify the dead. Jennie Jin, DPAA's special projects manager, explained, 'We learned in the late'90s that a lot of remains buried at Punchbowl, they do not yield DNA very well.' At first they didn't understand why bodies and bone fragments found on far-flung battlefields and exposed to the elements for decades yielded DNA while better -preserved remains in Punchbowl didn't. They ultimately learned that many WWII and Korean War dead had been treated with chemicals to mask the smell of death as they were being transported for burial. 'Bone is organic and inorganic, so it killed all the organic part and that's why it's so beautifully preserved with all the inorganic parts left, ' Jin said. 'So when West Loch came on our historians' radar, we were like, 'Should we do this or not ?' 'It means a lot here, especially because it's local and it was kept as a classified disaster for a long time, right ? So it means a lot. But can we make IDs ?' It's a serious matter to exhume the dead after they've already been buried. But in October 2016, DPAA dug up one of the unidentified dead from the West Loch Disaster and found the remains actually did have strong DNA readings. The agency determined that because the bodies had been recovered and buried locally rather than shipped back from a distant battlefield, the military hadn't felt the need to chemically treat them to alleviate the smell. But while they found DNA readings, there was nothing to actually match them to. Those remains are still unidentified. 'If we don't have anybody, any family members, to compare the DNA results to, there's no point of doing it, ' Jin said. 'So after 2016 was successful—it successfully used the DNA—we reached out. We, DPAA internally, decided to make this a project that we want to pursue.' DPAA staff have been contacting families to collect DNA samples and other information. Beyond DNA samples, they are also looking at the medical records of those listed as killed in the explosion. For instance, Satish explained that near the end of World War II and during the Korean War, soldiers were required to get X-rays of their chest as part of tuberculosis screenings, records DPAA has used in other cases to identify dead service members. But even with new resources and resolve, it will be a challenge. 'Just the nature of the disaster, we're going to see a lot of bones with burning, ' Satish explained. 'There are things that we can't really assess as well as a result of these explosions, because it wasn't even just like it (happened ) on one ship.' The West Loch Disaster has sometimes been called a 'second Pearl Harbor, ' a tragedy that military leaders at the time wanted the public to ignore—and to forget. On May 21, 1944, sailors, Marines and soldiers were working on several vessels docked at West Loch loading weapons and munitions onto amphibious landing ships known as LSTs. Troops loaded supplies onto the boats throughout the day, but at 3 :08 p.m. something caused an explosion aboard LST-353 near its bow. The blast killed service members on board and flung burning debris onto nearby vessels, where it ignited fuel and munitions stored on their decks and setting off an explosive and deadly chain reaction. Some vessels managed to navigate their way to safety, while others were abandoned and allowed to drift in the channel leaking oil. The oil spread across the water and caught fire, igniting piers and the shoreline. The fires raged for more than 24 hours before more tugboats and salvage ships from Pearl Harbor managed to contain the spreading fires. In the end, explosions and airborne debris destroyed six LSTs. In the immediate aftermath, the military ordered a press blackout, even though the sounds of the explosions rang out loudly in the surrounding area and billowing smoke could be seen far and wide for days. Four days after the incident, officials released a notice telling the public simply that an explosion had occurred causing 'some loss of life, a number of injuries and resulted in the destruction of several small vessels.' Those who survived were ordered not to mention the disaster in letters home or to even speak of it. The official investigation determined that the most likely cause of the explosion was mishandled munitions, probably a service member dropping a mortar round and causing a chain reaction. About a third of the casualties that day were Black members of the Army's segregated 29th Chemical Decontamination Company. During the war, Black serv ice members were often assigned menial but sometimes hazardous tasks that white troops didn't want to perform. Two months after the West Loch Disaster, another munitions-loading accident at Port Chicago in California caused explosions that killed 320 sailors and wounded 390, most of them Black. A month later Black sailors at Port Chicago mutinied due to continued unsafe conditions. The West Loch and Port Chicago disasters forced the Navy to change the way it handled munitions, and ultimately played a role in spurring the military to begin desegregating its ranks. But the West Loch Disaster would remain secret until the military finally declassified all files on the incident in 1962. Now, more than 80 years later after the tragedy, DPAA is navigating all the records and samples it can get a hold of to match the dead recovered from West Loch to the names of the men who were there. 'It is an absolutely amazing feeling to be able to do this, ' Satish said. 'I mean, some of these families, they've been waiting for eight decades at this point, right ? So to be able to provide them with answers and be able to give them—even if it's not all of their service member, even if it's like a couple of bones—I think that's really meaningful.'
