ROUTH-ROBERT

DISCHARGED  FROM  NAVY  BECAUSE  HE  WAS  BLIND

Roberrt Howard “Bob” Routh Jr. was born March 7, 1925, in Tennessee.  At age 17, with only an eighth grade education, he talked his father into letting him enlist in the Navy arguing that putting on a uniform would help make America a better place for blacks.  Routh later stated, “I had no idea of how much better things were beyond the Mason-Dixon line.”  Following recruit training at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois he was assigned to an all black unit at the Naval Weapons Station, Port Chicago, California, where he primarily handled munitions being unloaded from railroad box cars. 

On July 17, 1944, two ships were being loaded with ammunition destined for the South Pacific.  At 10:19pm a deadly monstrous explosion occurred as an estimated 4,600 tons of munitions exploded, the two ships disappeared, 320 men were killed (two thirds of whom were African American sailors), and at least 390 others were injured.  Windows 40 miles away were broken by the explosion and shock waves were even felt in Nevada.  The exact cause of the explosion was never determined but it was ascertained that a principal cause was due to the lack of training for the men handling munitions and that their officers insisted on speed in their work.

When the explosion occurred, Routh was in his barracks bunk.  He has since said that the sky turned bright as day and within seconds a ferocious shaking buckled the floorboards, the barracks swaying like a rocking chair, all the windows imploded, and he was sprayed with shattered glass, some of which landed in his eyes which felt like they were filling with sand.  He was unable to see and screamed for someone to take him to sick bay but was informed that it had likewise been destroyed.  During the following days Routh received treatment for his eyes, and although he had very slight eyesight in his right eye immediately following the explosion it slowly disappeared until he was completely blind and he was discharged from the Navy because of his blindness.  He then earned a master’s degree in sociology from Pepperdine College on the GI Bill after which he worked as a Veterans Administration benefits counselor in Los Angeles.  Robert Routh died at the age of 82 on December 2, 2007, and is buried at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside County, California.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)