5. (p. 123)…

5. (p. 123)

A Postwar Search

The nation's military leaders and the leaders of the civil rights movement were in rare accord at the end of World War II. They agreed that despite considerable wartime improvement the racial policies of the services had proved inadequate for the development of the full military potential of the country's largest minority as well as the efficient operation and management of the nation's armed forces. Dissatisfaction with the current policy of the armed forces was a spearpoint of the increasingly militant and powerful civil rights movement, and this dissatisfaction was echoed to a great extent by the services themselves. Intimate association with minority problems had convinced the Army's Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies and the Navy's Special Programs Unit that new policies had to be devised and new directions sought. Confronted with the incessant demands of the civil rights advocates and presented by their own staffs with evidence of trouble, civilian leaders of the services agreed to review the status of the Negro. As the postwar era opened, both the Army and the Navy were beginning the interminable investigations that augured a change in policy.

Unfortunately, the services and the civil rights leaders had somewhat different ends in mind. Concerned chiefly with military efficiency but also accustomed to racial segregation or exclusion, most military leaders insisted on a rigid appraisal of the performance of segregated units in the war and ignored the effects of segregation on that performance. Civil rights advocates, on the other hand, seeing an opportunity to use the military as a vehicle for the extension of social justice, stressed the baneful effects of segregation on the black serviceman's morale. They were inclined to ignore the performance of the large segregated units and took issue with the premise that desegregation of the armed forces in advance of the rest of American society would threaten the efficient execution of the services' military mission. Neither group seemed able to appreciate the other's real concerns, and their contradictory conclusions promised a renewal of the discord in their wartime relationship.

Black Demands

World War II marked the beginning of an important step in the evolution of the civil rights movement. Until then the struggle for racial equality had been sustained chiefly by the "talented tenth," the educated, middle-class black citizens who formed an economic and political alliance with white supporters. Together they fought to (p. 124) improve the racial situation with some success in the courts, but with little progress in the executive branch and still less in the legislative. The efforts of men like W. E. B. DuBois, Walter White, and Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP and Lester Granger of the National Urban League were in the mainstream of the American reform movement, which stressed an orderly petitioning of government for a redress of grievances.

But there was another facet to the American reform tradition, one that stressed mass action and civil disobedience, and the period between the March on Washington Movement in 1940 and the threat of a black boycott of the draft in 1948 witnessed the beginnings of a shift in the civil rights movement to this kind of reform tactic. The articulate leaders of the prewar struggle were still active, and in fact would make their greatest contribution in the fight that led to the Supreme Court's pronouncement on school segregation in 1954. But their quiet methods were already being challenged by A. Philip Randolph and others who launched a sustained demand for equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces during the early postwar period. Randolph and leaders of his persuasion relied not so much on legal eloquence in their representations to the federal government as on an understanding of bloc voting in key districts and the implicit threat of civil disobedience. The civil rights campaign, at least in the effort to end segregation in the armed forces, had the appearance of a mass movement a full decade before a weary Rosa Parks boarded a Montgomery bus and set off the all-embracing crusade of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The growing political power of the Negro and the threat of mass action in the 1940's were important reasons for the breakthrough on the color front that began in the armed forces in the postwar period. For despite the measure of good will and political acumen that characterized his social programs, Harry S. Truman might never have made the effort to achieve racial equality in the services without the constant pressure of civil rights activists.

The reasons for the transformation that was beginning in the civil rights struggle were varied and complex.[5-1] Fundamental was the growing urbanization of the Negro. By 1940 almost half the black population lived in cities. As the labor shortage became more acute during the next five years, movement toward the cities continued, not only in the south but in the north and west. Attracted by economic opportunities in Los Angeles war industries, for example, over 1,000 Negroes moved to that city each month during the war. Detroit, Seattle, and San Francisco, among others, reported similar migrations. The balance finally shifted during the war, and the 1950 census showed that 56 percent of the black population resided in metropolitan (p. 125) areas, 32 percent in cities of the north and west.[5-2]

[Footnote 5-1: This discussion is based in great part on Arnold M. Rose, "The American Negro Problem in the Context of Social Change," _Annals of the Academy of Political Science_ 257 (January 1965):1-17; Rustin, Strategies for Freedom, pp. 26-46; Leonard Broom and Norval Glenn, Transformation of the Negro American (New York: Harper and Row, 1965); St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton, _Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City_ (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1970); John Hope Franklin, _From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro America_, 3d ed. (New York: Knopf, 1967); Woodward's The Strange Career of Jim Crow; Seymour Wolfbein, "Postwar Trends in Negro Employment," a report by the Occupational Outlook Division, Bureau of Labor Statistics, in CMH; Oscar Handlin, "The Goals of Integration," and Kenneth B. Clark, "The Civil Rights Movement: Momentum and Organization," both in Daedalus 95 (Winter 1966).]

[Footnote 5-2: For a discussion of this trend, see Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Social and Economic Conditions of Negroes in the United States" (Current Population Reports P23, October 1967); see also Charles S. Johnson, "The Negro Minority," Annals of the Academy of Political Science 223 (September 1942):10-16.]

This mass migration, especially to cities outside the south, was of profound importance to the future of American race relations. It meant first that the black masses were separating themselves from the archaic social patterns that had ruled their lives for generations. Despite virulent discrimination and prejudice in northern and western cities, Negroes could vote freely and enjoy some protection of the law and law-enforcement machinery. They were free of the burden of Jim Crow. Along with white citizens they were given better schooling, a major factor in improving status. The mass migration also meant that this part of America's peasantry was rapidly joining America's proletariat. The wartime shortage of workers, coupled with the efforts of the Fair Employment Practices Committee and other government agencies, opened up thousands of jobs previously denied black Americans. The number of skilled craftsmen, foremen, and semiskilled workers among black Americans rose from 500,000 to over 1,000,000 during the war, while the number of Negroes working for the federal government increased from 60,000 to 200,000.[5-3]

[Footnote 5-3: Selective Service System, _Special Groups_, vol. I, pp. 177-78; see also Robert C. Weaver, "Negro Labor Since 1929," _The Journal of Negro History_ 35 (January 1950):20-38.]

Though much of the increase in black employment was the result of temporarily expanded wartime industries, black workers gained valuable training and experience that enabled them to compete more effectively for postwar jobs. Employment in unionized industries strengthened their position in the postwar labor movement. The severity of inevitable postwar cuts in black employment was mitigated by continued prosperity and the sustained growth of American industry. Postwar industrial development created thousands of new upper-level jobs, allowing many black workers to continue their economic advance without replacing white workers and without the attendant development of racial tensions.

The armed forces played their part in this change. Along with better food, pay, and living conditions provided by the services, many Negroes were given new work experiences. Along with many of their white fellows, they acquired new skills and a new sophistication that prepared them for the different life of the postwar industrial world. Most important, military service in World War II divorced many Negroes from a society whose traditions had carefully defined their place, and exposed them for the first time to a community where racial equality, although imperfectly realized, was an ideal. Out of this experience many Negroes came to understand that their economic and political position could be changed. Ironically, the services themselves became an early target of this rising self-awareness. The integration of the armed forces, immediate and total, was a popular goal of the newly franchised voting group, which was turning away from leaders of both races who preached a philosophy of gradual change.

The black press was spokesman for the widespread demand for (p. 126) equality in the armed forces; just as the growth of the black press was dramatically stimulated by urbanization of the Negro, so was the civil rights movement stimulated by the press. The Pittsburgh Courier was but one of many black papers and journals that developed a national circulation and featured countless articles on the subject of discrimination in the services. One black sociologist observed that it was "no exaggeration to say that the Negro press was the major influence in mobilizing Negroes in the struggle for their rights during World War II."[5-4] Sometimes inaccurate, often inflammatory, and always to the consternation of the military, the black press rallied the opposition to segregation during and after the war.

[Footnote 5-4: E. Franklin Frazier, _The Negro in the United States_ (New York: Macmillan, 1957), p. 513.]

Much of the black unrest and dissatisfaction dramatized by the press continued to be mobilized through the efforts of such organizations as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Urban League, and the Congress of Racial Equality. The NAACP, for example, revitalized by a new and broadened appeal to the black masses, had some 1,200 branches in forty-three states by 1946 and boasted a membership of more than half a million. While the association continued to fight for minority rights in the courts, to stimulate black political participation, and to improve the conditions of Negroes generally, its most popular activity during the 1940's was its effort to eliminate discrimination in the armed forces. The files of the services and the White House are replete with NAACP complaints, requests, demands, and charges that involved the military departments in innumerable investigations and justifications. If the complaints effected little immediate change in policy, they at least dramatized the plight of black servicemen and mobilized demands for reform.[5-5]

[Footnote 5-5: Clark, "The Civil Rights Movement," pp. 240-47.]

Not all racial unrest was so constructively channeled during the war. Riots and mutinies in the armed services were echoed around the country. In Detroit competition between blacks and whites, many recently arrived from the south seeking jobs, culminated in June 1943 in the most serious riot of the decade. The President was forced to declare a state of emergency and dispatch 6,000 troops to patrol the city. The Detroit riot was only the most noticeable of a number of racial incidents that inevitably provoked an ugly reaction, and the postwar period witnessed an increase in antiblack sentiment and violence in the United States.[5-6] Testifying to the black community's economic and political progress during the war as well as a corresponding increase in white awareness of and protest against the mistreatment of black citizens, this antiblack sentiment was only the pale ghost of a similar phenomenon after World War I.

[Footnote 5-6: _Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, 1 March 1968_, Kerner Report (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1968), pp. 104-05; see also Dalfiume, Desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces, pp. 132-34. For a detailed account of the major riot, see R. Shogan and T. Craig, _The Detroit Race Riot: A Study in Violence_ (New York: Chilton Books, 1964).]

Nevertheless, the sentiment was widespread. Traveling cross-country in a train during Christmastime, 1945, the celebrated American essayist Bernard De Voto was astonished to hear expressions of antiblack (p. 127) sentiment. In Wisconsin, "a state where I think I had never before heard the word 'nigger,' that [dining] car was full of talk about niggers and what had to be done about them."[5-7] A white veteran bore out the observation. "Anti-Negro talk ... is cropping up in many places ... the assumption [being] that there is more prejudice, never less.... Throughout the war the whites were segregated from the Negroes (why not say it this way for a change?) so that there were almost no occasions for white soldiers to get any kind of an impression of Negroes, favorable or otherwise." There had been some race prejudice among servicemen, but, the veteran asked, "What has caused this anti-Negro talk among those who stayed at home?"[5-8] About the same time, a U.S. senator was complaining to the Secretary of War that white and black civilians at Kelly Field, Texas, (p. 128) shared the same cafeterias and other facilities. He hoped the secretary would look into the matter to prevent disturbances that might grow out of a policy of this sort.[5-9]

[Footnote 5-7: Bernard De Voto, "The Easy Chair" Harper's 192 (January 1946):38-39.]

[Footnote 5-8: Ltr, John H. Caldwell (Hartsdale, New York) to the Editor, Harper's 192 (March 1946): unnumbered front pages.]

[Footnote 5-9: Ltr, Sen. W. Lee O'Daniel of Texas to SW, 27 Feb 46, ASW 291.2 (1946).]

Nor did the armed forces escape the rise in racial tension. For example, the War Department received many letters from the public and members of Congress when black officers, nearly the base's entire contingent of four hundred, demonstrated against the segregation of the officers' club at Freeman Field, Indiana, in April 1945. The question at issue was whether a post commander had the authority to exclude individuals on grounds of race from recreational facilities on an Army post. The Army Air Forces supported the post commander and suggested a return to a policy of separate and equal facilities for whites and blacks, primarily because a club for officers was a social center for the entire family. Since it was hardly an accepted custom in the country for the races to intermingle, officials argued, the Army had to follow rather than depart from custom, and, further, the wishes of white officers as well as those of Negroes deserved consideration.[5-10]

[Footnote 5-10: This important incident in the Air Force's racial history has been well documented. See AAF Summary Sheet, 5 May 45, sub: Racial Incidents at Freeman Field and Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, and Memo, Maj Gen H. R. Harmon, ACofS, AAF, for DCofS, 29 May 45, both in WDGAP 291.2. See also Memo, The Inspector General for DCofS, 1 May 45, sub: Investigation at Freeman Field, WDSIG 291.2 Freeman Field, and Memo, Truman Gibson for ASW, 14 May 45, ASW 291.2 NT. For a critical contemporary analysis, see Hq Air Defense Command, "The Training of Negro Combat Units by the First Air Force" (Monograph III, May 1946), vol. 1; ch. III, AFSHRC. The incident is also discussed in Osur, _Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II_, ch. VI, and in Alan L. Gropman's _The Air Force Integrates, 1943-1964_ (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1978). Gropman's work is the major source for the history of Negroes in the postwar Air Force.]

The controversy reached the desk of John McCloy, the Assistant Secretary of War, who considered the position taken by the Army Air Forces a backward step, a reversal of the War Department position in an earlier and similar case at Selfridge Field, Michigan. McCloy's contention prevailed--that the commander's administrative discretion in these matters fell short of authority to exclude individuals from the right to enjoy recreational facilities provided by the federal government or maintained with its funds. Secretary of War Stimson agreed to amend the basic policy to reflect this clarification.[5-11]

[Footnote 5-11: Memo, ASW for SW, 4 Jun 45; Memo, SGS for DCofS, 7 Jun 45, sub: Report of Advisory Committee on Special Troop Policies, both in ASW 291.2 (NT).]

In December 1945 the press reported and the War and Navy Departments investigated an incident at Le Havre, France, where soldiers were embarking for the United States for demobilization. Officers of a Navy escort carrier objected to the inclusion of 123 black enlisted men on the grounds that the ship was unable to provide separate accommodations for Negroes. Army port authorities then substituted another group that included only one black officer and five black enlisted men who were placed aboard over the protests of the ship's officers.[5-12] The Secretary of the Navy had already declared that the Navy did not differentiate between men on account of race, and on (p. 129) 12 December 1945 he reiterated his statement, adding that it applied to members of all the armed forces.[5-13] Demonstrating the frequent gap between policy and practice, Forrestal's order was ignored six months later by port officials when a group of black officers and men was withdrawn from a shipping list at Bremerhaven, Germany, on the grounds that "segregation is a War Department policy."[5-14]

[Footnote 5-12: OPD Summary Sheet to CofS, 2 Apr 46, CS 291.2 Negroes; Memo, WD Bureau of Public Relations for Press, 5 Jan 46; Ltr, Exec to Actg ASW to P. Bernard Young, Jr., Norfolk _Journal and Guide_, 14 Dec 45, ASW 291.2.]

[Footnote 5-13: ALNAV 423-45, 12 Dec 45.]

[Footnote 5-14: Memo, Marcus H. Ray, Civ Aide to SW, for ASW, 11 Jun 46, ASW 291.2 (NT).]

Overt antiblack behavior and social turbulence in the civilian community also reached into the services. In February 1946 Issac Woodard, Jr., who had served in the Army for fifteen months in the Pacific, was ejected from a commercial bus and beaten by civilian police. Sergeant Woodard had recently been discharged from the Army at Camp Gordon, Georgia, and was still in uniform at the time of the brutal attack that blinded him. His case was quickly taken up by the NAACP and became the centerpiece of a national protest.[5-15] Not only did the civil rights spokesmen protest the sadistic blinding, they also charged that the Army was incapable of protecting its own members in the community.

[Footnote 5-15: See Ltr, Walter White, Secy, NAACP, to SW, 6 May 46, and a host of letters in SW 291.2 file. See also copies of NAACP press releases on the subject in CMH files.]

While service responsibility for countering off-base discrimination against servicemen was still highly debatable in 1946, the right of men on a military base to protection was uncontestable. Yet even service practices on military bases were under attack as racial conflicts and threats of violence multiplied. "Dear Mother," one soldier stationed at Sheppard Field, Texas, felt compelled to write in early 1946, "I don't know how long I'll stay whole because when those Whites come over to start [trouble] again I'll be right with the rest of the fellows. Nothing to worry about. Love,..."[5-16] If the soldier's letter revealed continuing racial conflict in the service, it also testified to a growing racial unity among black servicemen that paralleled the trend in the black community. When Negroes could resolve with a new self-consciousness to "be right with the rest of the fellows," their cause was immeasurably strengthened and their goals brought appreciably nearer.

[Footnote 5-16: Ltr, 28 Feb 46, copy in SW 291.2.]

Civil rights spokesmen had several points to make regarding the use of Negroes in the postwar armed forces. Referring to the fact that World War II began with Negroes fighting for the right to fight, they demanded that the services guarantee a fair representation of Negroes in the postwar forces. Furthermore, to avoid the frustration suffered by Negroes trained for combat and then converted into service troops, they demanded that Negroes be trained and employed in all military specialties. They particularly stressed the correlation between poor leaders and poor units. The services' command practices, they charged, had frequently led to the appointment of the wrong men, either black or white, to command black units. Their principal solution was to provide for the promotion and proper employment of a proportionate share of competent black officers and noncommissioned officers. Above all, they pointed to the humiliations black soldiers suffered in (p. 130) the community outside the limits of the base.[5-17] One particularly telling example of such discrimination that circulated in the black press in 1945 described German prisoners of war being fed in a railroad restaurant while their black Army guards were forced to eat outside. But such discrimination toward black servicemen was hardly unique, and the civil rights advocates were quick to point to the connection between such practices and low morale and performance. For them there was but one answer to such discrimination: all men must be treated as individuals and guaranteed equal treatment and opportunity in the services. In a word, the armed forces must integrate. They pointed with pride to the success of those black soldiers who served in integrated units in the last months of the European war, and they repeatedly urged the complete abolition of segregation in the peacetime Army and Navy.[5-18]

[Footnote 5-17: For a summary of these views, see Warman Welliver, "Report on the Negro Soldier," Harper's 192 (April 1946):333-38 and back pages.]

[Footnote 5-18: Murray, Negro Handbook, 1946-1947, pp. 369-70.]

When an executive of the National Urban League summed up these demands for President Truman at the end of the war, he clearly indicated that the changes in military policy that had brought about the gradual improvement in the lot of black servicemen during the war were now beside the point.[5-19] The military might try to ignore this fact for a little while longer; a politically sensitive President was not about to make such an error.

[Footnote 5-19: Ltr, Exec Secy, National Urban League, to President Truman, 27 Aug 45, copy in Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

The Army's Grand Review

In the midst of this intensifying sentiment for integration, in fact a full year before the war ended, the Army began to search for a new racial policy. The invasion of Normandy and the extraordinary advance to Paris during the summer of 1944 had led many to believe that the war in Europe would soon be over, perhaps by fall. As the Allied leaders at the Quebec Conference in September discussed arrangements to be imposed on a defeated Germany, American officials in Washington began to consider plans for the postwar period. Among them was Assistant Secretary of War McCloy. Dissatisfied with the manner in which the Army was using black troops, McCloy believed it was time to start planning how best to employ them in the postwar Army, which (p. 131) according to current assumptions, would be small and professional and would depend upon a citizen reserve to augment it in an emergency.

McCloy concluded that despite a host of prewar studies by the General Staff, the Army War College, and other military agencies, the Army was unprepared during World War II to deal with and make the most efficient use of the large numbers of Negroes furnished by Selective Service. Policies for training and employing black troops had developed in response to specific problems rather than in accordance with a well thought out and comprehensive plan. Because of "inadequate preparation prior to the period of sudden expansion," McCloy believed a great many sources of racial irritation persisted. To develop a "definite, workable policy, for the inclusion and utilization in the Army of minority racial groups" before postwar planning crystallized and solidified, McCloy suggested to his assistants that the War Department General Staff review existing practices and experiences at home and abroad and recommend changes.[5-20]

[Footnote 5-20: Memos, McCloy for Advisory Committee on Special Troop Policies, 31 Jul and 1 Sep 44, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Post-War Military Establishment; Memo, ASW for SW, 10 Jan 45, same sub, all in ASW 291.2 (NT).]

The Chief of Staff, General Marshall, continued to insist that the Army's racial problem was but part of a larger national problem and, as McCloy later recalled, had no strong views on a solution.[5-21] Whatever his personal feelings, Marshall, like most Army staff officers, always emphasized efficiency and performance to the exclusion of social concerns. While he believed that the limited scope of the experiment with integrated platoons toward the end of the war in Europe made the results inconclusive, Marshall still wanted the platoons' performance considered in the general staff study.[5-22]

[Footnote 5-21: Ltr, John J. McCloy to author, 18 Sep 69, CMH files.]

[Footnote 5-22: Memo, CofS for McCloy, 25 Aug 45, WDCSA 291.2 Negroes (25 Aug 45).]

The idea of a staff study on the postwar use of black troops also found favor with Secretary Stimson, and a series of conferences and informal discussions on the best way to go about it took place in the highest echelons of the Army during the early months of 1945. The upshot was a decision to ask the senior commanders at home and overseas for their comments. How did they train and use their black troops? What irritations, frictions, and disorders arising from racial conflicts had hampered their operations? What were their (p. 132) recommendations on how best to use black troops after the war? Two weeks after the war ended in Europe, a letter with an attached questionnaire was sent to senior commanders.[5-23] The questionnaire asked for such information as: "To what extent have you maintained segregation beyond the actual unit level, and what is your recommendation on this subject? If you have employed Negro platoons in the same company with white platoons, what is your opinion of the practicability of this arrangement?"

[Footnote 5-23: Ltr, TAG to CinC, Southwest Pacific Area, et al., 23 May 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in Post-War Military Establishment, AG 291.2 (23 May 45). On the high-level discussions, see Memo, Maj Gen W. F. Tompkins, Dir, Special Planning Div, for ACofS, G-1, and Personnel Officers of the Air, Ground, and Service Forces, 24 Feb 45, same sub; DF, G-1, WDGS (Col O. G. Haywood, Exec), 8 Mar 45, same sub; Memo, Col G. E. Textor, Dep Dir, WDSSP, for ACofS, G-1, 10 Mar 45, same sub; Memo for the File (Col Lawrence Westbrook), 16 Mar 45; Memo, Maj Bell I. Wiley for Col Mathews, 18 Apr 45, all in AG 291.2.]

Not everyone agreed that the questionnaire was the best way to review the performance of Negroes in World War II. Truman Gibson, for one, doubted the value of soliciting information from senior commanders, feeling that these officers would offer much subjective material of little real assistance. Referring to the letter to the major senior commanders, he said:

Mere injunctions of objectivity do not work in the racial field where more often than not decisions are made on a basis of emotion, prejudice or pre-existing opinion.... Much of the difficulty in the Army has arisen from improper racial attitudes on both sides. Indeed, the Army's basic policy of segregation is said to be based principally on the individual attitudes and desires of the soldiers.

But who knew what soldiers' attitudes were? Why not, he suggested, make some scientific inquiries? Why not try to determine, for example, how far public opinion and pressure would permit the Army to go in developing policies for black troops?[5-24]

[Footnote 5-24: Memo, Gibson for ASW, 30 May 45, ASW 291.2 (NT).]

Gibson had become, perforce, an expert on public opinion. During the last several months he had suffered the slings and arrows of an outraged black press for his widely publicized analysis of the performance of black troops. Visiting black units and commanders in the Mediterranean and European theaters to observe, in McCloy's words, "the performance of Negro troops, their attitudes, and the attitudes of their officers toward them,"[5-25] Gibson had arrived in Italy at the end of February 1945 to find theater officials concerned over the poor combat record of the 92d Infantry Division, the only black division in the theater and one of three activated by the War Department. After a series of discussions with senior commanders and a visit to the division, Gibson participated in a press conference in Rome during which he spoke candidly of the problems of the division's infantry units.[5-26] Subsequent news reports of the conference stressed Gibson's confirmation of the division's disappointing performance, but neglected the reasons he advanced to explain its failure. The reports earned a swift and angry retort from the black community. Many (p. 133) organizations and journals condemned Gibson's evaluation of the 92d outright. Some seemed less concerned with the possible accuracy of his statement than with the effects it might have on the development of future military policy. The NAACP's Crisis, for example, charged that Gibson had "carried the ball for the War Department," and that "probably no more unfortunate words, affecting the representatives of the entire race, were ever spoken by a Negro in a key position in such a critical hour. We seem destined to bear the burden of Mr. Gibson's Rome adventure for many years to come."[5-27]

[Footnote 5-25: Ltr, Gibson to Gen John C. H. Lee, CG, ComZ, ETOUSA, 31 Mar 45, ASW 291.2 (NT).]

[Footnote 5-26: Memo, Truman Gibson for Maj Gen O. L. Nelson, 12 Mar 45, sub: Report on Visit to 92d Division (Negro Troops), ASW 291.2.]

[Footnote 5-27: "Negro Soldier Betrayed," Crisis 52 (April 1945):97; "Gibson Echo," ibid. (July 1945):193.]

Other black journals took a more detached view of the situation, asserting that Gibson's remarks revealed nothing new and that the problem was segregation, of which the 92d was a notable victim. Gibson took this tack in his own defense, pointing to the irony of a situation in which "some people can, on the one hand, argue that segregation is wrong, and on the other ... blindly defend the product of that segregation."[5-28]

[Footnote 5-28: Washington Afro-American, April 15, 1945, quoted in Lee, Employment of Negro Troops, p. 579. For details of the Gibson controversy, see Lee, pp. 575-79.]

Gibson had defenders in the Army whose comments might well apply to all the large black units in the war. At one extreme stood the Allied commander in Italy, General Mark W. Clark, who attributed the 92d's shortcomings to "our handling of minority problems at home." Most of all, General Clark thought, black soldiers needed the incentive of feeling that they were fighting for home and country as equals. But his conclusion--"only the proper environment in his own country can provide such an incentive"--neatly played down Army responsibility for the division's problems.[5-29]

[Footnote 5-29: Mark W. Clark, A Calculated Risk (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), pp. 414-15.]

Another officer, who as commander of a divisional artillery unit was intimately acquainted with the division's shortcomings, delineated an entirely different set of causes. The division was doomed to mediocrity and worse, Lt. Col. Marcus H. Ray concluded, from the moment of its activation. Undercurrents of racial antipathy as well as distrust and prejudice, he believed, infected the organization from the outset and created an unhealthy beginning. The practice of withholding promotion from deserving black officers along with preferential assignments for white officers prolonged the malady. The basic misconception was that southern white officers understood Negroes; under such officers Negroes who conformed with the southern stereotype were promoted regardless of their abilities, while those who exhibited self-reliance and self-respect--necessary attributes of leadership--were humiliated and discouraged for their uppityness. "I was astounded," he said, "by the willingness of the white officers who preceded us to place their own lives in a hazardous position in order to have tractable Negroes around them."[5-30] In short, the men of the 92d who fought and died bravely should be honored, but their unit, which on balance did not perform well, should be considered a (p. 134) failure of white leadership.

[Footnote 5-30: Ltr, Ray to Gibson, 14 May 45, WDGAP 291.2. Ray later succeeded Gibson as Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War.]

Lt. Gen. Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., then Fifth Army commander in Italy, disagreed. Submitting the proceedings of a board of review that had investigated the effectiveness of black officers and enlisted men in the 92d Division, he was sympathetic to the frustrations encountered by the division commander, Maj. Gen. Edward M. Almond. "In justice to those splendid officers"--a reference to the white senior commanders and staff members of the division--"who have devoted themselves without stint in an endeavor to produce a combat division with Negro personnel and who have approached this problem without prejudice," Truscott endorsed the board's hard view that many infantrymen in the division "would not fight."[5-31] This conclusion was in direct conflict with the widely held and respected truism that competent leadership solved all problems, from which it followed that the answer to the problem of Negroes in combat was command. Good commanders prevented friction, performed their mission effectively, and achieved success no matter what the obstacles--a view put forth in a typical report from World War II that "the efficiency of Negro units depends entirely on the leadership of officers and NCO's."[5-32]

[Footnote 5-31: 1st Ind, Hq Fifth Army (signed L. K. Truscott, Jr.), 30 Jul 45, to Proceedings and Board of Review, 92d Inf Div, Fifth Army files.]

[Footnote 5-32: WD file 291.2 (Negro Troop Policy), 1943-1945, is full of statements to this effect. The quote is from 2d Ind, Hq USASTAF, 26 Jul 45, attached to AAF Summary Sheets to CofS, 17 Sep 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Post-War Military Establishment, AG 291.2 (23 May 45).]

In fact, General Truscott's analysis of the 92d Division's problems seemed at variance with his analysis of command problems in other units, as illustrated by his later attention to problems in the all-white 34th Infantry Division.[5-33] The habit of viewing unit problems as command problems was also demonstrated by General Jacob L. Devers, who was deputy Allied commander in the Mediterranean when the 92d arrived in Italy. Reflecting later upon the 92d Division, General Devers agreed that its engineer and armor unit performed well, but the infantry did not "because their commanders weren't good enough."[5-34]

[Footnote 5-33: L. K. Truscott, Jr., _Command Missions: A Personal Story_ (New York: Dutton, 1959), see pages 461-62 and 471-72 for comparison of Truscott's critical analysis of problems of the 34th and 92d Infantry Divisions.]

[Footnote 5-34: Interv, author with General Jacob Devers, 30 Mar 71, CMH files.]

Years later General Almond, the division's commander, was to claim (p. 135) that the 92d Division had done "many things well and some things poorly." It fought in extremely rugged terrain against a determined enemy over an exceptionally broad front. The division's artillery as well as its technical and administrative units performed well. Negroes also excelled in intelligence work and in dealing with the Italian partisans. On the other hand, General Almond reported, infantry elements were unable to close with the enemy and destroy him. Rifle squads, platoons, and companies tended "to melt away" when confronted by determined opposition. Almond blamed this on "a lack of dedication to purpose, pride of accomplishment and devotion to duty and teammates by the majority of black riflemen assigned to Infantry Units."[5-35]

[Footnote 5-35: Ltr, Lt Gen Edward M. Almond to Brig Gen James L. Collins, Jr., 1 Apr 72, CMH files. General Almond's views are thoroughly explored in Paul Goodman, A Fragment of Victory (Army War College, 1952). For an objective and detailed treatment of the 92d Division, see Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, Chapter XIX, and Ernest F. Fisher, Jr., Cassino to the Alps, United States Army in World War II (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1977), Chapter XXIII.]

Similar judgments were expressed concerning the combat capability of the other major black unit, the 93d Infantry Division.[5-36] When elements of the 93d, the 25th Regimental Combat Team in particular, participated in the Bougainville campaign in the Solomon Islands, their performance was the subject of constant scrutiny by order of the Chief of Staff.[5-37] The combat record of the 25th included enough examples of command and individual failure to reinforce the War Department's decision in mid-1944 to use the individual units of the division in security, laboring, and training duties in quiet areas of the theater, leaving combat to more seasoned units.[5-38] During the last year of the war the 93d performed missions that were essential but not typical for combat divisions.

[Footnote 5-36: A third black division, the 2d Cavalry, never saw combat because it was disbanded upon arrival in the Mediterranean theater.]

[Footnote 5-37: Rad, Marshall to Lt Gen Millard Harmon, CG, USAFISPA, 18 Mar 44, CM-OUT 7514 (18 Mar 44).]

[Footnote 5-38: Lee, Employment of Negro Troops, pp. 498-517. Lee discusses here the record of the 93d Infantry Division and War Department decisions concerning its use.]

Analyses of the division's performance ran along familiar lines. The XIV Corps commander, under whom the division served, rated the performance of the 25th Regimental Combat Team infantry as fair and artillery as good, but found the unit, at least those parts commanded by black officers, lacking in initiative, inadequately trained, and poorly disciplined. Other reports tended to agree. All of them, along with reports on the 24th Infantry, another black unit serving in the area, were assembled in Washington for Assistant Secretary McCloy. While he admitted important limitations in the performance of the units, McCloy nevertheless remained encouraged. Not so the Secretary of War. "I do not believe," he told McCloy, "they can be turned into really effective combat troops without all officers being white."[5-39]

[Footnote 5-39: The above digested reports and quotations are from Lee, Employment of Negro Troops, pp. 513-17.]

Black officers of the 93d, however, entertained a different view. They generally cited command and staff inefficiencies as the major cause of the division's discipline and morale problems. One respondent, a company commander in the 25th Infantry, singled out the "continuous (p. 136) dissension and suspicion characterizing the relations between white and colored officers of the division." All tended to stress what they considered inadequate jungle training, and, like many white observers, they all agreed the combat period was too brief to demonstrate the division's developing ability.[5-40]

[Footnote 5-40: USAFFE Board Reports No. 185, 20 Jan 45, and 221, 25 Feb 45, sub: Information on Colored Troops. These reports were prepared at the behest of the commanding general of the Army Ground Forces during the preparation of Bell I. Wiley's The Training of Negro Troops (AGF Study No. 36, 1946). The quotation is from Exhibit K of USAFFE Board Report No. 221.]

Despite the performance of some individuals and units praised by all, the combat performance of the 92d and 93d Infantry Divisions was generally considered less than satisfactory by most observers. A much smaller group of commentators, mostly black journalists, never accepted the prevailing view. Pointing to the decorations and honors received by individuals in the two divisions, they charged that the adverse reports were untrue, reflections of the prejudices of white officers. Such an assertion presupposed that hundreds of officers and War Department officials were so consumed with prejudice that they falsified the record. And the argument from decorations, as one expert later pointed out, faltered once it was understood that the 92d (p. 137) and 93d Infantry Divisions combined a relatively high number of decorations with relatively few casualties.[5-41]

[Footnote 5-41: E. W. Kenworthy, "The Case Against Army Segregation," Annals of the American Academy of Political Science 275 (May 1952):28-29. A low decoration to casualty ratio is traditionally used as one measure of good unit performance. However, so many different unit attitudes and standards for decorations existed during World War II that any argument over ratios can only be self-defeating no matter what the approach.]

Actually, there was little doubt that the performance of the black divisions in World War II was generally unacceptable. Beyond that common conclusion, opinions diverged widely. Commanders tended to blame undisciplined troops and lack of initiative and control by black officers and noncommissioned officers as the primary cause of the difficulty. Others, particularly black observers, cited the white officers and their lack of racial sensitivity. In fact, as Ulysses Lee points out with careful documentation, all these factors were involved, but the underlying problem usually overlooked by observers was segregation. Large, all-black combat units submerged able soldiers in a sea of men with low aptitude and inadequate training. Segregation also created special psychological problems for junior black officers. Carefully assigned so that they never commanded white officers or men, they were often derided by white officers whose attitudes were quickly sensed by the men to the detriment of good discipline. Segregation was also a factor in the rapid transfer of men in and out of the divisions, thus negating the possible benefits of lengthy training. Furthermore, the divisions were natural repositories for many dissatisfied or inadequate white officers, who introduced a host of other problems.

Truman Gibson was quick to point out how segregation had intensified the problem of turning civilians into soldiers and groups into units. The "dissimilarity in the learning profiles" between black and white soldiers as reflected in their AGCT scores was, he explained to McCloy, primarily a result of inferior black schooling, yet its practical effect on the Army was to burden it with several large units of inferior combat ability (Table 2). In addition to the fact that large black units had a preponderance of slow learners, Gibson emphasized that nearly all black soldiers were trained near "exceedingly hostile" communities. This hostile atmosphere, he believed, had played a decisive role in their adjustment to Army life and adversely affected individual motivation. Gibson also charged the Army with promoting some black officers who lacked leadership qualifications and whose performance, consequently, was under par. He recommended a single measure of performance for officers and a single system for promotion, even if this system reduced promotions for black officers. Promotions on any basis other than merit, he concluded, deprived the Army of the best leadership and inflicted weak commanders on black units.

Table 2--AGCT Percentages in Selected World War II Divisions

Unit I II III IV V Total (130 +) (110-120) (90-109) (60-89) (0-59)

11th Armored Division....... 3.0 23.8 33.8 33.1 6.3 100 35th Infantry Division....... 3.3 27.0 34.2 28.0 7.5 100 92d Infantry Division (Negro) 0.4 5.2 11.8 43.5 39.1 100 93d Infantry Division (Negro) 0.1 3.5 13.0 38.4 45.0 100 100th Infantry Division........ 3.6 27.1 34.1 29.1 6.1 100

Source: Tables submitted by The Adjutant General to the Gillem Board, 1945.

Gibson was not trying to magnify the efficiency of segregated (p. 138) units. He made a special effort to compare the performance of the 92d Division with that of the integrated black platoons in Germany because such a comparison would demonstrate, he believed, that the Army's segregation policy was in need of critical reexamination. He cited "many officers" who believed that the problems connected with large segregated combat units justified their abolition in favor of the integration of black platoons into larger white units. Although such unit integration would not abolish segregation completely, Gibson concluded, it would permit the Army to use men and small units on the basis of ability alone.[5-42]

[Footnote 5-42: Memo, Gibson for ASW, 23 Apr 45, sub: Report of Visit to MTO and ETO, ASW 291.2 (NT); see also Interv, Bell I. Wiley with Truman K. Gibson, Civilian Aide to Secretary of War, 30 May 45, CMH files.]

The flexibility Gibson detected among many Army officers was not apparent in the answers to the McCloy questionnaire that flowed into the War Department during the summer and fall of 1945. With few exceptions, the senior officers queried expressed uniform reactions. They reiterated a story of frustration and difficulty in training and employing black units, characterized black soldiers as unreliable and inefficient, and criticized the performance of black officers and noncommissioned officers. They were particularly concerned with racial disturbances, which, they believed, were not only the work of racial agitators but also the result of poor morale and a sense of discrimination among black troops. Yet they wanted to retain segregation, albeit in units of smaller size, and they wanted to depend, for the most part, on white officers to command these black units. Concerned with performance, pragmatic rather than reflective in their habits, the commanders showed little interest in or understanding of the factors responsible for the conditions of which they complained. Many believed that segregation actually enhanced black pride.[5-43]

[Footnote 5-43: Eventually over thirty-five commands responded to the McCloy questionnaire. For examples of the attitudes mentioned above, see Ltr, HQ, U.S. Forces, European Theater (Main) to TAG, 1 Oct 45, sub: Study of Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar Establishment; Ltr, HQ, U.S. Forces, India, Burma Theater, to TAG, 28 Aug 45, same sub; Ltr, GHQ USARPAC to TAG, 3 Sep 45, same sub. All in AG 291.2 (23 May 45). Some of these and many others are also located in WDSSP 291.2 (1945).]

These responses were summarized by the commanding generals of the major force commands at the request of the War Department's Special Planning Division.[5-44] For example, the study prepared by the Army Service Forces, which had employed a high proportion of black troops in its technical services during the war, passed on the recommendations made by these far-flung commands and touched incidentally on several of the points raised by Gibson.[5-45] Like Gibson, the Army Service Forces recommended that Negroes of little (p. 139) or no education be denied induction or enlistment and that no deviation from normal standards for the sake of maintaining racial quotas in the officer corps be tolerated. The Army Service Forces also wanted Negroes employed in all major forces, participating proportionately in all phases of the Army's mission, including overseas and combat assignments, but not in every occupation. For the Army Service Forces had decided that Negroes performed best as truck drivers, ammunition handlers, stevedores, cooks, bakers, and the like and should be trained in these specialties rather than more highly skilled jobs such as armorer or machinist. Even in the occupations they were best suited to, Negroes should be given from a third more to twice as much training as whites, and black units should have 25 to 50 percent more officers than white units. At the same time, the Army Service Forces wanted to retain segregated units, although it recommended limiting black service units to company size. Stating in conclusion that it sought only "to insure the most efficient training and utilization of Negro manpower" and would ignore the question of racial equality or the "wisdom of segregation in the social sense," the Army Service Forces overlooked the possibility that the former could not be attained without consideration of the latter.

[Footnote 5-44: Memo, Dir, WDSSP, for CG's, ASF et al., 23 May 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar Military Establishment, AG 291.2 (23 May 45).]

[Footnote 5-45: Memo, CofS, ASF, for Dir, Special Planning Division, WDSS, 1 Oct 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2 (2 Oct 45). On the use of Negroes in the Signal Corps, see the following volumes in the United States Army in World War II series: Dulany Terrett, _The Signal Corps: The Emergency_ (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1956); George Raynor Thompson et al., The Signal Corps: The Test (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1957); George Raynor Thompson and Dixie R. Harris, _The Signal Corps: The Outcome_ (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966).]

The Army Ground Forces, which trained black units for all major branches of the field forces, also wanted to retain black units, but its report concluded that these units could be of battalion size. The organization of black soldiers in division-size units, it claimed, only complicated the problem of training because of the difficulty in developing the qualified black technicians, noncommissioned officers, and field grade officers necessary for such large units and finding training locations as well as assignment areas with sufficient off-base recreational facilities for large groups of black soldiers. The Army Ground Forces considered the problem of finding and training field grade officers particularly acute since black units employing black officers, at least in the case of infantry, had proved ineffective. Yet white officers put in command of black troops felt they were being punished, and their presence added to the frustration of the blacks.

The Army Ground Forces was also particularly concerned with racial disturbances, which, it believed, stemmed from conflicting white and black concepts of the Negro's place in the social pattern. The Army Ground Forces saw no military solution for a problem that transcended the contemporary national emergency, and its conclusion--that the solution lay in society at large and not primarily in the armed forces--had the effect, whether or not so intended, of neatly exonerating the Army. In fact, the detailed conclusions and recommendations of the Army Ground Forces were remarkably similar to those of the Army Service Forces, but the Ground Forces study, more than any other, was shot full with blatant racism. The study quoted a 1925 War College study to the effect that the black officer was (p. 140) "still a Negro with all the faults and weaknesses of character inherent in the Negro race." It also discussed the "average Negro" and his "inherent characteristics" at great length, dwelling on his supposed inferior mentality and weakness of character, and raising other racial shibboleths. Burdened with these prejudices, the Army Ground Forces study concluded

that the conception that negroes should serve in the military forces, or in particular parts of the military forces, or sustain battle losses in proportion to their population in the United States, may be desirable but is impracticable and should be abandoned in the interest of a logical solution to the problem of the utilization of negroes in the armed forces.[5-46]

[Footnote 5-46: Memo, Ground AG, AGF, for CofSA, 28 Nov 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar Military Establishment, with Incl, WDSSP 291.2 (27 Dec 45).]

The Army Air Forces, another large employer of black servicemen, reported a slightly different World War II experience. Conforming with departmental policies on utilizing black soldiers, it had selected Negroes for special training on the same basis as whites with the exception of aviation cadets. Negroes with a lower stanine (aptitude) had been accepted in order to secure enough candidates to meet the quota for pilots, navigators, and bombardiers in the black units. In its preliminary report to the War Department on the employment of Negroes, the Army Air Forces admitted that individuals of both races with similar aptitudes and test scores had the same success in technical schools, could be trained as pilots and technicians in the same period of time, and showed the same degree of mechanical proficiency. Black units, on the other hand, required considerably more time in training than white units, sometimes simply because they were understrength and their performance was less effective. At the same time the Air Forces admitted that even after discounting the usual factors, such as time in service and job assignment, whites advanced further than blacks. No explanation was offered. Nevertheless, the commanding general of the Air Forces reported very little racial disorder or conflict overseas. There had been a considerable amount in the United States, however; many Air Forces commanders ascribed this to the unwillingness of northern Negroes to accept southern laws or social customs, the insistence of black officers on integrated officers' clubs, and the feeling among black fliers that command had been made an exclusive prerogative of white officers rather than a matter depending on demonstrated qualification.

In contrast to the others, the Army Air Forces revealed a marked change in sentiment over the post-World War I studies of black troops. No more were there references to congenital inferiority or inherent weaknesses, but everywhere a willingness to admit that Negroes had been held back by the white majority.

The commanding general of the Army Air Forces recommended Negroes be apportioned among the three major forces--the Army Ground Forces, the Army Service Forces, and the Army Air Forces--but that their numbers in no case exceed 10 percent of any command; that black servicemen be trained exactly as whites; and that Negroes be segregated in units (p. 141) not to exceed air group size. Unlike the others, the Army Air Forces wanted black units to have black commanders as far as possible and recommended that the degree of segregation in messing, recreation, and social activities conform to the custom of the surrounding community. It wanted Negroes assigned overseas in the same proportion as whites, and in the United States, to the extent practicable, only to those areas considered favorable to their welfare. Finally, the Air Forces wanted Negroes to be neither favored nor discriminated against in disciplinary matters.[5-47]

[Footnote 5-47: Memo, CG, AAF, for CofSA, 17 Sep 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2 (1945). For the final report of 2 Oct 45, which summed up the previous recommendations, see Summary Sheet, AC/AS-1 for Maj Gen C. C. Chauncey, DCofAS, 2 Oct 45, same sub and file.]

Among the responses of the subordinate commands were some exceptions to the generalizations found in those of the major forces. One commander, for example, while concluding that segregation was desirable, admitted that it was one of the basic causes of the Army's racial troubles and would have to be dealt with "one way or the other."[5-48] Another recommended dispersing black troops, one or two in a squad, throughout all-white combat units.[5-49] Still another pointed out that the performance of black officers and noncommissioned officers in terms of resourcefulness, aggressiveness, sense of responsibility, and ability to make decisions was comparable to the performance of white soldiers when conditions of service were nearly equal. But the Army failed to understand this truth, the commander of the 1st Service Command charged, and its separate and unequal treatment discriminated in a way that would affect the efficiency of any man. The performance of black troops, he concluded, depended on how severely the community near a post differentiated between the black and white soldier and how well the Negro's commander demonstrated the fairness essential to authority. The Army admitted that black units needed superior leadership, but, he added, it misunderstood what this leadership entailed. All too often commanders of black units acted under the belief that their men were different and needed special treatment, thus clearly suggesting racial inferiority. The Army, he concluded, should learn from its wartime experience the deleterious effect of segregation on motivation and ultimately on performance.[5-50]

[Footnote 5-48: Ltr, OCSigO (Col David E. Washburn, Exec Off) to WDSSP, 31 Jul 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2 (1945).]

[Footnote 5-49: Ltr, Maj Gen James L. Collins, CG, Fifth Service Cmd, to CG, ASF, 24 Jul 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2.]

[Footnote 5-50: Memo, CG, First Service Cmd, for CG, ASF, 23 Jul 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2 (1945).]

Truman Gibson took much the same approach when he summed up for McCloy his estimate of the situation facing the Army. After rehearsing the recent history of segregation in the armed forces, he suggested that it was not enough to compare the performance of black and white troops; the reports of black performance should be examined to determine whether the performance would be improved or impaired by changing the policy of segregation. Any major Army review, he urged, should avoid the failure of the old studies on race that based (p. 142) differences in performance on racial characteristics and should question instead the efficiency of segregation. For him, segregation was the heart of the matter, and he counseled that "future policy should be predicated on an assumption that civilian attitudes will not remain static. The basic policy of the Army should, therefore, not itself be static and restrictive, but should be so framed as to make further progress possible on a flexible basis."[5-51]

[Footnote 5-51: Memo, Truman Gibson for ASW, 8 Aug 45, ASW 291.2.]

Before passing Gibson's suggestions to the Assistant Secretary of War, McCloy's executive assistant, Lt. Col. Davidson Sommers, added some ideas of his own. Since it was "pretty well recognized," he wrote, that the Army had not found the answer to the efficient use of black manpower, a first-class officer or group of officers of high rank, supplemented perhaps with a racially mixed group of civilians, should be designated to prepare a new racial policy. But, he warned, their work would be ineffectual without specific directions from Army leaders. He wanted the Army to make "eventual nonsegregation" its goal. Complete integration, Sommers felt, was impossible to achieve at once. Classification test scores alone refuted the claim that "Negroes in general make as good soldiers as whites." But he thought there was no need "to resort to racial theories to explain the difference," for the lack of educational, occupational, and social opportunities was sufficient.[5-52]

[Footnote 5-52: Memo, Exec Off, ASW, for McCloy, 28 Aug 45, ASW 291.2 (NT).]

Sommers had, in effect, adopted Gibson's gradualist approach to the problem, suggesting an inquiry to determine "the areas in which nonsegregation can be attempted first and the methods by which it can be introduced ... instead of merely generalizing, as in the past, on the disappointing and not very relevant experiences with large segregated units." He foresaw difficulties: a certain amount of social friction and perhaps a considerable amount of what he called "professional Negro agitation" because Negroes competing with whites would probably not achieve comparable ranks or positions immediately. But Sommers saw no cause for alarm. "We shall be on firm ground," he concluded, "and will be able to defend our actions by relying on the unassailable position that we are using men in accordance with their ability."

Competing with these calls for gradual desegregation was the Army's growing concern with securing some form of universal military training. Congress would discuss the issue during the summer and fall of 1945, and one of the questions almost certain to arise in the congressional hearings was the place contemplated for Negroes. Would the Army use Negroes in combat units? Would the Army train and use Negroes in units together with whites? Upon the answers to these questions hinged the votes of most, if not all, southern congressmen. Prudence dictated that the Army avoid any innovations that might jeopardize the chance for universal military training. In other words, went the prevalent view, what was good for the Army--and universal military training was in that category--had to come before all else.[5-53]

[Footnote 5-53: Memos, Col Frederick S. Skinner for Dir, Special Planning Div, WDSS, 25 May and 2 Jun 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2 (1945).]

Even among officers troubled by the contradictory aspects of an (p. 143) issue clouded by morality, many felt impelled to give their prime allegiance to the Army as it was then constituted. The Army's impressive achievement during the war, they reasoned, argued for its continuation in conformance with current precepts, particularly in a world still full of hostilities. The stability of the Army came first; changes would have to be made slowly, without risking the menace of disruption. An attempt to mix the races in the Army seemed to most officers a dangerous move bordering on irresponsibility. Furthermore, the majority of Army officers, dedicated to the traditions of the service, saw the Army as a social as well as a military institution. It was a way of life that embraced families, wives and children. The old manners and practices were comfortable because they were well known and understood, had produced victory, and had represented a life that was somewhat isolated and insulated--particularly in the field--from the currents and pressures of national life. Why then should the old patterns be modified; why exchange comfort for possible chaos? Why should the Army admit large numbers of Negroes; what had Negroes contributed to winning World War II; what could they possibly contribute to the postwar Army?

Although opinion among Army officials on the future role of Negroes in the Army was diverse and frankly questioning in tone, opinion on the past performance of black units was not. Commanders tended to agree that with certain exceptions, particularly small service and combat support units, black units performed below the Army average during the war and considerably below the best white units. The commanders also generally agreed that black units should be made more efficient and usually recommended they be reduced in size and filled with better qualified men. Most civil rights spokesmen and their allies in the Army, on the other hand, viewed segregation as the underlying cause of poor performance. How, then, could the conflicting advice be channeled into construction of an acceptable postwar racial policy? The task was clearly beyond the powers of the War Department's Special Planning Division, and in September 1945 McCloy adopted the recommendation of Sommers and Gibson and urged the Secretary of War to turn over this crucial matter to a board of general officers. Out of this board's deliberations, influenced in great measure by opinions previously expressed, would emerge the long-awaited revision of the Army's policy for its black minority.

The Navy's Informal Inspection

In contrast to the elaborate investigation conducted by the Army, the Navy's search for a policy consisted mainly of an informal intradepartmental review and an inspection of its black units by a civilian representative of the Secretary of the Navy. In general this contrast may be explained by the difference in the services' postwar problems. The Army was planning for the enlistment of a large cross section of the population through some form of universal military training; the Navy was planning for a much smaller peacetime organization of technically trained volunteers. Moreover, the Army wanted to review the performance of its many black combat units, (p. 144) whereas the naval establishment, which had excluded most of its Negroes from combat, had little to gain from measuring their wartime performance.

The character and methods of the Secretary of the Navy had an important bearing on policy. Forrestal believed he had won the senior officers to his view of equal treatment and opportunity, and to be assured of success he wanted to convince lower commanders and the ranks as well. He wrote in July 1945: "We are making every effort to give more than lip service to the principles of democracy in the treatment of the Negro and we are trying to do it with the minimum of commotion.... We would rather await the practical demonstration of the success of our efforts.... There is still a long road to travel but I am confident we have made a start."[5-54]

[Footnote 5-54: Ltr, Forrestal to Field, 14 Jul 45, 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

Forrestal's wish for a racially democratic Navy did not noticeably conflict with the traditionalists' plan for a small, technically elite force, so while the Army launched a worldwide quest in anticipation of an orthodox policy review, the Navy started an informal investigation designed primarily to win support for the racial program conceived by the Secretary of the Navy.

The Navy's search began in the last months of the war when Secretary Forrestal approved the formation of an informal Committee on Negro Personnel. Although Lester Granger, the secretary's adviser on racial matters, had originally proposed the establishment of such a committee to "help frame sound and effective racial policies,"[5-55] the Chief of Naval Personnel, a preeminent representative of the Navy's professionals, saw an altogether different reason for the group. He endorsed the idea of a committee, he told a member of the secretary's staff, "not because there is anything wrong or backward about our policies," but because "we need greater cooperation from the technical Bureaus in order that those policies may succeed."[5-56] Forrestal did little to define the group's purpose when on 16 April 1945 he ordered Under Secretary Bard to organize a committee "to assure uniform policies" and see that all subdivisions of the Navy were familiar with each other's successful and unsuccessful racial practices.[5-57]

[Footnote 5-55: Ltr, Lester Granger to SecNav, 19 Mar 45, 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 5-56: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Cmdr Richard M. Paget (Exec Off, SecNav), 21 Apr 45, sub: Formation of Informal Cmte to Assure Uniform Policies on the Handling of Negro Personnel, P-17, BuPersRecs.]

[Footnote 5-57: Memo, SecNav for Cmdr Richard M. Paget, 16 Apr 45, 54-1-19, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

By pressing for the uniform treatment of Negroes, Forrestal doubtless hoped to pull backward branches into line with more liberal ones so that the progressive reforms of the past year would be accepted throughout the Navy. But if Forrestal's ultimate goal was plain, his failure to give clear-cut directions to his informal committee was characteristic of his handling of racial policy. He carefully followed the recommendations of the Chief of Naval Personnel, who wanted the committee to be a military group, despite having earlier expressed his intention of inviting Granger to chair the committee. As announced on 25 April, the committee was headed by a senior official of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, Capt. Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, with another (p. 145) of the bureau's officers serving as committee recorder.[5-58] Restricting the scope of the inquiry, Forrestal ordered that "whenever practical" the committee should assign each of its members to investigate the racial practices in his own organization.

[Footnote 5-58: Other members of the committee included four senior Navy captains and representatives of the Marine Corps and Coast Guard. Memo, SecNav for Under SecNav, 25 Apr 45, QB495/A3-1, GenRecsNav.]

Nevertheless when the committee got down to work it quickly went beyond the limited concept of its mission as advanced by the Chief of Naval Personnel. Not only did it study statistics gathered from all sections of the department and review the experiences of various commanders of black units, it also studied Granger's immediate and long-range recommendations for the department, an extension of his earlier wartime work for Forrestal. Specifically, Granger had called for the formulation of a definite integration policy and for a strenuous public relations campaign directed toward the black community. He had also called for the enlistment and commissioning of a significant number of Negroes in the Regular Navy, and he wanted commanders indoctrinated in their racial responsibilities. Casting further afield, Granger had warned that discriminatory policies and practices in shipyards and other establishments must be eliminated, and employment opportunities for black civilians in the department broadened.[5-59]

[Footnote 5-59: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 19 Mar 45, 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

The committee deliberated on all these points, and, after meeting several times, announced in May 1945 its findings and recommendations. It found that the Navy's current policies were sound and when properly executed produced good results. At the same time it saw a need for periodic reviews to insure uniform application of policy and better public relations. Such findings could be expected from a body headed by a senior official of the personnel bureau, but the committee then came up with the unexpected--a series of recommendations for sweeping change. Revealing the influence of the Special Programs Unit, the committee asked that Negroes be declared available for assignment to all types of ships and shore stations in all classifications, with selections made solely on merit. Since wholesale reassignments were impractical, the committee recommended well-planned, gradual assimilation--it avoided the word integration--as the best policy for ending the concentration of Negroes at shore activities. It also attacked the Steward's Branch as the conspicuous symbol of the Negroes' second-class status and called for the assignment of white stewards and allowing qualified stewards to transfer to general service.

The committee wanted the Judge Advocate General to assign legal advisers to all major trials, especially those involving minorities, to prevent errors in courts-martial that might be construed as discrimination. It further recommended that Negroes be represented in the secretary's public relations office; that news items concerning Negroes be more widely disseminated through bureau bulletins; and, finally, that all bureaus as well as the Coast Guard and Marine Corps be encouraged to enroll commanders in special indoctrination programs before they were assigned to units with substantial numbers of (p. 146) Negroes.[5-60]

[Footnote 5-60: Memo, Cmte on Personnel for Under SecNav, 22 May 45, sub: Report and Recommendations of Committee on Negro Personnel, P. 16-3, GenRecsNav.]

The committee's recommendations, submitted to Under Secretary Bard on 22 May 1945, were far more than an attempt to unify the racial practices of the various subdivisions of the Navy Department. For the first time, senior representatives of the department's often independent branches accepted the contention of the Special Programs Unit that segregation was militarily inefficient and a gradual but complete integration of the Navy's general service was the solution to racial problems.

Yet as a formula for equal treatment and opportunity in the Navy, the committee's recommendations had serious omissions. Besides overlooking the dearth of black officers and the Marine Corps' continued strict segregation, the committee had ignored Granger's key proposal that Negroes be guaranteed a place in the Regular Navy. Almost without exception, Negroes in the Navy's general service were reservists, products of wartime volunteer enlistment or the draft. All but a few of the black regulars were stewards. Without assurance that many of these general service reservists would be converted to regulars or that provision would be made for enlistment of black regulars, (p. 147) the committee's integration recommendations lacked substance. Secretary Forrestal must have been aware of these omissions, but he ignored them. Perhaps the problem of the Negro in the postwar Navy seemed remote during this last, climactic summer of the war.

To document the status of the Negro in the Navy, Forrestal turned again to Lester Granger. Granger had acted more than once as the secretary's eyes and ears on racial matters, and the association between the two men had ripened from mutual respect to close rapport.[5-61] During August 1945 Granger visited some twenty continental installations for Forrestal, including large depots and naval stations on the west coast, the Great Lakes Training Center, and bases and air stations in the south. Shortly after V-J day Granger launched a more ambitious tour of inspection that found him traveling among the 45,000 Negroes assigned to the Pacific area.

[Footnote 5-61: Columbia University Oral Hist Interv with Granger.]

Unlike the Army staff, whose worldwide quest for information stressed black performance in the familiar lessons-learned formula and only incidentally treated those factors that affected performance, Granger, a civilian, never really tried to assess performance. He was, (p. 148) however, a race relations expert, and he tried constantly to discover how the treatment accorded Negroes in the Navy affected their performance and to pass on his findings to local commanders. He later explained his technique. First, he called on the commanding officer for facts and opinions on the performance and morale of the black servicemen. Then he proceeded through the command, unaccompanied, interviewing Negroes individually as well as in small and large groups. Finally, he returned to the commanding officer to pass along grievances reported by the men and his own observations on the conditions under which they served.[5-62]

[Footnote 5-62: Granger's findings and an account of his inspection technique are located in Ltrs, Granger to SecNav, 4 Aug, 10 Aug, 27 Aug, and 31 Oct 45; and in "Minutes of Press Conference Held by Mr. Lester B. Granger," 1 Nov 45. All in 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav. See also Columbia University Oral Hist Interv with Granger.]

Granger always related the performance of enlisted men to their morale. He pointed out to the commanders that poor morale was at the bottom of the Port Chicago mass mutiny and the Guam riot, and his report to the secretary confirmed the experiences of the Special Programs Unit: black performance was deeply affected by the extent to which Negroes felt victimized by racial discrimination or handicapped by segregation, especially in housing, messing, and military and civilian recreational facilities. Although no official policy on segregated living quarters existed, Granger found such segregation widely practiced at naval bases in the United States. Separate housing meant in most cases separate work crews, thereby encouraging voluntary segregation in mess halls. In some cases the Navy's separate housing was carried over into nearby civilian communities where no segregation existed before. In others shore patrols forced segregation on civilian places of entertainment, even when state laws forbade it. On southern bases, especially, many commanders willingly abandoned the Navy's ban against discrimination in favor of the racial practices of local communities. There enforced segregation was widespread, often made explicit with "colored" and "white" signs.

Yet Granger found encouraging exceptions which he passed along to local commanders elsewhere. At Camp Perry, Virginia, for example, there was a minimum of segregation, and the commanding officer had intervened to see that Virginia's segregated bus laws did not apply to Navy buses operating between the camp and Norfolk. This situation was unusual for the Navy although integrated busing had been standard practice in the Army since mid-1944. He found Camp Perry "a pleasant contrast" to other southern installations, and from his experiences there he concluded that the attitude of the commanding officer set the pace. "There is practically no limit," Granger said, "to the progressive changes in racial attitudes and relationships which can be made when sufficiently enlightened and intelligent officer leadership is in command." The development of hard and fast rules, he concluded, was unnecessary, but the Bureau of Naval Personnel must constantly see to it that commanders resisted the "influence of local conventions."

At Pearl Harbor Granger visited three of the more than two hundred auxiliary ships manned by mixed crews. On two the conditions were excellent. The commanding officer in each case had taken special (p. 149) pains to avoid racial differentiation in ratings, assignments, quarters, and messes; efficiency was superior, morale was high, and racial conflict was absent. On the third ship Negroes were separated; they were specifically assigned to a special bunk section in the general crew compartment and to one end of the chow table. Here there was dissatisfaction among Negroes and friction with whites.

At the naval air bases in Hawaii performance and morale were good because Negroes served in a variety of ratings that corresponded to their training and ability. The air station in Oahu, for example, had black radar operators, signalmen, yeomen, machinist mates, and others working amiably with whites; the only sign of racial separation visible was the existence of certain barracks, no different from the others, set aside for Negroes.

Morale was lowest in black base companies and construction battalions. In several instances able commanding officers had availed themselves of competent black leaders to improve race relations, but in most units the racial situation was generally poor. Granger regarded the organization of the units as "badly conceived from the racial standpoint." Since base companies were composed almost entirely of nonrated men, spaces for black petty officers were lacking. In such units the scaffold of subordinate leadership necessary to support and uphold the authority of the officers was absent, as were opportunities for individual advancement. Some units had been provisionally re-formed into logistic support companies, and newly authorized ratings were quickly filled. This partial remedy had corrected some deficiencies, but left unchanged a number of the black base companies in the Pacific area. Although construction battalions had workers of both races, Granger reported them to be essentially segregated because whites were assigned to headquarters or to supervisory posts. Some officers had carried this arbitrary segregation into off-duty areas, one commander contending that strict segregation was the civilian pattern and that everyone was accustomed to it.

The Marine Corps lagged far behind the rest of the naval establishment, and there was little pretense of conforming with the Navy's racial policy. Black marines remained rigidly segregated and none of the few black officer candidates, all apparently well qualified, had been commissioned. Furthermore, some black marines who wanted to enlist as regulars were waiting word whether they could be included in the postwar Marine Corps. Approximately 85 percent of the black marines in the Pacific area were in depot and ammunition companies and steward groups. In many cases their assignments failed to match their qualifications and previous training. Quite a few specialists complained of having been denied privileges ordinarily accorded white men of similar status--for example, opportunities to attend schools for first sergeants, musicians, and radar operators. Black technicians were frequently sent to segregated and hastily constructed schools or detached to Army installations for schooling rather than sent to Marine Corps schools. Conversely, some white enlisted men, assigned to black units for protracted periods as instructors, were often accorded the unusual privilege of living in officers' quarters and eating in the officers' mess in order to preserve racial segregation.

Most black servicemen, Granger found, resented the white fleet (p. 150) shore patrols in the Pacific area which they considered biased in handling disciplinary cases and reporting offenders. The commanding officer of the shore patrol in Honolulu defended the practice because he believed the use of Negroes in this duty would be highly dangerous. Granger disagreed, pointing to the successful employment of black shore patrols in such fleet liberty cities as San Diego and Miami. He singled out the situation in Guam, which was patrolled by an all-white Marine Corps guard regarded by black servicemen as racist in attitude. Frequently, racial clashes occurred, principally over the attentions of native women, but it was the concentration of Negroes in the naval barracks at Guam, Granger concluded, along with the lack of black shore patrols, that intensified racial isolation, induced a suspicion of racial policies, and aggravated resentment.

At every naval installation Granger heard vigorous complaints over the contrast between black and white ratings and promotions. Discrepancies could be explained partly by the fact that, since the general service had been opened to Negroes fairly late in the war, many white men had more than two years seniority over any black. But Granger found evidence that whites were transferred into units to receive promotions and ratings due eligible black members. In many cases, he found "indisputable racial discrimination" by commanding officers, with the result that training was wasted, trained men were prevented from acquiring essential experience and its rewards, and resentment smoldered.

Evidence of overt prejudice aside, Granger stressed again and again that the primary cause of the Navy's racial problems was segregation. Segregation was "impractical and inefficient," he pointed out, because racial isolation bred suspicion, which in turn inflamed resentment, and finally provoked insubordination. The best way to integrate Negroes, Granger felt, was to take the most natural course, that is, eliminate all special provisions, conditions, or cautions regarding their employment. "There should be no exceptional approach to problems involving Negroes," he counseled, "for the racial factor in naval service will disappear only when problems involving Negroes are accepted as part of the Navy's general program for insuring efficient performance and first-class discipline."

Despite his earlier insistence on a fair percentage of Negroes in the postwar Regular Navy, Granger conceded that the number and proportion would probably decrease during peacetime. It was hardly likely, he added, that black enlistment would exceed 5 percent of the total strength, a manageable proportion. He even saw some advantages in smaller numbers, since, as the educational standards for all enlistees rose, the integration of relatively few but better qualified Negroes would "undoubtedly make for greater racial harmony and improved naval performance."

Despite the breadth and acuity of his observations, Granger suggested remarkedly few changes. Impressed by the progress made in the treatment of Negroes during the war, he apparently expected it to continue uninterrupted. Although his investigations uncovered basic problems that would continue to trouble the Navy, he did not (p. 151) recognize them as such. For his part, Forrestal sent Granger's voluminous reports with their few recommendations to his military staff and thanked the Urban League official for his contribution.[5-63]

[Footnote 5-63: Memo, J.F. [James Forrestal] for Vice Adm Jacobs (Chief of Naval Personnel), 23 Aug 45; Ltr, SecNav to Granger, 29 Dec 45, both in 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

Although different in approach and point of view, Granger's observations neatly complemented the findings and recommendations of the Committee on Negro Personnel. Both reinforced the secretary's postwar policy aims and both supported his gradualist approach to racial reform. Granger cited segregation, in particular the concentration of masses of black sailors, as the principal cause of racial unrest and poor morale among Negroes. The committee urged the gradual integration of the general service in the name of military efficiency. Granger and the committee also shared certain blind spots. Both were encouraged by the progress toward full-scale integration that occurred during the war, but this improvement was nominal at best, a token bow to changing conditions. Their assumption that integration would spread to all branches of the Navy neglected the widespread and deeply entrenched opposition to integration that would yield only to a strategy imposed by the Navy's civilian and military leaders. Finally, the hope that integration would spread ignored the fact that after the war few Negroes except stewards would be able to meet the enlistment requirements for the Regular Navy. In short, the postwar Navy, so far as Negroes were concerned, was likely to resemble the prewar Navy.

The search for a postwar racial policy led the Army and Navy down some of the same paths. The Army manpower planners decided that the best way to avoid the inefficient black divisions was to organize Negroes into smaller, and therefore, in their view, more efficient segregated units in all the arms and services. At the same time Secretary Forrestal's advisers decided that the best way to avoid the concentration of Negroes who could not be readily assimilated in the general service was to integrate the small remnant of black specialists and leave the majority of black sailors in the separate Steward's Branch. In both instances the experiences of World War II had successfully demonstrated to the traditionalists that large-scale segregated units were unacceptable, but neither service was yet ready to accept large-scale integration as an alternative.

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6. (p. 152)

New Directions

All the services developed new racial policies in the immediate postwar period. Because these policies were responses to racial stresses peculiar to each service and were influenced by the varied experiences of each, they were, predictably, disparate in both substance and approach; because they were also reactions to a common set of pressures on the services they proved to be, perhaps not so predictably, quite similar in practical consequences. One pressure felt by all the services was the recently acquired knowledge that the nation's military manpower was not only variable but also limited in quantity. Military efficiency demanded, therefore, that the services not only make the most effective use of available manpower, but also improve its quality. Since Negroes, who made up approximately 10 percent of the population, formed a substantial part of the nation's manpower, they could no longer be considered primarily a source of unskilled labor. They too must be employed appropriately, and to this end a higher proportion of Negroes in the services must be qualified for specialized jobs.

Continuing demands by civil rights groups added to the pressure on the services to employ Negroes according to their abilities. Arguing that Negroes had the right to enjoy the privileges and share the responsibilities of citizenship, civil rights spokesmen appeared determined to test the constitutionality of the services' wartime policies in the courts. Their demands placed the Truman administration on the defensive and served warning on the armed forces that never again could they look to the exclusion of black Americans as a long-term solution to their racial problems.

In addition to such pressures, the services had to reckon with a more immediate problem. Postwar black reenlistment, particularly among service men stationed overseas, was climbing far beyond expectation. As the armed forces demobilized in late 1945 and early 1946, the percentage of Negroes in the Army rose above its wartime high of 9.68 percent of the enlisted strength and was expected to reach 15 percent and more by 1947. Aside from the Marine Corps, which experienced a rapid drop in black enlistment, the Navy also expected a rise in the percentage of Negroes, at least in the near future. The increase occurred in part because Negroes, who had less combat time than whites and therefore fewer eligibility points for discharge, were being separated from service later and more slowly. The rise reflected as well the Negro's expectation that the national labor market would deteriorate in the wake of the war. Although greater opportunities for employment had developed for black Americans, civilians already filled the posts and many young Negroes preferred the job security of a military career. But there was another, more poignant reason why many Negroes elected to remain in uniform: they were afraid to reenter (p. 153) what seemed a hostile society and preferred life in the armed forces, imperfect as that might be. The effect of this increase on the services, particularly the largest service, the Army, was sharp and direct. Since many Negroes were poorly educated, they were slow to learn the use of sophisticated military equipment, and since the best educated and qualified men, black and white, tended to leave, the services faced the prospect of having a large proportion of their enlisted strength black and unskilled.

The Gillem Board Report

Clearly, a new policy was necessary, and soon after the Japanese surrender Assistant Secretary McCloy sent to the recently appointed Secretary of War the accumulated pile of papers on the subject of how best to employ Negroes in the postwar Army. Along with the answers to the questionnaires sent to major commanders and a collection of interoffice memos went McCloy's reminder that the matter ought to be dealt with soon. McCloy wanted to form a committee of senior officers to secure "an objective professional view" to be used as a base for attacking the whole race problem. But while he considered it important to put this professional view on record, he still expected it to be subject to civilian review.[6-1]

[Footnote 6-1: Memo, McCloy for SW, 17 Sep 45, SW 291.2; Ltr, McCloy to author, 25 Sep 69, CMH files.]

Robert P. Patterson became Secretary of War on 27 September 1945, after serving with Henry Stimson for five years, first as assistant and later as under secretary. Intimately concerned with racial matters in the early years of the war, Patterson later became involved in war procurement, a specialty far removed from the complex and controversial racial situation that faced the Army. Now as secretary he once again assumed an active role in the Army's black manpower problems and quickly responded to McCloy's request for a policy review.[6-2] In accordance with Patterson's oral instructions, General Marshall appointed a board, under the chairmanship of Lt. Gen. Alvan C. Gillem, Jr., which met on 1 October 1945. Three days later a formal directive signed by the Deputy Chief of Staff and approved by the Secretary of War ordered the board to "prepare a policy for the use of the authorized Negro manpower potential during the postwar period including the complete development of the means required to derive the maximum efficiency from the full authorized manpower of the nation in the event of a national emergency."[6-3] On this group, to be known as the Gillem Board, would fall the responsibility for formulating a policy, preparing a directive, and planning the use of Negroes in the postwar Army.

[Footnote 6-2: See, for example, Memo, SW for CofS, 7 Nov 45, SW 291.2; see also Ltr, McCloy to author, 25 Sep 69.]

[Footnote 6-3: Quoted in Memo, Gen Gillem for CofS, 17 Nov 45, sub: Report of Board of General Officers on Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Post-War Army, copy in CSGOT 291.2 (1945) BP.]

None of the board members was particularly prepared for the new assignment. General Gillem, a Tennessean, had come up through the ranks to command the XIII Corps in Europe during World War II. Although he had written one of the 1925 War College studies on the (p. 154) use of black troops and had many black units in his corps, Gillem probably owed his appointment to the fact that he was a three-star general, available at the moment, and had recently been selected by the Chief of Staff to direct a Special Planning Division study on the use of black troops that had been superseded by the new board.[6-4] Burdened with the voluminous papers collected by McCloy, Gillem headed a board composed of Maj. Gen. Lewis A. Pick, a Virginian who had built the Ledo Road in the China-Burma-India theater; Brig. Gen. Winslow C. Morse of Michigan, who had served in a variety of assignments in the Army Air Forces culminating in wartime duties in China; and Brig. Gen. Aln D. Warnock, the recorder without vote, a Texan who began his career in the Arizona National Guard and had served in Iceland during World War II.[6-5] These men had broad and diverse experience and gave the board a certain geographical balance. Curiously enough, none was a graduate of West Point.[6-6]

[Footnote 6-4: Interv, Capt Alan Osur, USAF, with Lt Gen Alvan C. Gillem (USA Ret.), 3 Feb 72, copy in CMH.]

[Footnote 6-5: Memo, Maj Gen Ray Porter, Dir, Spec Planning Div, for Gillem, 28 Sep 45, sub: War Department Special Board on Negro Manpower, WDCSA 320.2.]

[Footnote 6-6: In a later comment on the selections, McCloy said that the geographical spread and lack of West Point representation was accidental and that the use of general officers reflected the importance of the subject to him and to Patterson. See Ltr, McCloy to author, 25 Sep 69, and Ltr, Gen Morse to author, 10 Sep 74, CMH files.]

Although new to the subject, the board members worked quickly. Less than a month after their first session, Gillem informed the Chief of Staff that they had already reached certain conclusions. They recognized the need to build on the close relationships developed between the races during the war by introducing progressive measures that could be put into operation promptly and would provide for the assignment of black troops on the basis of individual merit and ability alone. After studying and comparing the racial practices of the other services, the board decided that the Navy's partial integration had stimulated competition which improved black performance without causing racial friction. By contrast, strict segregation in the Marine Corps required longer training periods and closer supervision for black marines. In his memorandum Gillem refrained from drawing the logical conclusion and simply went on to note that the Army had, for example, integrated its black and white patients in hospitals because of the greater expense, inefficiency, and general impracticality of duplicating complex medical (p. 155) equipment and installations.[6-7] By inference the same disadvantages applied to maintaining separate training facilities, operational units, and the rest of the apparatus of the shrinking Army establishment. At one point in his progress report, Gillem seemed close to recommending integration, at least to the extent already achieved in the Navy. But stated explicitly such a recommendation would have been a radical step, out of keeping with the climate of opinion in the country and in the Army itself.

[Footnote 6-7: Memo, Gen Gillem for CofS, 26 Oct 45, sub: Progress Rpt on Board Study of Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Post-War Army, WDCSA 291.2; see also Interv, Osur with Gillem.]

On 17 November 1945 the Gillem Board finished the study and sent its report to the Chief of Staff.[6-8] In six weeks the board had questioned more than sixty witnesses, consulted a mass of documentary material, and drawn up conclusions and recommendations on the use of black troops. The board declared that its recommendations were based on two complementary principles: black Americans had a constitutional right to fight, and the Army had an obligation to make the most effective use of every soldier. But the board also took into account reports of the Army's wartime experience with black units. It referred constantly to this experience, citing the satisfactory performance of the black service units and some of the smaller black combat units, in particular the artillery and tank battalions. It also described the black infantry platoons integrated into white companies in Europe as "eminently successful." At the same time large black combat units had not been satisfactory, most often because their junior officers and noncommissioned officers lacked the ability to lead. The difficulties the Army encountered in properly placing its black troops during the war, the board decided, stemmed to some extent from inadequate staff work and improper planning. Poor staff work allowed a disproportionate number of Negroes with low test scores to be allocated to combat elements. Lack of early planning, constant reorganization and regrouping of black units, and continuous shifting of individuals from one type of training to another had confused and bewildered black troops, who sometimes doubted that the Army intended to commit them to combat at all.

[Footnote 6-8: Memo, Gillem for CofS, 17 Nov 45, sub: Report of Board of General Officers on the Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Post-War Army. Unless otherwise noted this section is based on the report.]

It was necessary, the board declared, to avoid repetition of this experience. Advance planning was needed to develop a broader base of trained men among black troops to provide cadres and leaders to meet national emergencies more efficiently. The Army had to realize and take advantage of the advances made by Negroes in education, industry, and government service. The wide range of skills attained by Negroes had enhanced their military value and made possible a broader selectivity with consequent benefit to military efficiency. Thus, the Army had to adopt a racial policy that provided for the progressive and flexible use of black manpower "within proportions corresponding to those in the civilian population." This policy, it added, must "be implemented promptly ... must be objective by nature ... must (p. 156) eliminate, at the earliest practicable moment, any special consideration based on race ... and should point towards the immediate objective of an evaluation of the Negro on the basis of individual merit and ability."

The board made eighteen specific recommendations, of which the following were the most important.

"That combat and service units be organized and activated from the Negro manpower available in the postwar Army to meet the requirements of training and expansion and in addition qualified individuals be utilized in appropriate special and overhead units." The use of qualified Negroes in overhead units was the first break with the traditional policy of segregation, for though black enlisted men would continue to eat and sleep in segregated messes and barracks, they would work alongside white soldiers and perform the same kind of duty in the same unit.

"The proportion of Negro to white manpower as exists in the civil population be the accepted ratio for creating a troop basis in the postwar Army."[6-9]

[Footnote 6-9: The 10 percent quota that eventually emerged from the Gillem Board was an approximation; Gillem later recalled that the World War II enlisted ratio was nearer 9.5 percent, but that General Eisenhower, the Chief of Staff, saying he could not remember that, suggested making it "an even 10 percent." See Interv, Osur with Gillem.]

"That Negro units organized or activated for the postwar Army conform in general to other units of the postwar Army but the maximum strength of type [sic] units should not exceed that of an infantry regiment or comparable organization." Here the board wanted the Army to avoid the division-size units of World War II but retain separate black units which would be diversified enough to broaden the professional base of Negroes in the Regular Army by offering them a larger selection of military occupations.

"That in the event of universal training in peacetime additional officer supervision is supplied to units which have a greater than normal percentage of personnel falling into A.G.C.T. classifications IV and V." Such a policy had existed in World War II, but was never carried out.

"That a staff group of selected officers whose background has included commanding troops be formed within the G-1 Division of the staffs of the War Department and each major command of the Army to assist in the planning, promulgation, implementation and revision of policies affecting all racial minorities." This was the administrative machinery the board wanted to facilitate the prompt and efficient execution of the Army's postwar racial policies.

"That reenlistment be denied to regular Army soldiers who meet only the minimum standards." This provision was in line with the concept that the peacetime Army was a cadre to be expanded in time of emergency. As long as the Army accepted all reenlistments regardless of aptitude and halted black enlistments when black strength exceeded 10 percent, it would deny enlistment to many qualified Negroes. It would also burden the Army with low-scoring men who would never rise above the rank of private and whose usefulness in a peacetime (p. 157) cadre, which had the function of training for wartime expansion, would be extremely limited.

"That surveys of manpower requirements conducted by the War Department include recommendations covering the positions in each installation of the Army which could be filled by Negro military personnel." This suggestion complemented the proposal to use Negroes in overhead positions on an individual basis. By opening more positions to Negroes, the Army would foster leadership, maintain morale, and encourage a competitive spirit among the better qualified. By forcing competition with whites "on an individual basis of merit," the Army would become more attractive as a career to superior Negroes, who would provide many needed specialists as a "nucleus for rapid expansion of Army units in time of emergency."

"That groupings of Negro units with white units in composite organizations be continued in the postwar Army as a policy." Since World War II demonstrated that black units performed satisfactorily when grouped or operated with white combat units, the inclusion of a black service company in a white regiment or a heavy weapons company in an infantry battalion could perhaps be accomplished "without encountering insurmountable difficulties." Such groupings would build up a professional relationship between blacks and whites, but, the board warned, experimentation must not risk "the disruption of civilian racial relationships."

"That there be accepted into the Regular Army an unspecified number of qualified Negro officers ... that all officers, regardless of race, be required to meet the same standard for appointment ... be accorded equal rights and opportunities for advancement and professional improvement; and be required to meet the same standard for appointment, promotion and retention in all components of the Army." The board set no limit on the number of black officers in the Army, nor did it suggest that black officers be restricted to service in black units.

Its report rendered, the board remained in existence ready to make revisions "as may be warranted" by the comments of the many individuals and agencies that were to review the policy in conformance with a directive of the Secretary of War.[6-10]

[Footnote 6-10: Memo, Brig Gen H. I. Hodes, ADCofS, for Gillem, 24 Nov 45, sub: War Department Special Board on Negro Management, WDCSA 320.2 (17 Nov 45).]

No two individuals were more intimately concerned with the course of events that led to the Gillem Board Report than John J. McCloy and Truman Gibson, and although both were about to leave government service, each gave the new Secretary of War his opinion of the report.[6-11] McCloy called the report a "fine achievement" and a "great advance over previous studies." It was most important, he said, that the board had stated the problem in terms of manpower efficiency. At the same time both men recognized ambiguities in the board's (p. 158) recommendations, and their criticisms were strong, precise, and, considering the conflicts that developed in the Army over these issues, remarkedly acute. Both agreed the report needed a clear statement on the basic issue of segregation, and they wanted the board to eliminate the quota. Gibson pointed out that the board proposed as a long-range objective the utilization of all persons on the basis of individual ability alone. "This means, of course," he announced with more confidence than was warranted, "a completely integrated Army." In the interest of eventually achieving an integrated Army he was willing to settle for less than immediate and total integration, but nevertheless he attacked the board for what he called the vagueness of its recommendations. Progressive and planned integration, he told Secretary Patterson, demanded a clear and explicit policy stating that segregation was outmoded and integration inevitable, and the Army should move firmly and steadily from one to the other.

[Footnote 6-11: Memo, Civilian Aide for ASW, 13 Nov 45, ASW 291.2 Negro Troops (Post War); Ltr, idem to SW, 13 Nov 45; Memo, McCloy for Patterson, 24 Nov 45; Memo, Gibson for SW, 28 Nov 45. Last three in SW 291.2. The Gibson quote is from the 28 November memo.]

On some fundamental issues McCloy thought the board did "not speak with the complete clarity necessary," but he considered the ambiguity unintentional. Experience showed, he reminded the secretary, "that we cannot get enforcement of policies that permit of any possibility of misconstruction." Directness, he said, was required in place of equivocation based on delicacy. If the Gillem Board intended black officers to command white officers and men, it should have said so flatly. If it meant the Army should try unsegregated and mixed units, it should have said so. Its report, McCloy concluded, should have put these matters beyond doubt. He was equally forthright in his rejection of the quota, which he found impractical because it deprived the Army of many qualified Negroes who would be unable to enlist when the quota was full. Even if the quota was meant as a floor rather than a ceiling, McCloy thought it objectionable. "I do not see any place," he wrote, "for a quota in a policy that looks to utilize Negroes on the basis of ability."

If the Gillem Board revealed the Army's willingness to compromise in treating a pressing efficiency problem, detailed comments by interested staff agencies revealed how military traditionalists hoped to avoid a pressing social problem. For just as McCloy and Gibson criticized the board for failing to spell out concrete procedures toward integration, other staff experts generally approved the board's report precisely because its ambiguities committed them to very little. Their specific criticisms, some betraying the biases of the times, formed the basis of the standard traditionalist defense of the racial status quo for the next five years.

Comments from the staff's personnel organization set the tone of this criticism.[6-12] The Assistant Chief of Staff for Personnel, G-1, Maj. Gen. Willard S. Paul, approved the board's recommendations, calling them a "logical solution to the problem of effective utilization of Negro manpower." Although he thought the report "sufficiently (p. 159) detailed to permit intelligent, effective planning," he passed along without comment the criticisms of his subordinates. He was opposed to the formation of a special staff group. "We must soon reach the point," he wrote, "where our general staff must be able to cope with such problems without the formation of ad hoc committees or groups."[6-13]

[Footnote 6-12: For examples of this extensive review of the Gillem Board Report in G-1, see the following Memos: Col J. F. Cassidy (Exec Office, G-1) for Col Parks, 10 Dec 45; Chief, Officer Branch, G-1, for Exec Off, G-1 Policy Group, 14 Dec 45; Actg Chief, Req and Res Br, for Chief, Policy Control Group, 14 Dec 45; Lt Col E. B. Jones, Special Projects Br, for G-1, 19 and 21 Dec 45, sub: Policy for Utilization of Negro Manpower in Post-War Army. All in WDGAP 291.2.]

[Footnote 6-13: Memo, Gen Paul, G-1, for CofS, 27 Dec 45, sub: Policy for Utilization of Negro Manpower in Post-War Army, WDGAP 291.2 (24 Nov 45).]

The Assistant Chief of Staff for Organization and Training, G-3, Maj. Gen. Idwal H. Edwards, was chiefly concerned with the timing of the new policy. In trying to employ black manpower on a broader professional scale, he warned, the Army must recognize the "ineptitude and limited capacity of the Negro soldier." He wanted various phases of the new policy timed "with due consideration for all factors such as public opinion, military requirements and the military situation." If the priority given public opinion in the sequence of these factors reflected Edwards's view of their importance, the list is somewhat curious. Edwards concurred in the recommendations, although he wanted the special staff group established in the personnel office rather than in his organization, and he rejected any arbitrary percentage of black officers. More black officers could be obtained through expansion of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, he suggested, but he rejected the board's call for special classification of all enlistees in reception and training centers, on grounds that the centers were not adequate for the task.[6-14]

[Footnote 6-14: G-3 Summary Sheet to ADCofS, 2 Jan 46, sub: War Department Special Board on Negro Manpower, WDGCT 291.21 (24 Nov 45).]

The chief of the General Staff's Operations Division, Lt. Gen. John E. Hull, dismissed the Gillem report with several blunt statements: black enlisted men should be assigned to black units capable of operational use within white units at the rate of one black battalion per division; a single standard of professional proficiency should be followed for white and black officers; and "no Negro officer be given command of white troops."[6-15]

[Footnote 6-15: Memo, Lt Gen John E. Hull, ACofS, OPD (signed Brig Gen E. D. Post, Dep Chief, Theater Gp, OPD), for ACofS, G-3, 4 Jan 46, sub: War Department Special Board on Negro Manpower, WDGCT 291.21.]

The deputy commander of the Army Air Forces, Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker, agreed with the board that the Army should not be "a testing ground for problems in race relationships." Neither did he think the Air Forces should organize units for the sole purpose of "advancing the prestige of one race, especially when it is necessary to utilize personnel that do not have the proper qualifications in order to keep these units up to strength." Black combat units should be limited by the 10 percent quota and by the small number of Negroes qualified for tactical training. Most Negroes should be placed in Air Forces service units, where "their wartime record was the best," even though such placement would leave the Air Forces open to charges of discrimination. The idea of experimental groupings of black and white units in composite organizations might prove "impractical," Eaker wrote to the Chief of Staff, because an Air Forces group operated as an integral unit rather than as three or four separate squadrons; units often exchanged men and equipment, and common messes were used. Composite organizations were practical "only when it is not (p. 160) necessary for the units to intermingle continually in order to carry on efficiently." Why intermingling could not be synonymous with efficiency, he failed to explain. The inference was clear that segregation was not only normal but best.

Yet he advocated continuing integrated flying schools and agreed that Negroes should be stationed where community attitudes were favorable. He cited the difficulties involved in stationing. For more than two years the Army Air Forces had tried to find a suitable base for its only black tactical group. Even in northern cities with large black communities--Syracuse, New York, Columbus, Ohio, and Windsor Locks, Connecticut, among others--officials had vehemently protested against having the black group.

The War Department, Eaker concluded, "should never be ahead of popular opinion on this subject; otherwise it will put itself in a position of stimulating racial disorders rather than overcoming them." Along these lines, and harking back to the Freeman Field incident, he protested against regulations reaffirmed by the Gillem Board for the joint use of clubs, theaters, post exchanges, and the like at stations in localities where such use was contrary to civilian practices.[6-16]

[Footnote 6-16: 1st Ind, Lt Gen Ira C. Eaker, Deputy Cmdr, AAF, to CofS, 19 Dec 45, sub: War Department Special Board on Negro Manpower, copy at Tab H, Supplemental Report of Board of Officers on Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Post-War Army, 26 Jan 46, copy in CMH.]

The Army Ground Forces headquarters concurred generally with the Gillem Board's conclusions and recommendations but suggested the Army not act alone. The headquarters recommended a policy be formulated for the entire military establishment; only then should individual elements of the armed forces come forward with their own policies. The idea that Negroes should serve in numbers proportionate to their percentage of the population and bear their share of battle losses "may be desirable but is impracticable and should be abandoned in the interest of a logical solution."[6-17] Since the abilities of Negroes were limited, the report concluded, their duties should be restricted.

[Footnote 6-17: Memo, Lt Col S. R. Knight (for CG, AGF) for CofS, 18 Dec 45, sub: Army Ground Forces Comments and Recommendations on Report of the War Department Special Board (Gillem) on Negro Manpower, dated 17 Nov 45, GNGPS 370.01 (18 Dec 45); AGF Study, "Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar Military Establishment," 28 Nov 45, forwarded to CofS, ATTN: Dir, WD Special Planning Div, GNDCG 370.01 (28 Nov 45).]

The commanding general of the Army Service Forces claimed the Gillem Board Report was advocating substantially the same policy his organization had followed during the war. The Army Service Forces had successfully used an even larger percentage of Negroes than the Gillem Board contemplated. Concurring generally with the board's recommendations, he cautioned that the War Department should not dictate the use of Negroes in the field; to do so would be a serious infringement of command prerogatives that left each commander free to select and assign his men. As for the experimental groupings of black and white units, the general believed that such mixtures were appropriate for combat units but not for the separate small units common to the Army Service Forces. Separate, homogeneous companies or battalions formed during the war worked well, and experience proved mixed units impractical below group and regimental echelons.

The Service Forces commander called integration infeasible "for (p. 161) the present and foreseeable future." It was unlawful in many areas, he pointed out, and not common practice elsewhere, and requiring soldiers to follow a different social pattern would damage morale and defeat the Army's effort to increase the opportunities and effectiveness of black soldiers. He did not try to justify his contention, but his meaning was clear. It would be a mistake for the Army to attempt to lead the nation in such reforms, especially while reorganization, unification, and universal military training were being considered.[6-18]

[Footnote 6-18: Memo, Maj Gen Daniel Noce, Actg CofS, ASF, for CofS, 28 Dec 45, sub: War Department Special Board on Negro Manpower, copy at Tab J, Supplemental Report of War Department Special Board on Negro Manpower, 26 Jan 46, CMH files.]

Reconvened in January 1946 to consider the comments on its original report, the Gillem Board deliberated for two more weeks, heard additional witnesses, and stood firm in its conclusions and recommendations.[6-19] The policy it proposed, the board emphasized, had one purpose, the attainment of maximum manpower efficiency in time of national emergency. To achieve this end the armed forces must make full use of Negroes now in service, but future use of black manpower had to be based on the experience gained in two major wars. The board considered the policy it was proposing flexible, offering opportunity for advancement to qualified individuals and at the same time making possible for the Army an economic use of national manpower as a whole.

[Footnote 6-19: Supplemental Report of War Department Special Board on Negro Manpower, "Policy for Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Post-War Army," 26 Jan 46. The following quotations are taken from this amended version of the Gillem Board Report, a copy of which, with all tabs and annexes, is in CMH.]

To its original report the board added a statement at once the hope and despair of its critics and supporters.

The Initial Objectives: The utilization of the proportionate ratio of the manpower made available to the military establishment during the postwar period. The manpower potential to be organized and trained as indicated by pertinent recommendations.

The Ultimate Objective: The effective use of all manpower made available to the military establishment in the event of a major mobilization at some unknown date against an undetermined aggressor. The manpower to be utilized, in the event of another major war, in the Army without regard to antecedents or race.

When, and if such a contingency arises, the manpower of the nation should be utilized in the best interests of the national security.

The Board cannot, and does not, attempt to visualize at this time, intermediate objectives. Between the first and ultimate objective, timely phasing may be interjected and adjustments made in accordance with conditions which may obtain at this undetermined date.

The board based its ultimate objective on the fact that the black community had made important advances in education and job skills in the past generation, and it expected economic and educational conditions for Negroes to continue to improve. Since such improvement would make it possible to employ black manpower in a variety of ways, the board's recommendations could be only a guide for the future, a policy that must remain flexible.

To the specific objections raised by the reviewing agencies, the board replied that although black units eventually should be commanded by black officers "no need exists for the assignment of Negro commanders to units composed of white troops." It also agreed with those who (p. 162) felt it would be beneficial to correlate Army racial policies with those of the Navy. On other issues the board stood firm. It rejected the proposal that individual commanders be permitted to choose positions where Negroes could be employed in overhead installations on the grounds that this delegation of responsibility "hazards lack of uniformity and makes results doubtful." It refused to drop the quota, arguing it was needed for planning purposes. At the same time the board did admit that the 10 percent ratio, suitable for the moment, might be changed in the future in the interest of efficiency--though changed in which way it did not say.

The board rejected the proposition that the Army Service Forces and the Army Air Forces were unable to use small black units in white organizations and took a strong stand for elimination of the professional private, the career enlistee lacking the background or ability to advance beyond the lowest rank. Finally, the board rejected demands that the color line be reestablished in officers' messes and enlisted recreational facilities. "This large segment of the population contributed materially to the success attained by our military forces.... The Negro enjoyed the privileges of citizenship and, in turn, willingly paid the premium by accepting service. In many instances, this payment was settled through the medium of the supreme sacrifice."

The board's recommendations were well received, at least in the highest echelons of the War Department. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, now Chief of Staff,[6-20] quickly sent the proposed policy to the Secretary of War with a recommendation for approval "subject to such adjustment as experience shows is necessary."[6-21] On 28 February 1946 Secretary Patterson approved the new policy in a succinct restatement of the board's recommendations. The policy and the full Gillem Board Report were published as War Department Circular 124 on 27 April 1946. At the secretary's direction the circular was dispatched to the field "without delay."[6-22] On 4 March the report was released to the press.[6-23] The most exhaustive and intensive inquiry ever made (p. 163) by the Army into the employment of black manpower had survived the review and analysis process with its conclusions and recommendations intact.

[Footnote 6-20: Eisenhower succeeded Marshall as Chief of Staff on 19 November 1945.]

[Footnote 6-21: Memo, CofS for SW, 1 Feb 46, sub: Supplemental Report of Board of Officers on Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Post-War Army, WDCSA 320.2 (1 Feb 46).]

[Footnote 6-22: Ltr, TAG for CG's, AGF et al., 6 May 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Post-War Army, WDGAP 291.2.]

[Footnote 6-23: WD Press Release, 4 Mar 46, "Report of Board of Officers on Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Post-War Army."]

Attitudes toward the new policy varied with interpretations of the board's statement of objectives. Secretary Patterson saw in the report "a significant development in the status of the Negro soldiers in the Army." The immediate effect of using Negroes in composite units and overhead assignments, he predicted, would be to change War Department policy on segregation.[6-24] But the success of the policy could not be guaranteed by a secretary of war, and some of his advisers were more guarded in their estimates. To Truman Gibson, once again in government service, but briefly this time, the report seemed a good beginning because it offered a new approach, one that had originated within the Army itself. Yet Gibson was wary of its chances for success: The board's recommendations, he told the Assistant Secretary of War, would make for a better Army "only if they are effectively carried out."[6-25] The newly appointed assistant secretary, Howard C. Petersen, was equally cautious. Explaining the meaning of the report to the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association, he warned that "a strong policy weakly enforced will be of little value to the Army."[6-26]

[Footnote 6-24: Memo, SW for CofS, 28 Feb 46, WDCSA 320.2 (28 Feb 46).]

[Footnote 6-25: Memo, Truman Gibson, Expert Consultant to the SW, for Howard C. Petersen, 28 Feb 46, ASW 291.2 Negro Troops (Post-War).]

[Footnote 6-26: Remarks of the Assistant Secretary of War at Luncheon for Negro Newspaper Publishers Association, 1 Mar 46, ASW 291.2.]

Marcus H. Ray, Gibson's successor as the secretary's adviser on racial affairs,[6-27] stressed the board's ultimate objective to employ manpower without regard to race and called its recommendations "a step in the direction of efficient manpower utilization." It was a necessary step, he added, because "any racial group which lives under the stigma of implied inferiority inherent in a system of enforced separation cannot give over-all top performance in peace or in war."[6-28]

[Footnote 6-27: Ray, a former commander of an artillery battalion in the 92d Infantry Division, was appointed civilian aide on 2 January 1946; see WD Press Release, 7 Jan 46.]

[Footnote 6-28: Ltr, Marcus Ray to Capt Warman K. Welliver, 10 Apr 46, copy in CMH. Welliver, the commander of a black unit during the war, was a student of the subject of Negroes in the Army; see his "Report on the Negro Soldier."]

On the whole, the black community was considerably less sanguine about the new policy. The Norfolk Journal and Guide called the report a step in the right direction, but reserved judgment until the Army carried out the recommendations.[6-29] To a distinguished black historian who was writing an account of the Negro in World War II, the Gillem Board Report reflected the Army's ambiguity on racial matters. "It is possible," L. D. Reddick of the New York Public Library wrote, "to interpret the published recommendations as pointing in opposite directions."[6-30] One NAACP official charged that it "tries to dilute Jim-Crow by presenting it on a smaller scale." After citing the tremendous advances made by Negroes and all the reasons for ending segregation, he accused the Gillem Board of refusing to take the (p. 164) last step.[6-31] Most black papers adopted the same attitude, characterizing the new policy as "the same old Army." The Pittsburgh Courier, for one, observed that the new policy meant that the Army command had undergone no real change of heart.[6-32] Other segments of the public were more forebearing. One veterans' organization commended the War Department for the work of the Gillem Board but called its analysis and recommendations incomplete. Citing evidence that Jim Crow, not the enemy, "defeated" black combat units, the chairman of the American Veterans Committee called for an immediate end to segregation.[6-33]

[Footnote 6-29: Norfolk Journal and Guide, March 9, 1946.]

[Footnote 6-30: Ltr, L. D. Reddick, N.Y. Pub. Lib., to SW, 12 Mar 46, SW 291.]

[Footnote 6-31: Ltr, Bernard Jackson, Youth Council, NAACP Boston Br, to ASW, 4 Apr 46, ASW 291.2 (NT).]

[Footnote 6-32: Pittsburgh Courier, May 11, 1946.]

[Footnote 6-33: Ltr, Charles G. Bolte, Chmn, Amer Vets Cmte, to SW, 8 Mar 46; see also Ltr, Ralph DeNat, Corr Secy, Amer Vets Cmte, to SW, 28 May 46, both in SW 291.2 (Cmte) (9 Aug 46).]

Clearly, opposition to segregation was not going to be overcome with palliatives and promises, yet Petersen could only affirm that the Gillem Board Report would mean significant change. He admitted segregation's tenacious hold on Army thinking and that black units would continue to exist for some time, but he promised movement toward desegregation. He also made the Army's usual distinction between segregation and discrimination. Though there were many instances of unfair treatment during the war, he noted, these were individual matters, inconsistent with Army policy, which "has consistently condemned discrimination." Discrimination, he concluded, must be blamed on "defects" of enforcement, which would always exist to some degree in any organization as large as the Army.[6-34]

[Footnote 6-34: Ltrs, ASW to Bernard H. Solomon and to Bernard Jackson, 9 Apr 46, both in ASW 291.2.]

Actually, Petersen's promised "movement" toward integration was likely to be a very slow process. So substantive a change in social practice, the Army had always argued, required the sustained support of the American public, and judging from War Department correspondence and press notices large segments of the public remained unaware of what the Army was trying to do about its "Negro problem." Most military journalists continued to ignore the issue; perhaps they considered the subject of the employment of black troops unimportant compared with the problems of demobilization, atomic weaponry, and service unification. For example, in listing the principal military issues before the United States in the postwar period, military analyst Hanson Baldwin did not mention the employment of Negroes in the service.[6-35]

[Footnote 6-35: Hanson Baldwin, "Wanted: An American Military Policy," Harper's 192 (May 1946):403-13.]

Given the composition of the Gillem Board and the climate of opinion in the nation, the report was exemplary and fair, its conclusions progressive. If in the light of later developments the recommendations seem timid, even superficial, it should be remembered to its credit that the board at least made integration a long-range goal of the Army and made permanent the wartime guarantee of a substantial black representation.

Nevertheless the ambiguities in the Gillem Board's recommendations would be useful to those commanders at all levels of the Army who were devoted to the racial status quo. Gillem and his colleagues (p. 165) discussed black soldiers in terms of social problems rather than military efficiency. As a result, their recommendations treated the problem from the standpoint of how best Negroes could be employed within the traditional segregated framework even while they spoke of integration as an ultimate goal. They gave their blessing to the continued existence of segregated units and failed to inquire whether segregation might not be a factor in the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of black units and black soldiers. True, they sought to use qualified Negroes in specialist jobs as a solution to better employment of black manpower, but this effort could have little practical effect. Few were qualified--and determination of qualifications was often done by those with little sympathy for the Negro and even less for the educated Negro. Black serviceman holding critical specialties and those assigned to overhead installations would never amount to more than a handful of men whose integration during duty hours only would fall far short even of tokenism.

To point out as the board did that the policy it was recommending no longer required segregation was meaningless. Until the Army ordered integration, segregation, simply by virtue of inertia, would remain. As McCloy, along with Gibson and others, warned, without a strong, explicit statement of intent by the Army the changes in Army practice suggested by the Gillem Board would be insignificant. The very acceptance of the board's report by officials traditionally opposed to integration should have been fair warning that the report would be difficult to use as a base for a progressive racial policy; in fact it could be used to justify almost any course of action. From the start, the War Department encountered overwhelming difficulties in carrying out the board's recommendations, and five years later the ultimate objective was still out of reach.

Clearly, the majority of Army officers viewed segregated service as the acceptable norm. General Jacob L. Devers, then commanding general of Army Ground Forces, gave a clue to their view when he told his fellow officers in 1946 that "we are going to put colored battalions in white divisions. This is purely business--the social side will not be brought into it."[6-36] Here then was the dilemma: Was not the Army a social institution as well as a fighting organization? The solution to the Army's racial problems could not be achieved by ignoring the social implications. On both counts there was a reluctance among many professional soldiers to take in Negroes. They registered acute social discomfort at the large influx of black soldiers, and many who had devoted their lives to military service had very real misgivings over using Negroes in white combat units or forming new black combat units because they felt that black fighters in the air and on the ground had performed badly in the past. To entrust the fighting to Negroes who had failed to prove their competence in this highest mission of the Army seemed to them to threaten the institution itself.

[Footnote 6-36: Remarks by Gen J. L. Devers, Armored Conference Report, 16 May 46.]

Despite these shortcomings, the work of the Gillem Board was a progressive step in the history of Army race relations. It broke with the assumption implicit in earlier Army policy that the black soldier was inherently inferior by recommending that Negroes be assigned (p. 166) tasks as varied and skilled as those handled by white soldiers. It also made integration the Army's goal by declaring as official policy the ultimate employment of all manpower without regard to race.

Even the board's insistence on a racial quota, it could be argued, had its positive aspects, for in the end it was the presence of so many black soldiers in the Korean War that finally ended segregation. In the meantime, controversy over the quota, whether it represented a floor supporting minimum black participation or a ceiling limiting black enlistment, continued unabated, providing the civil rights groups with a focal point for their complaints. No matter how hard the Army tried to justify the quota, the quota increased the Army's vulnerability to charges of discrimination.

Integration of the General Service

The Navy's postwar revision of racial policy, like the Army's, was the inevitable result of its World War II experience. Inundated with unskilled and undereducated Negroes in the middle of the war, the Navy had assigned most of these men to segregated labor battalions and was surprised by the racial clashes that followed. As it began to understand the connection between large segregated units and racial tensions, the Navy also came to question the waste of the talented Negro in a system that denied him the job for which he was qualified. Perhaps more to the point, the Navy's size and mission made immediately necessary what the Army could postpone indefinitely. Unlike the Army, the Navy seriously modified its racial policy in the last year of the war, breaking up some of the large segregated units and integrating Negroes in the specialist and officer training schools, in the WAVES, and finally in the auxiliary fleet and the recruit training centers.

Yet partial integration was not enough. Lester Granger's surveys and the studies of the secretary's special committee had demonstrated that the Navy could resolve its racial problems only by providing equal treatment and opportunity. But the absurdity of trying to operate two equal navies, one black and one white, had been obvious during the war. Only total integration of the general service could serve justice and efficiency, a conclusion the civil rights advocates had long since reached. After years of leaving the Navy comparatively at peace, they now began to demand total integration.

There was no assurance, however, that a move to integration was imminent when Granger returned from his final inspection trip for Secretary Forrestal in October 1945. Both Granger and the secretary's Committee on Negro Personnel had endorsed the department's current practices, and Granger had been generally optimistic over the reforms instituted toward the end of the war. Admirals Nimitz and King both endorsed Granger's recommendations, although neither saw the need for further change.[6-37] For his part Secretary Forrestal seemed determined to maintain the momentum of reform. "What steps do we take," he (p. 167) asked the Chief of Naval Personnel, "to correct the various practices ... which are not in accordance with Navy standards?"[6-38]

[Footnote 6-37: Ltr, CINCPAC&POA to SecNav via Ch, NavPers, 30 Oct 45, sub: Negro Naval Personnel--Pacific Ocean Areas, and 2d Ind, CNO, 7 Dec 45, same sub, both in P16-3/MM, OpNavArchives.]

[Footnote 6-38: Memo, J. F. for Adm Jacobs, 23 Aug 45, 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

In response the Bureau of Naval Personnel circulated the Granger reports throughout the Navy and ordered steps to correct practices identified by Granger as "not in accordance with Navy standards."[6-39] But it was soon apparent that the bureau would be selective in adopting Granger's suggestions. In November, for example, the Chief of Naval Personnel, Admiral Louis E. Denfeld, arguing that officers "could handle black personnel without any special indoctrination," urged the secretary to reject Granger's recommendation that an office be established in headquarters to deal exclusively with racial problems. At the same time some of the bureau's recruiting officials were informing Negroes that their reenlistment in the Regular Navy was to be limited to the Steward's Branch.[6-40] With the help of Admiral Nimitz, Chief of Naval Operations, Forrestal quickly put an end to this recruiting practice, but he paid no further attention to racial matters except to demand in mid-December a progress report on racial reforms in the Pacific area.[6-41] Nor did he seem disturbed when the Pacific commander reported a large number of all-black units, some with segregated recreational facilities, operating in the Pacific area as part of the permanent postwar naval organization.[6-42]

[Footnote 6-39: Memo, Asst Ch, NavPers, for SecNav, 10 Sep 45, sub: Ur Memo of August 23, 1945, Relative to Lester B. Granger ... 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 6-40: 1st Ind, Chief, NavPers, to Ltr, CINCPAC&POA to SecNav, 30 Oct 45, sub: Negro Personnel--Pacific Ocean Areas (ca. 15 Nov 45), P16-3MM, OpNavArchives; Memo, M. F. Correa (Admin Asst to SecNav) for Capt Robert N. McFarlane, 30 Nov 45, 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 6-41: Forrestal's request for a progress report was circulated in CNO Dispatch 142105Z Dec 45 to CINCPAC&POA, quoted in Nelson, "Integration of the Negro," p. 58.]

[Footnote 6-42: Memo, CINCPAC&POA for CNO, 5 Jan 46, sub: Negro Naval Personnel--Pacific Ocean Areas, P10/P11, OpNavArchives.]

In the end the decision to integrate the general service came not from the secretary but from that bastion of military tradition, the Bureau of Naval Personnel. Despite the general reluctance of the bureau to liberalize the Navy's racial policy, there had been all along some manpower experts who wanted to increase the number of specialties open to black sailors. Capt. Hunter Wood, Jr., for example, suggested in January 1946 that the bureau make plans for an expansion in assignments for Negroes. Wood's proposal fell on the sympathetic ears of Admiral Denfeld, who considered the Granger recommendations (p. 168) practical for the postwar Navy. Denfeld, of course, was well aware that these recommendations had been endorsed by Admirals King and Nimitz as well as Forrestal, and he himself had gone on record as believing that Negroes in the peacetime Navy should lose none of the opportunities opened to them during the war.[6-43]

[Footnote 6-43: Admiral Denfeld's statement to the black press representatives in this regard is referred to in Memo, Capt H. Wood, Jr., for Chief, NavPers, 2 Jan 46, P16-3/MM, BuPersRecs.]

Denfeld had had considerable experience with the Navy's evolving racial policy in his wartime assignment as assistant chief of personnel where his principal concern had been the efficient distribution and assignment of men. He particularly objected to the fact that current regulations complicated what should have been the routine transfer of sailors. Simple control procedures for the segregation of Negroes in general service had been effective when Negroes were restricted to particular shore stations and duties, he told Admiral Nimitz on 4 January 1946, but now that Negroes were frequently being transferred from shore to sea and from ship to ship the restriction of Negroes to auxiliary ships was becoming extremely difficult to manage and was also "noticeably contrary to the non-differentiation policy enunciated by the Secretary of the Navy." The only way to execute that policy effectively and maintain efficiency, he concluded, was to integrate the general service completely. Denfeld pointed out that the admission of Negroes to the auxiliary fleet had caused little friction in the Navy and passed almost unnoticed by the press. Secretary Forrestal had promised to extend the use of Negroes throughout the entire fleet if the preliminary program proved practical, and the time had come to fulfill that promise. He would start with "the removal of restrictions governing the type of duty to which general service Negroes can be assigned," but would limit the number of Negroes on any ship or at any shore station to a percentage no greater than that of general service Negroes throughout the Navy.[6-44]

[Footnote 6-44: Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to CNO, 4 Jan 46, sub: Assignment of Negro Personnel, P16-3MM, BuPersRecs.]

With the enlistment of the Chief of Naval Personnel in the cause, the move to an integrated general service was assured. On 27 February 1946 the Navy published Circular Letter 48-46: "Effective immediately all restrictions governing types of assignments for which Negro naval personnel are eligible are hereby lifted. Henceforth, they shall be eligible for all types of assignments in all ratings in all activities and all ships of naval service." The letter went on to specify that "in housing, messing, and other facilities, there would be no special accommodations for Negroes." It also directed a redistribution of personnel by administrative commands so that by 1 October 1946 no ship or naval activity would be more than 10 percent Negro. The single exception would be the Naval Academy, where a large contingent of black stewards would be left intact to serve the midshipmen's meals.

The publication of Circular Letter 48-46 was an important step in the Navy's racial history. In less than one generation, in fewer years actually than the average sailor's service life, the Navy had made a complete about-face. In a sense the new policy was a service (p. 169) reform rather than a social revolution; after a 23-year hiatus integration had once again become the Navy's standard racial policy. Since headlines are more often reserved for revolutions than reformations, the new policy attracted little attention. The metropolitan press gave minimum coverage to the event and never bothered to follow later developments. For the most part the black press treated the Navy's announcement with skepticism. On behalf of Secretary Forrestal, Lester Granger invited twenty-three leading black editors and publishers to inspect ships in the fleet as well as shore activities to see for themselves the changes being made. Not one accepted. As one veteran put it, the editors shrank from praising the Navy's policy change for fear of being proved hasty. They preferred to remain on safe ground, "givin' 'em hell."[6-45]

[Footnote 6-45: As reported in Ltr, Granger to author, 25 Jun 69, CMH files.]

The editors had every reason to be wary: integration was seriously circumscribed in the new directive, which actually offered few guarantees of immediate change. Applying only to enlisted men in the shore establishment and on ships, the directive ignored the Navy's all-white officer corps and its nonwhite servants branch of stewards. Aimed at abolishing discrimination in the service, it failed to guarantee either through enlistment, assignment guidelines, or specific racial quotas a fair proportion of black sailors in the postwar Navy. Finally, the order failed to create administrative machinery to carry out the new policy. In a very real sense the new policy mirrored tradition. It was naval tradition to have black sailors in the integrated ranks and a separate Messman's Branch. The return to this tradition embodied in the order complemented Forrestal's philosophy of change as an outgrowth of self-realized reform. At the same time naval tradition did not include the concept of high-ranking black officers, white servants, and Negroes in specialized assignments. Here Forrestal's hope of self-reform did not materialize, and equal treatment and opportunity for Negroes in the Navy remained an elusive goal.

But Forrestal and his military subordinates made enough of a start to draw the fire of white segregationists. The secretary answered charges and demands in a straightforward manner. When, for example, a congressman complained that "white boys are being forced to sleep with these negroes," Forrestal explained that men were quartered and messed aboard ship according to their place in the ship's organization without regard to race. The Navy made no attempt to prescribe the nature or extent of their social relationships, which were beyond the scope of its authority. Although Forrestal expressed himself as understanding the strong feelings of some Americans on this matter, he made it clear that the Navy had finally decided segregation was the surest way to emphasize and perpetuate the gap between the races and had therefore adopted a policy of integration.[6-46]

[Footnote 6-46: Ltr, Congressman Stephen Pace of Georgia to Forrestal, 22 Jun 46; Ltr, Forrestal to Pace, 14 Aug 46, both in 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

What Forrestal said was true, but the translation of the Navy's postwar racial policy into the widespread practice of equal treatment and opportunity for Negroes was still before him and his officers. (p. 170) To achieve it they would have to fight the racism common in many segments of American society as well as bureaucratic inertia. If put into practice the new policy might promote the efficient use of naval manpower and give the Navy at least a brief respite from the criticism of civil rights advocates, but because of Forrestal's failure to give clear-cut direction--a characteristic of his approach to racial reform--the Navy might well find itself proudly trumpeting a new policy while continuing its old racial practices.

The Marine Corps

As part of the naval establishment, the Marine Corps fell under the strictures of Secretary Forrestal's announced policy of racial nondiscrimination.[6-47] At the same time the Marine Corps was administratively independent of the Chief of Naval Operations and the Chief of Naval Personnel, and Circular Letter 48-46, which desegregated the Navy's general service, did not apply to the corps. In the development of manpower policy the corps was responsible to the Navy, in organization it closely resembled the Army, but in size and tradition it was unique. Each of these factors contributed to the development of the corps' racial policy and helped explain its postwar racial practices.

[Footnote 6-47: The latest pronouncement of that policy was ALNAV 423-45.]

Because of the similarities in organization and mission between the Army and the Marine Corps, the commandant leaned toward the Army's solution for racial problems. The Army staff had contended that racially separate service was not discriminatory so long as it was equal, and through its Gillem Board policy it accepted the responsibility of guaranteeing that Negroes would be represented in equitable numbers and their treatment and opportunity would be similar to that given whites. Since the majority of marines served in the ground units of the Fleet Marine Force, organized like the Army in regiments, battalions, and squadrons with tables of organization and equipment, the formation of racially separate units presented no great problem.

Although the Marine Corps was similar to the Army in organization, it was very different in size and tradition. With a postwar force of little more than 100,000 men, the corps was hardly able to guarantee its segregated Negroes equal treatment and opportunity in terms of specialized training and variety of assignment. Again in contrast to the Army and Navy with their long tradition of Negroes in service, the Marine Corps, with a few unauthorized exceptions, had been an exclusively white organization since 1798. This habit of racial exclusion was strengthened by those feelings of intimacy and fraternity natural to any small bureaucracy. In effect the marines formed a small club in which practically everybody knew everybody else and was reluctant to admit strangers.[6-48] Racial exclusion often warred with the corps' clear duty to provide the fair and equal service for all Americans authorized by the Secretary of the Navy. At one point the commandant, General Alexander Vandegrift, even had (p. 171) to remind his local commanders that black marines would in fact be included in the postwar corps.[6-49]

[Footnote 6-48: See USMC Oral History Interviews, Lt Gen James L. Underhill, 25 Mar 68, and Lt Gen Ray A. Robinson, 18 Mar 68, both in Hist Div, HQMC.]

[Footnote 6-49: Memo, CO, 26th Marine Depot Co., Fifth Service Depot, Second FMF, Pacific, for CMC, 2 Nov 45, with Inds, sub: Information Concerning Peacetime Colored Marine Corps, Request for; Memos, CMC for CG, FMF (Pacific), et al., 11 Dec 45, sub: Voluntary Enlistments, Negro Marines, in Regular Marine Corps, Assignment of Quotas; idem for Cmdr, MCAB, Cherry Point, N.C., et al., 14 Dec 45. Unless otherwise noted, all documents cited in this section are located in Hist Div, HQMC.]

One other factor influenced the policy deliberations of the Marine Corps: its experiences with black marines during World War II. Overshadowing the praise commanders gave the black depot companies were reports of the trials and frustrations suffered by those who trained the large black combat units. Many Negroes trained long and hard for antiaircraft duty, yet a senior group commander found them ill-suited to the work because of "emotional instability and lack of appreciation of materiel." One battery commander cited the "mechanical ineptitude" of his men; another fell back on "racial characteristics of the Negro as a whole" to explain his unit's difficulty.[6-50] Embodying rash generalization and outright prejudice, the reports of these commanders circulated in Marine Corps headquarters, also revealed that a large group of black marines experienced enough problems in combat training to cast serious doubt on the reliability of the defense battalions. This doubt alone could explain the corps' decision to relegate the units to the backwaters of the war zone. Seeing only the immediate shortcomings of the large black combat units, most commanders ignored the underlying reasons for the failure. The controversial commander of the 51st Defense Battalion, Col. Curtis W. LeGette,[6-51] however, gave his explanation to the commandant in some detail. He reported that more than half the men in the 51st as it prepared for overseas deployment--most of them recent draftees--were in the two lowest categories, IV and V, for either general classification or mechanical aptitude. That some 212 of the noncommissioned officers of the units were also in categories IV and V was the result of the unit's effort to carry out the commandant's order to replace white noncommissioned officers as quickly as possible. The need to develop black noncommissioned officers was underscored by LeGette, who testified to a growing resentment among his black personnel at the assignment of new white noncoms. Symptomatic of the unit's basic problems in 1944 was what LeGette called an evolving "occupational neurosis" among white officers forced to serve for lengthy periods with black marines.[6-52]

[Footnote 6-50: AAA Gp, 51st Defense Bn, FMF, Montford Pt., Gp Cmdr's Endorsement on Annual Record Practice, Year 1943, 20 Dec 43; AAA Gp, 51st Defense Bn, FMF, Montford Pt., Battery Cmdr's Narrative Report of Record Practice, 1943, 21 Dec 43; idem, Battery Cmdr's Narrative Rpt (signed R. H. Twisdale) (ca. 20 Dec 43).]

[Footnote 6-51: For the extensive charges and countercharges concerning the controversy between Colonel LeGette and his predecessor in the 51st, see files of Hist Div, HQMC.]

[Footnote 6-52: Memo, CO, 51st Defense Bn, FMF, for CMC, 20 Jul 44, sub: Combat Efficiency, Fifty-First Defense Battalion, Serial 1085.]

The marines experienced far fewer racial problems than either the Army or Navy during the war, but the difficulties that occurred were nonetheless important in the development of postwar racial policy. The basic cause of race problems was the rigid concentration of (p. 172) often undertrained and undereducated men, who were subjected to racial slurs and insensitive treatment by some white officials and given little chance to serve in preferred military specialties or to advance in the labor or defense units or steward details to which they were invariably consigned. But this basic cause was ignored by Marine Corps planners when they discussed the postwar use of Negroes. They preferred to draw other lessons from the corps' wartime experience. The employment of black marines in small, self-contained units performing traditional laboring tasks was justified precisely because the average black draftee was less well-educated and experienced in the use of the modern equipment. Furthermore, the correctness of this procedure seemed to be demonstrated by the fact that the corps had been relatively free of the flare-ups that plagued the other services. Many officials would no doubt have preferred to eliminate race problems by eliminating Negroes from the corps altogether. Failing this, they were determined that regular black marines continue to serve in those assignments performed by black marines during the war: in service units, stewards billets, and a few antiaircraft artillery units, the postwar successors to defense battalions.[6-53]

[Footnote 6-53: Shaw and Donnelly, Blacks in the Marine Corps, pp 47-49; Interv, James Westfall with Col Curtis W. LeGette (USMC, Ret.), 8 Feb 72, copy in CMH.]

The development of a postwar racial policy to carry out the Navy Department's nondiscrimination order in the Marine Corps fell to the Division of Plans and Policies and its director, Brig. Gen. Gerald C. Thomas. It was a complicated task, and General Thomas and his staff after some delay established a series of guidelines intended to steer a middle path between exclusion and integration that would be nondiscriminatory. In addition to serving in the Steward's Branch, which contained 10 percent of all blacks in the corps, Negroes would serve in segregated units in every branch of the corps, and their strength would total some 2,800 men. This quota would not be like that established in the Army, which was pegged to the number of black soldiers during the war and which ultimately was based on national population ratios. The Marine Corps ratio of blacks to whites would be closer to 1 in 30 and would merely represent the estimated number of billets that might be filled by Negroes in self-sustaining segregated units.

The directorate also established a table of distribution plan that for the first time provided for black regular marines in aviation units and several other Marine Corps activities. Aviation units alone (p. 173) accounted for 25 percent of the marines in the postwar corps, General Thomas contended, and must absorb their proportionate share of black strength. Further, the Navy's policy of nondiscrimination demanded that all types of assignments be opened to black marines. Segregation "best suits the needs of the Marine Corps," General Thomas concluded. Ignoring the possibility of black officers and women marines, he thought that the opening of all specialties and types of duty to the enlisted ranks would find the Marine Corps "paralleling Navy policy."[6-54] Clearly, the Division of Plans and Policies wanted the corps to adopt a formula roughly analogous to the Gillem Board's separate but equal system without that body's provisions for a fixed quota, black officers, or some integrated service.

[Footnote 6-54: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 8 Apr 46, sub: Negro Personnel in the Post-War Marine Corps. This memo was not submitted for signature and was superseded by a memo of 13 May 46.]

But even this concession to nondiscrimination was never approved, for the Plans and Policies Division ran afoul of a basic fact of segregation: the postwar strength of many elements of the Marine Corps was too small to support separate racial units. The Director of Aviation, for example, argued that because of the size and nature of his operation, segregated service was impossible. A substantial number of his enlisted men also did double duty by serving in air stations where Negroes could not be segregated, he explained. Only completely separate aviation units, police and maintenance, and construction units would be available for Negroes, a state of affairs "which would be open to adverse criticism." He recommended instead that Negroes in aviation be used only as stewards.[6-55] He failed to explain how this solution would escape adverse criticism.

[Footnote 6-55: Memos, Dir, Aviation, for CMC, 26 Apr 46, sub: Negro Personnel in the Post-War Marine Corps, and 31 May 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes "For Duty in Aviation Units Only."]

General Thomas rejected these proposals, repeating that Secretary Forrestal's nondiscrimination policy demanded that a separate but equal system be extended throughout the Marine Corps. He also borrowed one of the Gillem Board's arguments: Negroes must be trained in the postwar military establishment in every occupation to serve as a cadre for future general mobilizations.[6-56] Thomas did not mention the fact that although large branches such as Fleet Marine Force aviation could maintain separate but equal living facilities for its black marines, even they would have to provide partially integrated training and working conditions. And the smaller organizations in the corps would be forced to integrate fully if forced to accept black marines. In short, if the corps wanted segregation it must pay the price of continued discrimination against black marines in terms of numbers enlisted and occupations assigned.

[Footnote 6-56: Div of Plans and Policies (signed G. C. Thomas), Consideration of Non-Concurrence, 2 May 46, attached to Memo, Dir, Aviation, for CMC, 26 Apr 46.]

The choice was left to Commandant Vandegrift. One solution to the "Negro question," General Thomas told him, was complete integration and the abolition of racial quotas, but Thomas did not press this solution. Instead, he reviewed for Vandegrift the racial policies of the other services, pointing out that these policies had more often been devised to "appease the Negro press and other 'interested' (p. 174) agencies than to satisfy their own needs." Until the matter was settled on a "higher level," Thomas concluded, the services were not required to go further than had been their custom, and until Vandegrift decided on segregation or integration, setting quotas for the different branches in the corps was inappropriate. Thomas himself recommended that segregated units be adopted and that a quota be devised only after each branch of the corps reported how many Negroes it could use in segregated units.[6-57] Vandegrift approved Thomas's recommendation for segregated black units, and the Marine Corps lost the chance, temporarily, to adopt a policy in line with either the Navy's limited and integrated system or the Army's separate but equal system.

[Footnote 6-57: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 13 May 46, sub: Negro Personnel in the Post-War Marine Corps.]

General Thomas spent the summer collecting and reviewing the proposals of the corps' various components for the employment of black marines. On the basis of this review General Vandegrift approved a postwar policy for the employment of Negroes in the Marine Corps on 26 September 1946. The policy called for the enlistment of 2,264 Negroes, 264 as stewards, the rest to serve in separate units, chiefly in ground security forces of the Fleet Marine Force in Guam and Saipan and in Marine Corps activities of the naval shore establishment. No Negroes except stewards would serve in Marine aviation, Marine forces afloat, or, with the exception of service depots, in the Marine logistic establishment.[6-58]

[Footnote 6-58: Idem for CMC, 25 Sep 46, sub: Post-War Negro Personnel Requirements. For examples of the proposals submitted by the various components, see Memo, F. D. Beans, G-3, for G-1, 6 Aug 46, sub: Employment of Colored Personnel in the Fleet Marine Force (Ground) (less Service Ground) and in Training Activities; Memo, Lt Col Schmuck, G-3, for Col Stiles, 10 Jun 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel in Post-War Infantry Units of the Fleet Marine Force; Memo, QMC for CMC, 4 Sep 46, sub: Negro Personnel in the Post-War Marine Corps.]

The policy was in effect by January 1947. In the end the Marine Corps' white-only tradition had proved strong enough to resist the progressive impulses that were pushing the other services toward some relaxation of their segregation policies. Committed to limiting Negroes to a token representation and employing black marines in rigidly self-contained units, the Marine Corps could not establish a quota for Negroes based on national racial proportions and could offer no promise of equal treatment and opportunity in work assignments and promotions.

Thus all the services emerged from their deliberations with postwar policies that were markedly different in several respects but had in common a degree of segregation. The Army, declaring that military efficiency demanded ultimate integration, temporized, guaranteeing as a first step an intricate system of separate but equal treatment and opportunity for Negroes. The Marine Corps began with the idea that separate but equal service was not discriminatory, but when equal service proved unattainable, black marines were left with separatism alone. The Navy announced the most progressive policy of all, providing for integration of its general service. Yet it failed to break the heavy concentration of Negroes in the Steward's Branch, (p. 175) where no whites served. And unlike the segregated Army, the integrated Navy, its admission standards too high to encourage black enlistments, did not guarantee to take any black officers or specialists.

None of these policies provided for the equal treatment and opportunity guaranteed to every black serviceman under the Constitution, although the racial practices of all the services stood far in advance of those of most institutions in the society from which they were derived. The very weaknesses and inadequacies inherent in these policies would in themselves become a major cause of the reforms that were less than a decade away.

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