Seventy-two years ago today, 34 amphibious landing ships were clumped together in Pearl Harbor’s far end and being loaded in preparation for Operation Forager and the invasion of Guam, Saipan and Tinian.

The West Loch Disaster of 1944 — sometimes called the “second Pearl Harbor” of World War II — was about to unfold.

Twenty-nine of those ships were big landing ship tanks, or LSTs, with bow doors that opened to land troops and equipment. One Navy official described them as “floating ammunition dumps, floating gasoline storage tanks, floating vehicle garages, floating ship repair yards and floating overcrowded hotels.”

Fuel and ammunition were everywhere. At 3:08 p.m., LST-353 exploded, launching red-hot fragments that ignited fuel and ammo on other ships. A day later, six LSTs had sunk. The official casualty count, which still remains in question, stands at 163 men killed and 396 wounded.

On Friday, in memory not of the disaster, but of the working men who gave their lives and of others who picked up the slack immediately after, the Army sailed one of its big logistics support vessels to the spot where the rusting bow of the sunken LST-480 still juts up onto Waipio Peninsula.

Among the men who were detailed to West Loch that day were about 100 soldiers with the 29th Chemical Decontamination Unit assigned to Schofield Barracks, a segregated African-American unit often called upon to do less glamorous jobs.

About a third of the casualties that day came from the 29th.

“People of African descent never gave up — they were there to help our country and to win the war and to give whatever they needed to do, and we can see it right here at Pearl Harbor,” said Deloris Guttman, historian with the African American Diversity Cultural Center Hawaii.

“During World War II, you have to remember the period of time, it was Jim Crow era at that time, and the Navy’s doing a great job to eradicate or to try to kind of erase and kind of make up for what the situation was at that time,” Guttman said.

Guttman added, “It’s OK. It’s a period of time that we’ve come through. We move forward.”

Every branch of the U.S. military lost members that day, but not many even know about the West Loch Disaster. Initially, the military didn’t want the Japanese to hear about the accident. Hawaii was under martial law, and an information clamp-down was put in place. Families were told the dead service members were “missing.”

Despite the fact that Operation Forager was delayed just a day by the losses, the West Loch Disaster ended up being classified as top secret until 1960.

To this day, more study of the accident is needed, Guttman said. Pearl Harbor survivor Ray Emory, who has done extensive research on the Pearl Harbor and West Loch casualties, believes 132 service members were killed that day — 60 from the Army, 33 from the Navy, 38 from the Marine Corps and one Coast Guardsman — and not the 163 more often cited.

The 8th theater Sustainment Command on Friday sailed its 273-foot logistics support vessel the Lt. Gen. William B. Bunker from Hickam to West Loch for the commemoration ceremony. Five service members from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard placed a floral wreath in the channel waters from the lowered stern gate of the vessel as taps was played.

On Sunday, May 21, 1944, the LSTs were being loaded with 3,000 tons of ammunition, said Navy Capt. Mark Manfredi, chief of staff of Navy Region Hawaii. Each of the vessels carried up to 100 55-gallon drums of high-octane aviation gasoline. Some personnel were using gasoline to clean their weapons.

The official inquiry after the chain-reaction fires found that a mortar round exploded on LST-353, but the incident also occurred while munitions handlers were on a smoke break in a no-smoking zone.

In 2001 survivor Bill Montague remembered that “the powers of the explosions were like mini atomic bombs. They could be heard throughout the entire island.” The massive explosion vaporized those on LST-353 and sent bodies flying, Guttman said.

More than half of the 29th Chemical Decontamination Unit soldiers lost their lives that day, said Maj. Gen. Edward F. Dorman III, commander of the 8th Theater Sustainment Command.

It was a tremendous blow, but through the fortitude of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines — all of whom were fighting to save one another — the logistics planning for Operation Forager was able to continue, he said.

“So I think it’s important not only to recognize their sacrifice” and mourn their loss, “but really to celebrate the intestinal fortitude that they had — the courage and bravery that men have,” Dorman added.

Guttman noted the importance of all of the minority effort in the Pacific war — no matter how unglamorous some of the jobs were — including that of Filipinos, Native Americans and Hawaiians who “were all workers and laborers and stevedores, because they were not officers.”

“The thing is, everybody had a pivotal part to play in (the war), including the 29th Chemical Division and all the other workers,” she said.