9. (p. 234)
The Postwar Navy
That Army concerns and problems dominated the discussions of race relations in the armed forces in the postwar years is understandable since the Army had the largest number of Negroes and the most widely publicized segregation policy of all the services. At the same time the Army bore, unfairly, the brunt of public criticism for all the services' race problems. The Navy, committed to a policy of integration, but with relatively few Negroes in its integrated general service or in the ranks of the segregated Marine Corps and the new Air Force, its racial policy still fluid, merely attracted less attention and so escaped many of the charges hurled at the Army by civil rights advocates both in and out of the federal government. But however different or unformed their racial policies, all the services for the most part segregated Negroes in practice and all were open to charges of discrimination.
Although the services developed different racial policies out of their separate circumstances, all three were reacting to the same set of social forces and all three suffered from race prejudice. They also faced in common a growing indifference to military careers on the part of talented young Negroes who in any case would have to compete with an aging but persistent group of less talented black professionals for a limited number of jobs. Of great importance was the fact that the racial practices of the armed forces were a product of the individual service's military traditions. Countless incidents support the contention that service traditions were a transcendent factor in military decisions. Marx Leva, Forrestal's assistant, told the story of a Forrestal subordinate who complained that some admirals were still opposed to naval aviation, to which Forrestal replied that he knew some admirals who still opposed steam engines.[9-1] Forrestal's humorous exaggeration underscored the tenacity of traditional attitudes in the Navy. Although self-interest could never be discounted as a motive, tradition also figured prominently, for example, in the controversy between proponents of the battleship and proponents of the aircraft carrier. Certainly the influence of tradition could be discerned in the antipathy of Navy officials toward racial change.[9-2]
[Footnote 9-1: Interv, Lee Nichols with Marx Leva, 1953, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]
[Footnote 9-2: On the survival of traditional attitudes in the Navy, see Karsten, _Naval Aristocracy_, ch. v; Waldo H. Heinricks, Jr., "The Role of the U.S. Navy," in Dorothy Borg and Shumpei Okamoto, eds., Pearl Harbor as History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973); David Rosenberg, "Arleigh Burke and Officer Development in the Inter-war Navy," Pacific Historical Review 44 (November 1975).]
The Army also had its problems with tradition. It endured tremendous inner conflict before it decided to drop the cavalry in favor of mechanized and armored units. Nor did the resistance to armor die quickly. Former Chief of Staff Peyton C. March reported that a (p. 235) previous Chief of Cavalry told him in 1950 that the Army had betrayed the horse.[9-3] President Roosevelt was also a witness to how military tradition frustrated attempts to change policy. He picked his beloved Navy to make the point: "To change anything in the Na-a-vy is like punching a feather bed. You punch it with your right and you punch it with your left until you are finally exhausted, and then you find the damn bed just as it was before you started punching."[9-4] Many senior officers resisted equal treatment and opportunity simply because of their traditional belief that Negroes needed special treatment and any basic change in their status was fraught with danger.[9-5]
[Footnote 9-3: Edward M. Coffman, _The Hilt of the Sword_ (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), p. 245.]
[Footnote 9-4: Quoted in Marriner S. Eccles, Beckoning Frontiers: Public and Personal Recollections, ed. Sidney Hyman (New York: Knopf, 1951), p. 336.]
[Footnote 9-5: The influence of tradition on naval racial practices was raised during the hearings of the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 13 January 1949, pages 105-08, 111-12.]
Still, tradition could work two ways, and in the case of the Navy, at least, the postwar decision to liberalize racial practices can be traced in part to its sense of tradition. When James Forrestal started to integrate the general service in 1944, his appeals to his senior military colleagues, the President, and the public were always couched in terms of military efficiency. But if military efficiency made the new policy announced in February 1946 inevitable, military tradition made partial integration acceptable. Black sailors had served in significant numbers in an integrated general service during the nation's first century and a half, and those in the World War II period who spoke of a traditional Navy ban against Negroes were just as wrong as those who spoke of a traditional ban on liquor. The same abstemious secretary who completely outlawed alcohol on warships in 1914 initiated the short-lived restrictions on the service of Negroes in the Navy.[9-6] Both limited integration and liquor were old traditions in the American Navy, and the influence of military tradition made integration of the general service relatively simple.
[Footnote 9-6: SecNav (Josephus Daniels) General Order 90, 1 Jul 14. Alcohol had been outlawed for enlisted men at sea by Secretary John D. Long more than a decade earlier. The 1914 prohibition rule infuriated the officers. One predicted that the ruling would push officers into "the use of cocaine and other dangerous drugs." Quoted in Ronald Spector, Admiral of the New Empire (Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, 1974), pp. 191-92.]
Forrestal was convinced that in order to succeed racial reform must first be accepted by the men already in uniform; integration, if quietly and gradually put into effect, would soon demonstrate its efficiency and make the change acceptable to all members of the service. Quiet gradualism became the hallmark of his effort. In August 1945 the Navy had some 165,000 Negroes, almost 5.5 percent of its total strength. Sixty-four of them, including six women, were commissioned officers.[9-7] Presumably, these men and women would be the first to enjoy the fruits of the new integration order. Their number could also be expected to increase because, as Secretary Forrestal reported in August 1946, the only quotas on enlistment were those determined by the needs of the Navy and the limitation of (p. 236) funds.[9-8] Even as he spoke, at least some black sailors were being trained in almost all naval ratings and were serving throughout the fleet, on planes and in submarines, working and living with whites. The signs pointed to a new day for Negroes in the Navy.
[Footnote 9-7: Unless otherwise noted the statistical information used in this section was supplied by the Office, Assistant Chief for Management Information, BuPers. See also BuPers, "Enlisted Strength--U.S. Navy," 26 Jul 46, Pers 215-BL, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 9-8: Ltr, SecNav to Harvard Chapter, AVC, 26 Aug 46, P16-3 MM GenRecsNav.]
But during the chaotic months of demobilization a different picture began to emerge. Although Negroes continued to number about 5 percent of the Navy's enlisted strength, their position altered radically. The average strength figures for 1946 showed 3,300 Negroes, 16 percent of the total black strength, serving in the integrated general service while 17,300, or 84 percent, were classified as stewards. By mid-1948 the outlook was somewhat brighter, but still on the average only 38 percent of the Negroes in the Navy held jobs in the general service while 62 percent remained in the nonwhite Steward's Branch. At this time only three black officers remained on active duty. Again, what Navy officials saw as military efficiency helps explain this postwar retreat. Because of its rapidly sinking manpower needs, the Navy could afford to set higher enlistment standards than the Army, and the fewer available spaces in the general service went overwhelmingly to the many more eligible whites who applied. Only in the Steward's Branch, with its separate quotas and lower enlistment standards, did the (p. 237) Navy find a place for the many black enlistees as well as the thousands of stewards ready and willing to reenlist for peacetime service.
If efficiency explains why the Navy's general service remained disproportionately white, tradition explains how segregation and racial exclusion could coexist with integration in an organization that had so recently announced a progressive racial policy. Along with its tradition of an integrated general service, the Navy had a tradition of a white officer corps. It was natural for the Navy to exclude black officers from the Regular Navy, Secretary John L. Sullivan said later, just as it was common to place Negroes in mess jobs.[9-9] A modus vivendi could be seen emerging from the twin dictates of efficiency and tradition: integrate a few thousand black sailors throughout the general service in fulfillment of the letter of the Bureau of Naval Personnel circular; as for the nonwhite Steward's Branch and the lack of black officers, these conditions were ordinary and socially comfortable. Since most Navy leaders agreed that the new policy was fair and practical, no further changes seemed necessary in the absence of a pressing military need or a demand from the White House or Congress.
[Footnote 9-9: Interv, Nichols with Secretary John L. Sullivan, Dec 52, in Nichols Collection, CMH. Sullivan succeeded James Forrestal as secretary on 18 September 1947.]
To black publicists and other advocates of civil rights, the Navy's postwar manpower statistics were self-explanatory: the Navy was discriminating against the Negro. Time and again the Navy responded to this charge, echoing Secretary Forrestal's contention that the Navy had no racial quotas and that all restrictions on the employment of black sailors had been lifted. As if suggesting that all racial distinctions had been abandoned, personnel officials discontinued publishing racial statistics and abolished the Special Programs Unit.[9-10] Cynics might have ascribed other motives for these decisions, but the civil rights forces apparently never bothered. For the most part they left the Navy's apologists to struggle with the increasingly difficult task of explaining why the placement of Negroes deviated so markedly from assignment for whites.
[Footnote 9-10: The BuPers Progress Report (Pers 215), the major statistical publication of the department, terminated its statistical breakdown by race in March 1946. The Navy's racial affairs office was closed in June 1946. See BuPers, "Narrative of Bureau of Naval Personnel, 1 September 1945 to 1 October 1946" (hereafter "BuPers Narrative"), 1:73.]
The Navy's difficulty in this regard stemmed from the fact that the demobilization program under which it geared down from a 3.4 million-man service to a peacetime force of less than half a million was quite straightforward and simple. Consequently, the latest state of the Negro in the Navy was readily apparent to the black serviceman and to the public. The key to service in the postwar Navy was acceptance into the Regular Navy. The wartime Navy had been composed overwhelmingly of reservists and inductees, and shortly after V-J day the Navy announced plans for the orderly separation of all reservists by September 1946. In April 1946 it discontinued volunteer enlistment in the Naval Reserve for immediate active duty, and in May it (p. 238) issued its last call for draftees through Selective Service.[9-11]
[Footnote 9-11: Ibid., p. 143; Selective Service System, Special Groups (Monograph 10), 2:200. Between September 1945 and May 1946 the Navy drafted 20,062 men, including 3,394 Negroes.]
At the same time the Bureau of Naval Personnel launched a vigorous program to induce reservists to switch to the Regular Navy. In October 1945 it opened all petty officer ratings in the Regular Navy to such transfers and offered reservists special inducements for changeover in the form of ratings, allowance extras, and, temporarily, short-term enlistments. So successful was the program that by July 1947 the strength of the Regular Navy had climbed to 488,712, only a few thousand short of the postwar authorization. The Navy ended its changeover program in early 1947.[9-12] While it lasted, black reservists and inductees shared in the program, although the chief of the personnel recruiting division found it necessary to amplify the recruiting instructions to make this point clear.[9-13] The Regular Navy included 7,066 enlisted Negroes on V-J day, 2.1 percent of the total enlisted strength. This figure nearly tripled in the next year to 20,610, although the percentage of Negroes only doubled.[9-14]
[Footnote 9-12: "BuPers Narrative," 1:141, 192; see also BuPers Cir Ltr 41-46, 15 Feb 46.]
[Footnote 9-13: See Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to CO, Naval Barracks, NAD, Seal Beach, Calif., 8 Oct 45, sub: Eligibility of Negroes for Enlistment in USN, P16 MM, BuPersRecs; Recruiting Dir, BuPers, Directive to Recruiting Officers, 25 Jan 46, quoted in Nelson, "Integration of the Negro," p. 58.]
[Footnote 9-14: BuPers, "Enlisted Strength--U.S. Navy," 26 Jul 46, Pers 215-BL.]
The Steward's Branch
The major concern of the civil rights groups was not so much the number of Negroes in the Regular Navy, although this remained far below the proportion of Negroes in the civilian population, but that the majority of Negroes were being accepted for duty in the nonwhite Steward's Branch. More than 97 percent of all black sailors in the Regular Navy in December 1945 were in this branch. The ratio improved somewhat in the next six months when 3,000 black general service personnel (out of a wartime high of 90,000) transferred into the Regular Navy while more than 10,000 black reservists and draftees joined the 7,000 regulars already in the Steward's Branch.[9-15] The statistical low point in terms of the ratio of Negroes in the postwar regular general service and the Steward's Branch occurred in fiscal year 1947 when only 19.21 percent of the Navy's regular black personnel were assigned outside the Steward's Branch.[9-16] In short, more than eight out of every ten Negroes in the Navy trained and worked separately from white sailors, performing menial tasks and led by noncommissioned officers denied the perquisites of rank.
[Footnote 9-15: Memo, Dir of Planning and Control, BuPers, for Chief, NavPers (ca. Jan 46), sub: Negro Personnel, Pers 21B, BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 9-16: BuPers, Memo on Discrimination of the Negro, 24 Jan 59. filed in BuPers Technical Library.]
The Navy itself had reason to be concerned. The Steward's Branch created efficiency problems and was a constant source of embarrassment to the service's public image. Because of its low standards, the branch attracted thousands of poorly educated and underprivileged individuals who had a high rate of venereal disease but were (p. 239) engaged in preparing and serving food. Leaders within the branch itself, although selected on the basis of recommendations from superiors, examinations, and seniority, were often poor performers. Relations between the individual steward and the outfit to which he was assigned were often marked by personal conflicts and other difficulties. Consequently, while stewards eagerly joined the branch in the Regular Navy, the incidence of disciplinary problems among them was high. The branch naturally earned the opprobrium of civil rights groups, who were sensitive not only to the discrimination of a separate branch for minorities but also to the unfavorable image these men created of Negroes in the service.[9-17]
[Footnote 9-17: Memo, Lt Dennis D. Nelson for Dep Dir. Pub Relations. 26 Mar 48, sub: Problems of the Stewards' Branch, PR 221-5393, GenRecsNav. On mental standards for stewards, sec BuPers Cir Ltr 41-46, 15 Feb 46.]
The Navy had a ready defense for its management of the branch. Its spokesmen frequently explained that it performed an essential function, especially at sea. Since this function was limited in scope, they added, the Navy was able to reduce the standards for the branch, thus opening opportunities for many men otherwise ineligible to join the service. In order to offer a chance for advancement the Navy had to create a separate recruiting and training system for (p. 240) stewards. This separation in turn explained the steward's usual failure to transfer to branches in the regular command channels. Since there were no minimum standards for the branch, it followed that most of its noncommissioned officers remained unqualified to exercise military command over personnel other than their branch subordinates. Lack of command responsibility was also present in a number of other branches not directly concerned with the operation of ships. It was not the result of race prejudice, therefore, but of standards for enlistment and types of duties performed. Nor was the steward's frequent physical separation based on race; berthing was arranged by department and function aboard large vessels. Separation did not exist on smaller ships. Messmen were usually berthed with other men of the supply department, including bakers and storekeepers. Chief stewards, however, as Under Secretary Kimball later explained, had not been required to meet the military qualifications for chief petty officer, and therefore it was "considered improper that they should be accorded the same messing, berthing, club facilities, and other privileges reserved for the highest enlisted grade of the Navy."[9-18] Stewards of the lower ranks received the same chance for advancement as members of other enlisted branches, but to grant them command responsibility would necessitate raising qualifications for the whole branch, (p. 241) thus eliminating many career stewards and extending steward training to include purely military subjects.[9-19]
[Footnote 9-18: Ltr, Under SecNav for Congressman Clyde Doyle of California. 24 Aug 49, MM(1), GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 9-19: For examples of the Navy's official explanation of steward duties, see Ltr, Actg SecNav to Lester Granger, 22 Apr 46, QN/MM(2), and Ltr, Under SecNav to Congressman Clyde Doyle of California, 24 Aug 49; both in GenRecsNav. See also Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to Dr. Carl Yaeger, 16 Oct 47, P16-1, BuPersRecs, and Testimony of Capt Fred R. Stickney, BuPers, and Vice Adm William M. Fechteler, Chief of Naval Personnel, before the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services (Fahy Cmte), 13 Jan and 28 Mar 49.]
There was truth in these assertions. Stewards had taken advantage of relaxed regulations, flocking into the Regular Navy during the first months of the changeover program. Many did so because they had many years invested in a naval career. Some may have wanted the training and experience to be gained from messman's service. In fact, some stewards enjoyed rewarding careers in restaurant, club, and hotel work after retirement. More surprising, considering the numerous complaints about the branch from civil rights groups, the Steward's Branch consistently reported the highest reenlistment rate in the Navy. Understandably, the Navy constantly reiterated these statistics. Actually, the stewards themselves were a major stumbling block to reform of the branch. Few of the senior men aspired to other ratings; many were reluctant to relinquish what they saw as the advantages of the messman's life. Whatever its drawbacks, messman's duty proved to be a popular assignment.[9-20]
[Footnote 9-20: Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70.]
The Navy's defense was logical, but not too convincing. Technically the Steward's Branch was open to all, but in practice it remained strictly nonwhite. Civil rights activists could point to the fact that there were six times as many illiterate whites as Negroes in the wartime Navy, yet none of these whites were ever assigned to the Steward's Branch and none transferred to that branch of the Regular Navy after the war.[9-21] Moreover, shortly after the war the Bureau of Naval Personnel predicted a 7,577-man shortage in the Steward's Branch, but the Navy made no attempt to fill the places with white sailors. Instead, it opened the branch to Filipinos and Guamanians, recruiting 3,500 of the islanders before the program was stopped on 4 July 1946, the date of Philippine independence. Some Navy recruiters found other ways to fill steward quotas. The Urban League and others reported cases in which black volunteers were rejected by recruiters for any assignment but steward duty.[9-22] Nor did civil rights spokesmen appreciate the distinction in petty officer rank the Navy made between the steward and other sailors; they continued to interpret it as part and parcel of the "injustices, lack of respect and the disregard for the privileges accorded rated men in other branches of the service."[9-23] They also resented the paternalism implicit in the secretary's assurances that messman's duty was a haven for men unable to compete.
[Footnote 9-21: Ltr, Dir, Plans and Oper Div, BuPers, to Richard Lueking, Berea College, 6 Dec 46, P16.1, BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 9-22: Department of National Defense, "National Defense Conference on Racial Affairs," 26 Apr 48, morning session, pp. 46-47.]
[Footnote 9-23: Memo, Lt D. D. Nelson, office of Public Relations, for Capt E. B. Dexter, Office of Public Relations, 24 Aug 48, sub: Negro Stewards, Petty Officer Ratings, Status of, PR 221-14003, GenRecsNav.]
Some individuals in the department were aware of this resentment in the black community and pushed for reform in the Steward's Branch. The Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air, John Nicholas Brown, (p. 242) wanted more publicity given both in and outside the service to the fact that the branch was not restricted to any one race and, conversely, that Negroes were welcome in the general service.[9-24] In view of the strong tradition of racial separateness in the stewards rating, such publicity might be considered sheer sophistry, but no more so than the suggestion made by a senior personnel official that the Commissary Branch and Steward's Branch be combined to achieve a racially balanced specialty.[9-25] Lester Granger, now outside the official Navy family but still intimately concerned with the department's racial affairs, also pleaded for a merger of the commissary and steward functions. He reasoned that, since members of the Commissary Branch could advance to true petty officer rating, such a merger would provide a new avenue of advancement for stewards.
[Footnote 9-24: Ltr, Asst SecNav to Lester Granger, 22 Apr 48, QN-MM (2), GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 9-25: Interv, Nichols with Capt George A. Holderness, Jr., USN, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]
But more to the point Granger also pushed for reform in the standards of the Steward's Branch. He recognized that educational and other requirements had been lowered for stewards, but, he told Forrestal's successor, Secretary John L. Sullivan, there was little wisdom in "compounding past error." He also pointed out that not all messmen were in the lower intelligence classifications and recommended that the higher scoring men be replaced with low-scoring whites.[9-26]
[Footnote 9-26: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 15 Mar 48, SO-3-18-56, SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]
From within the Navy itself Lt. Dennis D. Nelson, one of the first twelve Negroes commissioned and still on active duty, added his voice to the demand for reform of the Steward's Branch. An analogy may be drawn between the Navy career of Nelson and that of the legendary Christopher Sargent. Lacking Sargent's advantages of wealth and family connection, Nelson nevertheless became a familiar of Secretary Sullivan's and, though not primarily assigned to the task, made equal opportunity his preeminent concern. A highly visible member of the Navy's racial minority in Washington, he made himself its spokesman, pressing senior officials to bring the department's manpower practices closer to its stated policy. Once again the Navy experienced the curious phenomenon of a lieutenant firing off memos and letters to senior admirals and buttonholing the Secretary of the Navy.[9-27]
[Footnote 9-27: Interv, Nichols with Sullivan; Intervs, author with Lt Cmdr D. D. Nelson, 17 Sep 69, and with James C. Evans, Counselor to the SecDef, 10 Jan 73; Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70. All in CMH files.]
Nelson had a host of suggestions for the Steward's Branch: eliminate the branch as a racially separate division of labor in the Navy, provide permanent officer supervision for all steward units, develop capable noncommissioned officers in the branch with privileges and responsibilities similar to those of other petty officers, indoctrinate all personnel in the ramifications of the Navy's stated integration policy, and create a committee to work out the details of these changes. On several occasions Nelson tried to show his superiors how nuances in their own behavior toward the stewards reinforced, perhaps as much as separate service itself, the image of discrimination. He recommended that the steward's uniform be changed, eliminating the white jacket and giving the steward a regular (p. 243) seaman's look. He also suggested that petty officer uniforms for stewards be regularized. At one poignant moment this lonely officer took on the whole service, trying to change singlehandedly a thoughtless habit that demeaned both blacks and whites. He admonished the service: "refrain from the use of 'Boy' in addressing Stewards. This has been a constant practice in the Service and is most objectionable, is in bad taste, shows undue familiarity and pins a badge of inferiority, adding little to the dignity and pride of adults."[9-28]
[Footnote 9-28: Memo, Lt Nelson for Capt Dexter, Pub Rels Office, 24 Aug 48, sub: Negro Stewards, Petty Officer Ratings, Status of, PR 221-14003; idem for Dep Dir, Off of Pub Relations, 26 Mar 48, sub: Problems of the Stewards' Branch, PR 221-5393; both in GenRecsNav. The quotation is from the latter document.]
In summing up these recommendations for the Secretary of the Navy in January 1949, Nelson reminded Sullivan that only 37 percent of the Navy's Negroes were in the general service, in contrast to 72 percent of the Negroes in the Marine Corps. He warned that this imbalance perturbed the members of the recently convened National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs and predicted it would interest those involved in the forthcoming presidential inquiry on equality in the armed forces.[9-29]
[Footnote 9-29: Ltr, Nelson to SecNav, 7 Jan 49, SecNav files, GenRecsNav. For discussion of the presidential inquiry, see Chapter 14.]
Despite its continued defense of the status quo in the Steward's Branch, the Bureau of Naval Personnel was not insensitive to criticism. To protect Negroes from overzealous recruiters for the branch, the bureau had announced in October 1945 that any Negro in the general service desiring transfer to the Steward's Branch had to make his request in writing.[9-30] In mid-1946 it closed the branch to first enlistment, thereby abolishing possible abuses in the recruiting system.[9-31] Later in the year the bureau tried to upgrade the quality of the branch by instituting a new and more rigorous training course for second-and third-class stewards and cooks at Bainbridge, Maryland. Finally, in June 1947 it removed from its personnel manual all remaining mention of restrictions on the transfer of messmen to the general service.[9-32] These changes were important, but they failed to attack racial separation, the major problem of the branch. Thus the controversy over messmen, in which tradition, prejudice, and necessity contended, went on, and the Steward's Branch, a symbol of discrimination in the Navy, remained to trouble both the service and the civil rights groups for some time.
[Footnote 9-30: BuPers Cir Ltr, 17 Oct 45.]
[Footnote 9-31: Testimony of Capt Fred Stickney at National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48, morning session, p. 47.]
[Footnote 9-32: Change 12 to Ankle D-5114, BuPers Manual, 1942.]
Black Officers
The Navy had a racial problem of more immediate concern to men like Lieutenant Nelson, one of three black officers remaining on active duty. These were the survivers of a most exclusive group that had begun its existence with much hope. In the months following graduation of the first twelve black officers and one warrant officer in March 1944, scores of Negroes had passed through the Navy's training school. By the end of the war the V-12 program had thirty-six black candidates, with three others attending the Supply Corps School at Harvard. (p. 244) The number of black officers had grown at an agonizingly slow rate, although in June 1944 the Secretary of the Navy approved a personnel bureau request that in effect removed any numerical quotas for black officers. Unfortunately, black officers were still limited to filling "needs as they appeared," and the need for black officers was curtailed by the restricted range of activities open to them in the segregated wartime service. Further, most nominees for commissions were selected from the ranks and depended on the sponsorship of their commanding officer who might not be able to spare a competent enlisted man who deserved promotion. Putting the matter in the best possible light, one Navy historian blamed the dearth of black officers on bureaucratic inertia.[9-33]
[Footnote 9-33: "BuPers Hist," pp. 83-85, and Supplement (LN), pp. 4-8, copy in CMH. Unless otherwise noted the data for this section on black officers in World War II are from this source.]
Despite procurement failures and within the limitations of general segregation policy, the Navy treated black officers with scrupulous fairness during the war. The Bureau of Naval Personnel insisted they be given the privileges of rank in wardroom and ashore, thus crushing an attempt by authorities at Great Lakes to underwrite a tacit ban on the use of the officers' club by Negroes. In fact, integration proved to be more the rule than the exception in training black officers. The small number of black candidates made segregated classes impractical, and after graduation of the first group of black officers at Great Lakes, Negroes were accepted in all officer candidate classes. As part of this change, the Special Programs Unit successfully integrated the Navy's officer candidate school in the posh hotels of still-segregated Miami Beach.
The officers graduated into a number of assignments. Some saw duty aboard district and yard craft, others at departmental headquarters in Washington. A few served in recruit training assignments at Great Lakes and Hampton Institute, but the majority went overseas to work in logistical and advanced base companies, the stevedore-type outfits composed exclusively of Negroes. Nelson, for example, was sent to the Marshall Islands where he was assigned to a logistic support company composed of some three hundred black sailors and noncommissioned officers with a racially mixed group of officers. Black staff officers, engineers, doctors, dentists, and chaplains were also attached to these units, where they had limited responsibilities and little chance for advancement.[9-34]
[Footnote 9-34: Nelson, "Integration of the Negro," pp. 156-58.]
Exceptions to the assignment rule increased during the last months (p. 245) of the war. The Special Programs Unit had concluded that restricting black officers to district craft and shore billets might further encourage the tendency to build an inshore black Navy, and the Bureau of Naval Personnel began assigning black officers to seagoing vessels when they completed their sea duty training. By July 1945 several were serving in the fleet. To avoid embarrassment, the Chief of Naval Personnel made it a practice to alert the commanding officers of a ship about to receive a black officer so that he might indoctrinate his officers. As his assistant, Rear Adm. William M. Fechteler, explained to one such commander, "if such officers are accorded the proper respect and are required to discharge the duties commensurate with their rank they should be equally competent to white officers of similar experience."[9-35]
[Footnote 9-35: "BuPers Hist," p. 85. The quotation is from Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to CO, USS Laramie, 16 Jul 45, BuPersRecs.]
Fechteler's prediction proved accurate. By V-J day, the Navy's black officers, both line and staff, were serving competently in many occupations. The bureau reported that the "personnel relationship aspect" of their introduction into the service had worked well. Black officers with white petty officers and enlisted men under them handled their command responsibilities without difficulty, and in general bureau reports and field inspections noted considerable satisfaction with their performance.[9-36] But despite this satisfactory record, only three black officers remained on active duty in 1946. The promise engendered by the Navy's treatment of its black officers in the closing months of the war had not been fulfilled during the demobilization period that followed, and what had been to the civil rights movement a brightening situation rapidly became an intolerable one.
[Footnote 9-36: "BuPers Hist," p. 85.]
There were several reasons for the rapid demobilization of black officers. Some shared the popular desire of reserve officers to return to civilian life. Among them were mature men with substantial academic achievements and valuable technical experience. Many resented in particular their assignment to all-black labor units, and wanted to resume their civilian careers.[9-37] But a number of black officers, along with over 29,000 white reservists, did seek commissions in the Regular Navy.[9-38] Yet not one Negro was granted a regular commission in the first eighteen months after the war. Lester Granger was especially upset by these statistics, and in July 1946 he personally took up the case of two black candidates with Secretary Forrestal.[9-39]
[Footnote 9-37: Nelson "Integration of the Negro," p. 157.]
[Footnote 9-38: ALNAV 252-46, 21 May 46, sub: Transfer to Regular Navy.]
[Footnote 9-39: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 31 Jul 46, 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav. One of these applicants was Nelson, then a lieutenant, who received a promotion upon assignment as commanding officer of a logistic support company in the Marshall Islands. The grade became permanent upon Nelson's assignment to the Public Relations Bureau in Washington in 1946.]
The Bureau of Naval Personnel offered what it considered a reasonable explanation. As a group, black reserve officers were considerably overage for their rank and were thus at a severe disadvantage in the fierce competition for regular commissions. The average age of the first class of black officers was over thirty-one years. All had been commissioned ensigns on 17 March 1944, and all had received one (p. 246) promotion to lieutenant, junior grade, by the end of the war. When age and rank did coincide, black reservists were considered for transfer. For example, on 15 March 1947 Ens. John Lee, a former V-12 graduate assigned as gunnery officer aboard a fleet auxiliary craft, received a regular commission, and on 6 January 1948 Lt. (jg.) Edith DeVoe, one of the four black nurses commissioned in March 1945, was transferred into the Regular Navy. The following October Ens. Jessie Brown was commissioned and assigned to duty as the first black Navy pilot.
In a sense, the black officers had the cards stacked against them. As Nelson later explained, the bureau did not extend to its black line officers the same consideration given other reservists. While the first twelve black officers were given unrestricted line officer training, the bureau assigned them to restricted line positions, an added handicap when it came to promotions and retention in the postwar Navy. All were commissioned ensigns, although the bureau usually granted rank according to the candidate's age, a practice followed when it commissioned its first black staff officers, one of whom became a full lieutenant and the rest lieutenants, junior grade. As an overage reservist himself, Nelson remained on active duty after the war through the personal intervention of Secretary Forrestal. His tour in the Navy's public relations office was repeatedly extended until finally on 1 January 1950, thanks to Secretary Sullivan, he received a regular commission.[9-40]
[Footnote 9-40: Nelson, "Integration of the Negro," pp. 157-59; Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70; Interv, Nichols with Sullivan.]
Prospects for an increase in black officers were dim. With rare exception the Navy's officers came from the academy at Annapolis, the officer candidate program, or the Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps (NROTC) program. Ens. Wesley A. Brown would graduate in the academy's class of 1949, the sixth Negro to attend and the first to graduate in the academy's 104-year history. Only five other Negroes were enrolled in the academy's student body in 1949, and there was little indication that this number would rapidly increase. For the most part the situation was beyond the control of the Bureau of Naval Personnel. Competition was keen for acceptance at Annapolis. The American Civil Liberties Union later asserted that the exclusion of Negroes from many of the private prep schools, which so often produced successful academy applicants, helped explain why there were so few Negroes at the academy.[9-41]
[Footnote 9-41: Ltr. Exec Dir. ACLU, to SecNav, 26 Nov 57, GenRecsNav.]
Nor were many black officers forthcoming from the Navy's two other sources. Officer candidate schools, severely reduced in size after the war and a negligible source of career officers, had no Negroes in attendance from 1946 through 1948. Perhaps most disturbing was the fact that in 1947 just fourteen Negroes were enrolled among more than 5,600 students in the NROTC program, the usual avenue to a Regular Navy commission.[9-42] The Holloway program, the basis for the Navy's reserve officer training system, offered scholarships at fifty-two colleges across the nation, but the number of these scholarships was small, the competition intense, and black applicants, often burdened by inferior schooling, did not fare well.
[Footnote 9-42: "BuPers Narrative," 1:295.]
Statistics pointed at least to the possibility that racial (p. 247) discrimination existed in the NROTC system. Unlike the Army and Air Force programs, reserve officer training in the Navy depended to a great extent on state selection committees dominated by civilians. These committees exercised considerable leeway in selecting candidates to fill their state's annual NROTC quota, and their decisions were final. Not one Negro served on any of the state committees. In fact, fourteen of the fifty-two colleges selected for reserve officer training barred Negroes from admission by law and others--the exact number is difficult to ascertain--by policy. One black newspaper charged that only thirteen of the participating institutions admitted Negroes.[9-43] In all, only six black candidates survived this process to win commissions in 1948.
[Footnote 9-43: Norfolk Journal and Guide, August 20, 1949.]
Lester Granger blamed the lack of black candidates on the fact that so few Negroes attended the schools; undoubtedly, more Negroes would have been enrolled in reserve officer training had the program been established at one of the predominantly black colleges. But black institutions were excluded from the wartime V-12 program, and when the program was extended to include fifty-two colleges in November 1945 the Navy again rejected the applications of black schools, justifying the exclusion, as it did for many white schools, on grounds of inadequacies in enrollment, academic credentials, and physical facilities.[9-44] Some black spokesmen called the decision discriminatory. President Mordecai Johnson of Howard University ruefully wondered how the Navy's unprejudiced and nondiscriminatory selection of fifty-two colleges managed to exclude so neatly all black institutions.[9-45]
[Footnote 9-44: Ltr, SecNav to William T. Farley, Chmn, Civilian Components Policy Bd, DOD, 4 Mar 50, Q4, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 9-45: Statement of Dr. Mordecai Johnson at National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48, morning session, p. 42.]
Others disagreed. From the first the Special Programs Unit had rejected the clamor for forming V-12 units in predominantly black colleges, arguing that in the long run this could be considered enforced segregation and hardly contribute to racial harmony. Although candidates were supposed to attend the NROTC school of their choice, black candidates were restricted to institutions that would accept them. If a black school was added to the program, all black candidates would very likely gravitate toward it. Several black spokesmen, including Nelson, took this attitude and urged instead a campaign to increase the number of Negroes at the various integrated schools in the NROTC system.[9-46] Whatever the best solution, a significant and speedy increase in the number of black officers was unlikely.
[Footnote 9-46: Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70; see also "BuPersHist," p. 84.]
Of lesser moment because of the small size of the WAVES and the Nurse Corps, the role of black women in the postwar Navy nevertheless concerned several civil rights leaders. Roy Wilkins, for one, concluded that the Navy's new policy which "hasn't worked out on the officer level ... hadn't worked on the women's level" either.[9-47] The Navy's statistics seemed to proved his contention. The service had (p. 248) 68 black enlisted women and 6 officers (including 4 nurses) on V-J day; a year later the number had been reduced to 5 black WAVES and 1 nurse. The Navy sought to defend these statistics against charges of discrimination. A spokesman explained that the paucity of black WAVES resulted from the fact that Negroes were barred from the WAVES until December 1944, just months before the Navy stopped recruiting all WAVES. Black WAVES who had remained in the postwar Navy had been integrated and were being employed without discrimination.[9-48]
[Footnote 9-47: Statement of Roy Wilkins at National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48, morning session p. 44.]
[Footnote 9-48: Testimony of Stickney at National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48, morning session, p. 43.]
But criticism persisted. In February 1948 the Navy could count six black WAVES out of a total enlisted force of 1,700, and during hearings on a bill to regularize the women's services several congressmen joined with a representative of the NAACP to press for a specific anti-discrimination amendment. The amendment was defeated, but not before Congressman Adam Clayton Powell charged that the status of black women in the Navy proved discrimination and demonstrated that the administration was practicing "not merely discrimination, segregation, and Jim Crowism, but total exclusion."[9-49] The same critics also demanded a similar amendment to the companion legislation on the WAC's, but it, too, was defeated.
[Footnote 9-49: U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee No. 3, Organization and Mobilization, Hearings on S. 1641, To Establish the Women's Army Corps in the Regular Army, To Authorize the Enlistment and Appointment of Women in the Regular Navy and Marine Corps and the Naval and Marine Corps Reserve and for Other Purposes, 80th Cong., 2d sess., 18 Feb 48, pp. 5603-08, 5657, 5698, 5734-36. The Powell quotation is on page 5734.]
Black nurses presented a different problem. Two of the wartime nurses had resigned to marry and the third was on inactive status attending college. The Navy, Secretary Forrestal claimed in July 1947, was finding it difficult to replace them or add to their number. Observing that black leaders had shown considerable interest in the Navy's nursing program, Forrestal noted that a similar interest had not been forthcoming from black women themselves. During the Navy's 1946 recruitment drive to attract 1,000 new nurses, only one Negro applied, and she was disqualified on physical grounds.[9-50]
[Footnote 9-50: Ltr, SecNav to Congresswoman Margaret Chase Smith (Maine), 24 Jul 47, OG/P14-2, GenRecsNav.]
Public Image and the Problem of Numbers
Individual black nurses no doubt had cogent reasons for failing to apply for Navy commissions, but the fact that only one applied called attention to a phenomenon that first appeared about 1946. Black Americans were beginning to ignore the Navy. Attempts by black reserve officers to procure NROTC applicants in black high schools and colleges proved largely unproductive. Nelson spoke before 8,500 potential candidates in 1948, and a special recruiting team reached an equal number the following year, but the combined effort brought fewer than ninety black applicants to take the competitive examination.[9-51] Recruiters had similar problems in the enlistment of Negroes (p. 249) for general service. Viewed from a different perspective, even the complaints and demands of black citizens, at flood tide during the war, now merely trickled into the secretary's office, reflecting, it could be argued, a growing indifference. That such unwillingness to enlist, as Lester Granger put it, should occur on the heels of a widely publicized promise of racial equality in the service was ironic. The Navy was beginning to welcome the Negro, but the Negro no longer seemed interested in joining.[9-52]
[Footnote 9-51: Memo, Dir, Pol Div, BuPers, for Capt William C. Chapman, Office of Information, Navy Dept, 21 Sep 65; Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Chief, Bur of Public Relations, 16 Dec 48. QR4; both in BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 9-52: See Testimony of Lester Granger and Assistant Secretary Brown at National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48, morning session, pp. 45-46; and Memo, Nelson for Marx Leva, 24 May 48, copy in Nelson Archives.]
Several reasons were suggested for this attitude. Assistant Secretary Brown placed the blame, at least in part, on the gap between policy and practice. Because of delay in abolishing old discriminatory practices, he pointed out to the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, "the Navy's good public relations are endangered."[9-53] The personnel bureau promptly investigated, found justification for complaints (p. 250) of discrimination, and took corrective action.[9-54] Yet, as Nelson pointed out, such corrections, often in the form of "clarifying directives," were usually directed to specific commanders and tied to specific incidents and were ignored by other commanders as inapplicable to their own racial experiences.[9-55] Despite the existence of the racially separate Steward's Branch, the Navy's policy seemed so unassailable to the Chief of Naval Personnel that when his views on a congressional measure to abolish segregation in the services were solicited he reported without reservation that his bureau interposed no objection.[9-56]
[Footnote 9-53: Memo, Asst SecNav for Air for Dep CNO, 3 Feb 48, sub: Racial Discrimination, P1-4 (8), GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 9-54: See Memo, Chief, NavPers, for CO, USS Grand Canyon (AD 28), 17 Dec 48, sub: Navy Department's Non Discrimination Policy--Alleged Violation of, P14; Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to Cmdt, Twelfth Nav Dist, 27 Feb 46, sub: Officer Screening Procedure and Indoctrination Course in the Supervision of Negro Personnel--Establishment of, Pers 4221; both in BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 9-55: Memo, Nelson for Chief, NavPers, 29 Nov 48, sub: Complaint of Navy Enlisted Man Made to Pittsburgh Courier..., PR221, BuPersRecs.]
[Footnote 9-56: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for JAG, 11 Feb 47, sub: HR 279: To Prohibit Race Segregation in the Armed Forces of the United States, GenRecsNav.]
The Navy's major racial problem by 1948 was the shockingly small number of Negroes in the service. In November 1948, a presidential election month, Negroes accounted for 4.3 percent of the navy's strength. Not only were there few Negroes in the Navy, but there were especially too few in the general service and practically no black officers, a series of statistics that made the predominately black and separate stewards more conspicuous. The Navy rejected an obvious solution, lowering recruitment standards, contending that it could not run its ships and aircraft with men who scored below ninety in the general classification test.[9-57] The alternative was to recruit among the increasing numbers of educated Negroes, as the personnel bureau had been trying to do. But here, as Nelson and others could report, the Navy faced severe competition from other employers, and here the Navy's public image had its strongest effect.
[Footnote 9-57: For discussion of the problem of comparative enlistment standards, see Chapter 12.]
Lt. Comdr. Edward Hope, a black reserve officer assigned to officer procurement, concluded that the black community, especially veterans, distrusted all the services. Consequently, Negroes tended to disregard announced plans and policies applicable to all citizens unless they were specially labeled "for colored." Negroes tried to avoid the humiliation of applying for certain rights or benefits only to be arbitrarily rejected.[9-58] Compounding the suspicion and fear of humiliation, Hope reported, was a genuine lack of information on Navy policy that seriously limited the number of black applicants.
[Footnote 9-58: Ltr, Lt Cmdr, E. S. Hope to SecDef, 17 May 48, with attached rpt, D54-1-10, GenRecsNav.]
The cause of confusion among black students over Navy policy was easy to pinpoint, for memories of the frustrations and insults suffered by black seamen during the war were still fresh. Negroes remembered the labor battalions bossed by whites--much like the old plantation system, Lester Granger observed. Unlike the Army, the Navy had offered few black enlisted men the chance of serving in vital jobs under black commanders. This slight, according to Granger, robbed the black sailor of pride in service, a pride that could hardly be restored by the postwar image of the black sailor not as a fighting man but as a servant or laborer. Always a loyal member of the Navy team, (p. 252) Granger was anxious to improve the Navy's public image in the black community, and he and others often advanced plans for doing so.[9-59] But any discussion of image quickly foundered on one point: the Navy would remain suspect in the eyes of black youth and be condemned by civil rights leaders as long as it retained that symbol of racism, the racially separate Steward's Branch.
[Footnote 9-59: See, for example, Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 10 Jun 47, 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav, and Granger's extensive comments and questions at the National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48.]
Here the practical need for change ran headlong into strong military tradition. An integrated general service was traditional and therefore acceptable; an integrated servants' branch was not. Faced with the choice of a small number of Negroes in the Navy and the attendant charges of racism or a change in its traditions, the Navy accepted the former. Lack of interest on the part of the black community was not a particularly pressing problem for the Navy in the immediate postwar years. Indeed, it might well have been a source of comfort for the military traditionalists who, armed with an unassailable integration policy, could still enjoy a Navy little changed from its prewar condition. Nevertheless, the lack of black volunteers for general service was soon to be discussed by a presidential commission, and in the next fifteen years would become a pressing problem when the Navy, the first service with a policy of integration, would find itself running behind in the race to attract minority members.
10. (p. 253)
The Postwar Marine Corps
Unlike the Army and Navy, the all-white Marine Corps seemed to consider the wartime enlistment of over 19,000 Negroes a temporary aberration. Forced by the Navy's nondiscrimination policy to retain Negroes after the war, Marine Corps officials at first decided on a black representation of some 2,200 men, roughly the same proportion as during the war. But the old tradition of racial exclusion remained strong, and this figure was soon reduced. The corps also ignored the Navy's integration measures, adopting instead a pattern of segregation that Marine officials claimed was a variation on the Army's historic "separate but equal" black units. In fact, separation was real enough in the postwar corps; equality remained elusive.
Racial Quotas and Assignments
The problem was that any "separate but equal" race policy, no matter how loosely enforced, was incompatible with the corps' postwar manpower resources and mission and would conflict with its determination to restrict black units to a token number. The dramatic manpower reductions of 1946 were felt immediately in the two major elements of the Marine Corps. The Fleet Marine Force, the main operating unit of the corps and usually under control of the Chief of Naval Operations, retained three divisions, but lost a number of its combat battalions. The divisions kept a few organic and attached service and miscellaneous units. Under such severe manpower restrictions, planners could not reserve one of the large organic elements of these divisions for black marines, thus leaving the smaller attached and miscellaneous units as the only place to accommodate self-contained black organizations. At first the Plans and Policies Division decided to assign roughly half the black marines to the Fleet Marine Force. Of these some were slated for an antiaircraft artillery battalion at Montford Point which would provide training as well as an opportunity for Negroes' overseas to be rotated home. Others were placed in three combat service groups and one service depot where they would act as divisional service troops, and the rest went into 182 slots, later increased to 216, for stewards, the majority in aviation units.
The other half of the black marines was to be absorbed by the so called non-Fleet Marine Force, a term used to cover training, security, and miscellaneous Marine units, all noncombat, which normally remained under the control of the commandant. This part of the corps was composed of many small and usually self-contained units, but in a number of activities, particularly in the logistical establishment and the units afloat, reductions in manpower would (p. 254) necessitate considerable sharing of living and working facilities, thus making racial separation impossible. The planners decided, therefore, to limit black assignments outside the Fleet Marine Force to naval ammunition depots at McAlester, Oklahoma, and Earle, New Jersey, where Negroes would occupy separate barracks; to Guam and Saipan, principally as antiaircraft artillery; and to a small training cadre at Montford Point. Eighty stewards would also serve with units outside the Fleet Marine Force. With the exception of the depot at Earle, all these installations had been assigned Negroes during the war. Speaking in particular about the assignment of Negroes to McAlester, the Director of the Plans and Policies Division, Brig. Gen. Gerald C. Thomas, commented that "this has proven to be a satisfactory location and type of duty for these personnel."[10-1] Thomas's conception of "satisfactory" duty for Negroes became the corps' rationale for its postwar assignment policy.
[Footnote 10-1: Memos, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 25 Sep and 17 Oct 46, sub: Post War Personnel Requirements, A0-1, MC files. Unless otherwise noted, all the documents cited in this chapter are located in Hist Div, HQMC. The quotation is from the September memo.]
To assign Negroes to unskilled jobs because they were accustomed to such duties and because the jobs were located in communities that would accept black marines might be satisfactory to Marine officials, but it was considered racist by many civil rights spokesmen and left the Marine Corps open to charges of discrimination. The policy of tying the number of Negroes to the number of available, appropriate slots also meant that the number of black marines, and consequently the acceptability of black volunteers, was subject to chronic fluctuation. More important, it permitted if not encouraged further restrictions on the use of the remaining black marines who had combat training, thereby allowing the traditionalists to press for a segregated service in which the few black marines would be mostly servants and laborers.
The process of reordering the assignment of black marines began just eleven weeks after the commandant approved the staff's postwar policy recommendations. Informing the commandant on 6 January 1947 that "several changes have been made in concepts upon which such (p. 255) planning was based," General Thomas explained that the requirement for antiaircraft artillery units at Guam and Saipan had been canceled, along with the plan for maintaining an artillery unit at Montford Point. Because of the cancellation his division wanted to reduce the number of black marines to 1,500. These men could be assigned to depot companies, service units, and Marine barracks--all outside the Fleet Marine Force--or they could serve as stewards. The commandant's approval of this plan reduced the number of Negroes in the corps by 35 percent, or 700 men. Coincidental with this reduction was a 17 percent rise in spaces for black stewards to 350.[10-2]
[Footnote 10-2: Memo, G. C. Thomas, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 6 Jan 47, sub: Negro Requirements, A0-1.]
Approval of this plan eliminated the last Negroes from combat assignments, a fact that General Thomas suggested could be justified as "consistent with similar reductions being effected elsewhere in the Corps." But the facts did not support such a palliative. In June 1946 the corps had some 1,200 men serving in three antiaircraft artillery battalions and an antiaircraft artillery group headquarters. In June 1948 the corps still had white antiaircraft artillery units on Guam and at Camp Lejeune totaling 1,020 men. The drop in numbers was explained almost entirely by the elimination of the black units.[10-3]
[Footnote 10-3: USMC Muster Rolls of Officers and Enlisted Men, 1946 and 1948.]
A further realignment of black assignments occurred in June 1947 when General Vandegrift approved a Plans and Policies Division decision to remove more black units from security forces at naval shore establishments. The men were reassigned to Montford Point with the result that the number of black training and overhead billets at that post jumped 200 percent--a dubious decision at best considering that black specialist and recruit training was virtually at a standstill. General Thomas took the occasion to advise the commandant that maintaining an arbitrary quota of black marines was no longer a consideration since a reduction in their strength could be "adequately justified" by the general manpower reductions throughout the corps.[10-4]
[Footnote 10-4: Memo, G. C. Thomas for CMC, 11 Jun 47, sub: Negro Requirements and Assignments, A0-1.]
Actually the Marine Corps was not as free to reduce the quota of 1,500 Negroes as General Thomas suggested. To make further cuts in what was at most a token representation, approximately 1 percent of the corps in August 1947, would further inflame civil rights critics and might well provoke a reaction from Secretary Forrestal. Even Thomas's accompanying recommendation carefully retained the black strength figure previously agreed upon and actually raised the number of Negroes in the ground forces by seventy-six men. The 1,500-man minimum quota for black enlistment survived the reorganization of the Fleet Marine Force later in 1947, and the Plans and Policies Division even found it necessary to locate some 375 more billets for Negroes to maintain the figure. In August the commandant approved plans to add 100 slots for stewards and 275 general duty billets overseas, the latter to facilitate rotation and provide a broader range of assignments for Negroes.[10-5] Only once before the Korean War, (p. 256) and then only briefly, did the authorized strength of Negroes drop below the 1,500 mark, although because of recruitment lags actual numbers never equaled authorized strength.[10-6]
[Footnote 10-5: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 28 Aug 47, sub: Requirements for General Duty Negro Marines, A0-1.]
[Footnote 10-6: Idem for Div, Pub Info, 10 Nov 48, sub: Information Relating to Negro Marines, A0-1.]
By mid-1947, therefore, the Marine Corps had abandoned its complex system of gearing the number of black marines to available assignments and, like the Army and the Air Force, had adopted a racial quota--but with an important distinction. Although they rarely achieved it, the Army and the Air Force were committed to accepting a fixed percentage of Negroes; in an effort to avoid the problems with manpower efficiency plaguing the other services, the Marine Corps established a straight numerical quota. Authorized black strength would remain at about 1,500 men until the Korean War. During that same period the actual percentage of Negroes in the Marine Corps almost doubled, rising from 1.3 percent of the 155,679-man corps in June 1946 to slightly more than 2 percent of the 74,279-man total in June 1950.[10-7]
[Footnote 10-7: Unless otherwise noted, statistics in this section are from NA Pers, 15658 (A), Report, Navy and Marine Corps Military Statistics, 30 Jun 59, BuPers. Official figures on black marines are from reports of the USMC Personnel Accounting Section.]
Yet neither the relatively small size of the Marine Corps nor the fact that few black marines were enrolled could conceal the inefficiency of segregation. Over the next three years the personnel planning staff tried to find a solution to the problem of what it considered to be too many Negroes in the general service. First it began to reduce gradually the number of black units accommodated in the Operating Force Plan, absorbing the excess black marines by increasing the number of stewards. This course was not without obvious public relations disadvantages, but they were offset somewhat by the fact that the Marine Corps, unlike the Navy, never employed a majority of its black recruits as stewards. In May 1948 the commandant approved new plans for a 10 percent decrease in the number of general duty assignments and a corresponding increase in spaces for stewards.[10-8] The trend away from assigning Negroes to general service duty continued until the Korean War, and in October 1949 a statistical high point was reached when some 33 percent of all black marines were serving as stewards. The doctrine that all marines were potential infantrymen stood, but it was small comfort to civil rights activists who feared that what at best was a nominal black representation in the corps was being pushed into the kitchen.
[Footnote 10-8: Memo, Dir, Plans and Policies Div, for CMC, 20 May 48, sub: Procurement and Assignment of Negro Enlisted Personnel, A0-1.]
But they had little to fear since the number of Negroes that could be absorbed in the Steward's Branch was limited. In the end the Marine Corps still had to accommodate two-thirds of its black strength in general duty billets, a course with several unpalatable consequences. For one, Negroes would be assigned to new bases reluctant to accept them and near some communities where they would be unwelcome. For another, given the limitations in self-contained units, there was the possibility of introducing some integration in the men's living or working arrangements. Certainly black billets would have to be created at the expense of white billets. The Director of Plans and Policies warned in August 1947 that the reorganization of the Fleet Marine (p. 257) Force, then under way, failed to allocate spaces for some 350 Negroes with general duty contracts. While he anticipated some reduction in this number as a result of the campaign to attract volunteers for the Steward's Branch, he admitted that many would remain unassigned and beyond anticipating a reduction in the black "overage" through attrition, his office had no long-range plans for creating the needed spaces.[10-9] When the attrition failed to materialize, the commandant was forced in December 1949 to redesignate 202 white billets for black marines with general duty contracts.[10-10] The problem of finding restricted assignments for black marines in the general service lasted until it was overtaken by the manpower demands of the Korean War. Meanwhile to the consternation of the civil rights advocates, as the corps' definition of "suitable" assignment became more exact, the variety of duties to which Negroes could be assigned seemed to decrease.[10-11]
[Footnote 10-9: Ibid., 28 Aug 47, sub: Requirements for General Duty Negro Marines, A0-1.]
[Footnote 10-10: Ibid., 14 Nov 49, sub: Designation of Units for Assignment of Negro Marines, A0-1.]
[Footnote 10-11: For criticism of assignment restrictions, see comments and questions at the National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48 (afternoon session), pp. 1-10, copy in CMH.]
Recruitment
Postwar quotas and assignments for Negroes did nothing to curb the black community's growing impatience with separate and limited opportunities, a fact brought home to Marine Corps recruiters when they tried to enlist the Negroes needed to fill their quota. At first it seemed the traditionalists would regain their all-white corps by default. The Marine Corps had ceased drafting men in November 1945 and launched instead an intensive recruiting campaign for regular marines from among the thousands of reservists about to be discharged and regulars whose enlistments would soon expire. Included in this group were some 17,000 Negroes from among whom the corps planned to recruit its black contingent. To charges that it was discriminating in the enlistment of black civilians, the corps readily admitted that no new recruits were being accepted because preference was being given to men already in the corps.[10-12] In truth, the black reservists were rejecting the blandishments of recruiters in overwhelming numbers. By May 1946 only 522 Negroes, less than a quarter of the small postwar black complement, had enlisted in the regular service.
[Footnote 10-12: G-1, Div of Plans and Policies, Operational Diary, Sep 45-Oct 46, 23 Apr 47; Memo, Dir of Personnel (Div of Recruiting) for Off in Charge, Northeastern Recruiting Div, 17 Jan 46, sub: Enlistment of Negro Ex-Marines, MC 706577. See also Afro-American, February 16, 1946.]
The failure to attract recruits was particularly noticeable in the antiaircraft battalions. To obtain black replacements for these critically depleted units, the commandant authorized the recruitment of reservists who had served less than six months, but the measure failed to produce the necessary manpower. On 28 February 1946 the commanding general of Camp Lejeune reported that all but seven Negroes on his antiaircraft artillery roster were being processed for discharge.[10-13] Since this list included the black noncommissioned instructors, the commander warned that future training of black (p. 258) marines would entail the use of officers as instructors. The precipitous loss of black artillerymen forced Marine headquarters to assign white specialists as temporary replacements in the heavy antiaircraft artillery groups at Guam and Saipan, both designated as black units in the postwar organization.[10-14]
[Footnote 10-13: Msg, CMC to CG, Cp Lejeune, 19 Feb 46, MC 122026; Memo, CG, Cp Lejeune, for CMC, 28 Feb 46, sub: Personnel and Equipment for Antiaircraft Artillery Training Battalion (Colored), Availability of, RPS-1059, MC files.]
[Footnote 10-14: Memo, G. C. Thomas for Dir of Personnel, 6 Mar 48, sub: Replacements for Enlisted Personnel (Colored) Assignment of, Request for, A0-3; Msg, CINCPAC/POA PEARL to CNO, 282232Z Apr 46, MC 76735, MC files.]
It was not the fault of the black press if this expression of black indifference went unnoticed. The failure of black marines to reenlist was the subject of many newspaper and journal articles. The reason for the phenomenon advanced by the Norfolk Journal and Guide would be repeated by civil rights spokesmen on numerous occasions in the era before integration. The paper declared that veterans remembered their wartime experiences and were convinced that the same distasteful practices would be continued after the war.[10-15] Marine Corps officials advanced different reasons. The Montford Point commander attributed slow enlistment rates to a general postwar letdown and lack of publicity, explaining that Montford Point "had an excellent athletic program, good chow and comfortable barracks." A staff member of the Division of Plans and Policies later prepared a lengthy analysis of the treatment the Marine Corps had received in the black press. He charged that the press had presented a distorted picture of conditions faced by blacks that had "agitated" the men and turned them against reenlistment. He recommended a public relations campaign at Montford Point to improve the corps' image.[10-16] But this analysis missed the point, for while the black press might influence civilians, it could hardly instruct Marine veterans. Probably more than any other factor, the wartime treatment of black marines explained the failure of the corps to attract qualified, let alone gifted, Negroes to its postwar junior enlisted ranks.
[Footnote 10-15: Norfolk Journal and Guide, May 4, 1946. See also Murray, Negro Yearbook, 1949 pp. 272-73. On the general accuracy of the press charges, see Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks in the Marine Corps_, pp. 47-51.]
[Footnote 10-16: CO, Montford Point, Press Conference (ca. 1 May 47), quoted in Div of Plans and Policies Staff Report, "Rescinding Ltr of Instruction #421," MC files; unsigned, untitled Memo written in the Division of Plans and Policies on black marines and the black press (ca. Aug 55).]
Considering the critical shortages, temporarily and "undesirably" made up for by white marines, and the "leisurely" rate at which black reservists were reenlisting, General Thomas recommended in May 1946 that the corps recruit some 1,120 Negroes from civilian sources. This, he explained to the commandant, would accelerate black enlistment but still save some spaces for black reservists.[10-17] The commandant agreed,[10-18] and contrary to the staff's expectations, most Negroes in the postwar service were new recruits. The mass departure of World (p. 259) War II veterans eloquently expressed the attitude of experienced black servicemen toward the Marines' racial policy.
[Footnote 10-17: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 3 May 46, sub: Enlisting of Negroes in the Marine Corps From Civilian Sources, A0-1.]
[Footnote 10-18: Ibid., 23 Oct 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, 1335-110; Memo, CMC to Off in Charge, Northeastern Recruiting Div, et al., 23 Oct 46, sub: Negro First Enlistments, Quota for Month of November, 1946, AP-1231. There was an attempt to stall first enlistment, see Memo, Dir of Personnel, for Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 17 May 46, sub: Enlisting of Negroes in the Marine Corps From Civilian Sources; but it was overruled, Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for Dir of Personnel. 23 May 46, same sub, A0-1.]
The word spread quickly among the new black marines. When in mid-1947 the Division of Plans and Policies was looking for ways to reduce the number of black marines in keeping with the modified manpower ceiling, it discovered that if offered the opportunity about one-third of all Negroes would apply for discharge. An even higher percentage of discharge requests was expected from among black marines overseas. The commandant agreed to make the offer, except to the stewards, and in the next six months black strength dropped by 700 men.[10-19]
[Footnote 10-19: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 28 May 47, sub: Program for Accelerated Attrition of Negro Marines, A0-1; Maj S. M. Adams, "Additional Directives From Plans and Policies--3 June 1947," 3 Jun 47; Speed Ltr, CMC to CG, Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, N.C., et al., 8 May 47, A0-1; Memo, CMC to Depot Quartermaster, Depot of Supplies, 3 Jun 47, sub: Discharge for the Convenience of the Government Certain Enlisted Negro Members of the Marine Corps, 070-15-447.]
Even the recruitment of stewards did not go according to predictions. Thomas had assured the commandant in the spring of 1946 that a concrete offer of steward duty to black reservists would produce the 300-man quota for the regular corps. He wanted the offer published at all separation centers and a training program for stewards instituted at Camp Lejeune.[10-20] General Vandegrift approved the proposal, but a month later the commander of Camp Lejeune reported that only three reservists and one regular had volunteered.[10-21] He advised the commandant to authorize recruitment among qualified civilians. Faced with wholesale rejection of such duty by black marines, General Thomas in March 1947 opened the Steward's Branch to Negroes with previous military service in any of the armed forces and qualifications for such work.[10-22] This ploy also proved a failure. Looking for 250 stewards, the recruiters could find but one acceptable applicant in the first weeks of the program. Retreating still further, the commandant canceled the requirement for previous military service in April, and in October dropped the requirement for "clearly established qualifications."[10-23] Apparently the staff would take a chance on any warm body.
[Footnote 10-20: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 12 Mar 46, sub: Steward's Branch Personnel, Information Concerning, A0-3, MC files.]
[Footnote 10-21: Ltr, CG, Cp Lejeune, to CMC, 4 Apr 46, sub: Steward's Branch Personnel, 060105.]
[Footnote 10-22: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 18 Mar 47, sub: Enlistment of Negro Personnel, 01A7647.]
[Footnote 10-23: Ibid., 16 Apr 47, sub: First Enlistment of Negro Personnel, A0-1, and 9 Oct 47, sub: Procurement and Assignment of Stewards Personnel, Box 1515-30; Ltr, CMC (Div of Recruiting) to Off in Charge, Northeastern Recruiting Div, 29 Apr 47, sub: Negro First Enlistments, 07A11947.]
In dropping the requirement for prior military service, the corps introduced a complication. Recruits for steward duty would be obliged to undergo basic training and their enlistment contracts would read "general duty"; Navy regulations required that subsequent reclassification to "stewards duty only" status had to be made at the request of the recruit. In August 1947 three men enlisted under the first enlistment program for stewards refused to execute a change of enlistment contract after basic training.[10-24] Although these men could have been discharged "for the good of the service," the commandant (p. 260) decided not to contest their right to remain in the general service. This action did not go unnoticed, and in subsequent months a number of men who signed up with the intention of becoming stewards refused to modify their enlistment contract while others, who already had changed their contract, suddenly began to fail the qualifying tests for stewards school.
[Footnote 10-24: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 15 Sep 47, sub: Disposition of Negro Personnel Who Enlisted With a View Toward Qualifying for Stewards Duties..., 01A25847.]
The possibility of filling the quota became even more distant when in September 1947 the number of steward billets was increased to 380. Since only 57 stewards had signed up in the past twelve months, recruiters now had to find some 200 men, at least 44 per month for the immediate future. The commandant, furthermore, approved plans to increase the number of stewards to 420. In December the Plans and Policies Division, conceding defeat, recommended that the commandant arrange for the transfer of 175 men from the Navy's oversubscribed Steward's Branch. At the same time, to overcome what the division's new director, Brig. Gen. Ray A. Robinson, called "the onus attached to servant type duties," the commandant was induced to approve a plan making the rank and pay of stewards comparable to those of general duty personnel.[10-25]
[Footnote 10-25: Ibid., 26 Dec 47, sub: Procurement of Steward Personnel, A0-1; see also Ltr, CMC to Chief of Naval Personnel, 6 Jan 48, sub: Discharge of Steward Personnel From Navy to Enlist in the Marine Corps, MC 967879; Memo, Chief of Naval Personnel for CMC, 28 Jan 48, sub: Discharge of Certain Steward Branch Personnel for Purpose of Enlistment in the Marine Corps.]
These measures seemed to work. The success of the transfer program and the fact that first enlistments had finally begun to balance discharges led the recruiters to predict in March 1948 that their steward quota would soon be filled. Unfortunately, success tempted the planners to overreach themselves. Assured of a full steward quota, General Robinson recommended that approval be sought from the Secretary of the Navy to establish closed messes, along with the requisite steward billets, at the shore quarters for bachelor officers overseas.[10-26] Approval brought another rise in the number of steward billets, this time to 580, and required a first-enlistment goal of twenty men per month.[10-27] The new stewards, however, were not forthcoming. After three months of recruiting the corps had netted ten men, more than offset by trainees who failed to qualify for steward school. Concluding that the failures represented to a great extent a scheme to remain in general service and evade the ceiling on general enlistment, the planners wanted the men failing to qualify discharged "for the good of the service."[10-28]
[Footnote 10-26: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 19 Mar 48, sub: Procurement and Distribution of Steward Personnel, A0-1.]
[Footnote 10-27: Ibid., 12 Aug 48, sub: Steward Personnel, Allowances and Procurement, A0-1; Ltr, CMC to CG, Marine Barracks, Cp Lejeune, 16 Aug 48, sub: Negro Recruits, 01A22948.]
[Footnote 10-28: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 15 Oct 48, sub: Disposition of Negro Personnel Who Enlist "For Steward Duty Only" and Subsequently Fail to Qualify for Such Duty, Study #169-48; Ltr, QMG of MC to CMC, 17 Sep 48, same sub, CA6.]
The lack of recruits for steward duty and constant pressure by stewards for transfer to general duty troubled the Marine Corps throughout the postwar period. Reviewing the problem in December 1948, the commanding general of Camp Lejeune saw three causes: (p. 261) "agitation from civilian sources," which labeled steward duty degrading servant's work; lack of rapid promotion; and badgering from black marines on regular duty.[10-29] But the commander's solution--a public relations campaign using black recruits to promote the attractions of steward duty along with a belated promise of more rapid promotion--failed. It ignored the central issue, the existence of a segregated branch in which black marines performed menial, nonmilitary duties.
[Footnote 10-29: Msg, CG, Cp Lejeune, N.C., to CMC, 31 Dec 48.]
Headquarters later resorted to other expedients. It obtained seventy-five more men from the Navy and lowered the qualification test standards for steward duty. But like earlier efforts, these steps also failed to produce enough men.[10-30] Ironically, while the corps aroused the ire of the civil rights groups by maintaining a segregated servants' branch, it was never able to attract a sufficient number of stewards to fill its needs in the postwar period.
[Footnote 10-30: Memo, Chief of Naval Personnel and CMC for All Ships and Stations, 28 Feb 49, sub: Discharge of Stewards, USN, For the Purpose of Immediate Enlistment in Marine Corps, Pers-66, GenRecsNav; Memo, CMC for Dir of Recruiting, 25 Feb 49, sub: Mental Requirements for Enlistment for "Steward Duty Only," A0-1; Ltr, CMC (Div of Recruiting) to Off in Charge, Northeastern Recruiting Div, 3 Mar 49, sub: Mental Standards for Enlistment for Steward Duty Only, MC1088081; Msg, CMC to Div of Recruiting, 7 Apr 49.]
Many of the corps' critics saw in the buildup of the Steward's Branch the first step in an attempt to eliminate Negroes from the general service. If such a scheme had ever been contemplated, it was remarkably unsuccessful, for the corps would enter the Korean War with most of its Negroes still in the general service. Nevertheless, the apprehension of the civil rights advocates was understandable because during most of the postwar period enlistment in the general service was barred to Negroes or limited to a very small number of men. Closed to Negroes in early 1947, enlistment was briefly reopened at the rate of forty men per month later that year to provide the few hundred extra men called for in the reorganization of the Operating Force Plan.[10-31] Enlistment was again opened in May 1948 when the recruiting office established a monthly quota for black recruits at ten men for general duty and eight for the Steward's Branch. The figure for stewards quickly rose to thirty per month, but effective 1 May 1949 the recruitment of Negroes for general service was closed.[10-32]
[Footnote 10-31: Memo, CMC for CG, Marine Barracks, Cp Lejeune, N.C., 8 Dec 47, sub: Negro Recruits, 01A33847.]
[Footnote 10-32: Ltr, CMC to CG, Cp Lejeune, 24 May 48, A0-1; Memo, CMC for Off in Charge of Recruiting Div, 29 Jan 49, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, 07D14848; Msg, CMC to Offs in Charge of Recruiting Divs, 25 Apr 49.]
These rapid changes, indeed the whole pattern of black enlistment in the postwar Marine Corps, demonstrated that the staff's manpower practices were out of joint with the times. Not only did they invite attack from the increasingly vocal civil rights forces, but they also fostered a general distrust among black marines themselves and among those young Negroes the corps hoped to attract.
Segregation and Efficiency
The assignment policies and recruitment practices of the corps were the inevitable result of its segregation policy. Prejudice and discrimination no doubt aggravated the situation, but the policy of separation limited the ways Negroes could be employed and places (p. 262) to which they might be assigned. Segregation explained, for example, why Negroes were traditionally employed in certain types of combat units, and why, when changing missions and manpower restrictions caused a reduction in the number of such units, Negroes were not given other combat assignments. Most Negroes with combat military occupational specialties served in defense battalions during World War II. These units, chiefly antiaircraft artillery, were self-contained and could therefore be segregated; at the same time they cloaked a large group of men with the dignity of a combat assignment. But what was possible during the war was no longer practical and efficient in the postwar period. Some antiaircraft artillery units survived the war, but they no longer operated as battalions and were divided instead into battery-size organizations that simply could not be segregated in terms of support and recreational facilities. In fact, the corps found it impossible after the war to maintain segregation in any kind of combat unit.
Even if segregated service had been possible, the formation of all-black antiaircraft artillery battalions would have been precluded by the need of this highly technical branch for so many kinds of trained specialists. Not only would separate training facilities for the few Negroes in the peacetime corps be impossibly expensive and inefficient, but not enough black recruits were eligible for such training. A wartime comparison of the General Classification Test and Mechanical Aptitude Test scores of the men in the 52d Defense Battalion with those of men in two comparable white units showed the Negroes averaging considerably lower than the whites.[10-33] It was reasonable to expect this difference to continue since, on the whole, black recruits were scoring lower than their World War II counterparts.[10-34] Under current policies, therefore, the Marine Corps saw little choice but to exclude Negroes from antiaircraft artillery and other combat units.
[Footnote 10-33: Ltr, CO, 52d Defense Battalion, to CMC, 15 Jan 46, sub: Employment of Colored Personnel as Antiaircraft Artillery Troops, Recommendations on, 02-46, MC files.]
[Footnote 10-34: Memo, Dir of Personnel for Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 21 Jul 48, sub: General Classification Test Scores of Colored Enlisted Marines, 07DZ0348. The GCT distribution of 991 black marines as of 1 March 1948 was as follows: Group I (130-163), 0%; Group II (110-129), 4.94%; Group III (90-109), 24.7%; Group IV (60-89), 61.45%; and Group V (42-59), 9.54%. Memo, Dir of Personnel to Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 30 May 48, sub: Marines--Tests and Testing.]
Obviously the corps had in its ranks some Negroes capable of performing any task required in an artillery battalion. Yet because the segregation policy demanded that there be enough qualified men to form and sustain a whole black battalion, the abilities of these high-scoring individuals were wasted. On the other hand, many billets in antiaircraft artillery or other types of combat battalions could be filled by men with low test scores, but less gifted black marines were excluded because they had to be assigned to one of the few black units. Segregation, in short, was doubly inefficient, it kept both able and inferior Negroes out of combat units that were perpetually short of men.
Segregation also promoted inefficiency in the placement of black Marine units. While the assignment of an integrated unit with a few black marines would probably go unnoticed in most naval districts--witness the experience of the Navy itself--the task of (p. 263) finding a naval district and an American community where a large segregated group of black marines could be peacefully assimilated was infinitely more difficult.
The original postwar racial program called for the assignment of black security units to the Marine Barracks at McAlester, Oklahoma, and Earle, New Jersey. Noting that the station was in a strict Jim Crow area where recreational facilities for Negroes were limited and distant, the commanding officer of the Marine Barracks at McAlester recommended that no Negroes be assigned. He reminded the commandant that guard duty required marines to question and apprehend white civilian employees, a fact that would add to the racial tension in the area. His conclusions, no doubt shared by commanders in many parts of the country, summed up the problem of finding assignments for black marines: any racial incident which might arise out of disregard for local racial custom, he wrote,
would cause the Marine Corps to become involved by protecting such personnel as required by Federal law and Navy Regulations. It is believed that if one such potential incident occurred, it would seriously jeopardize the standing of the Marine Corps throughout the Southwest. To my way of thinking, the Marine Corps is not now maintaining the high esteem of public opinion, or gaining in prestige, by the manner in which its uniform and insignia are subjected to such laws. The uniform does not count, it is relegated to the background and made to participate in and suffer the restrictions and limitations placed upon it by virtue of the wearer being subject to the Jim Crow laws.[10-35]
[Footnote 10-35: Ltr, CO, MB, NAD, McAlester, Okla., to CMC, 5 Nov 46, sub: Assignment of Colored Marines, 2385.]
The commander of the McAlester ammunition depot endorsed this recommendation, adding that Oklahoma was a "border" state where the Negro was not accepted as in the north nor understood and tolerated as in the south. This argument moved the Director of Plans and Policies to recommend that McAlester be dropped and the black unit sent instead to Port Chicago, California.[10-36] With the approval of the commandant and the Chief of Naval Operations, plans for the assignment were well under way in June 1947 when the commandant of the Twelfth Naval District intervened.[10-37] The presence of a black unit, he declared, was undesirable in a predominantly white area that was experiencing almost constant labor turmoil. The possibility of clashes between white pickets and black guards would invite racial conflict. His warnings carried the day, and Port Chicago was dropped in favor of the Marine Barracks, Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, New York, with station at Bayonne, New Jersey. At the same time, because of opposition from naval officials, the plan for assigning Negroes to Earle, New Jersey, was also dropped, and the commandant launched inquiries about the (p. 264) depots at Hingham, Massachusetts, and Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania.[10-38]
[Footnote 10-36: Ltr, CO, NAD, McAlester, Okla., to CMC, 5 Nov 46, 1st Ind to Ltr, CO, MB, McAlester, 2385; Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 3 Dec 46, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines to MB, Naval Magazine, Port Chicago, Calif., in lieu of MB, NAD, McAlester, Okla., A0-1.]
[Footnote 10-37: Memo, CMC for CNO, 3 Dec 46, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines to MB, Naval Magazine, Port Chicago, Calif., and MB, NAD, Earle, N.J., A0-1; idem for CO, MB, NAD, Earle, N.J., 9 Jan 47, sub: Assignment of Colored Marines to Marine Barracks, Naval Ammunition Depot, Earle, N.J.; idem for CO, Department of the Pacific, and CO, MB, NAD, McAlester, Okla., A0-1; Memo, CNO for CMC, 6 Jan 47, same sub, OP 30 M.]
[Footnote 10-38: Speed Ltr, CMC to Cmdt, Twelfth Naval District, 12 Jun 47; Memo, CMC for CO, MB, Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, N.Y., 13 Jun 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines to Second Guard Company, Marine Barracks Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, N.Y., A0-1; idem for CO, MB, USNAD, Hingham, Mass., 18 Jun 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines, A0-1; Speed Ltr, CMC to Cmdt, Twelfth Naval District, 18 Jun 47, 01A76847; Memo, CMC for CO, MB, NAD, Ft. Mifflin, Pa., 18 Jun 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines, A0-1; Memo, Cmdt, Fourth Naval District for CO, MB, NAD, Ft. Mifflin, Pa., 18 Jun 47, same sub.]
Fort Mifflin agreed to take fifty black marines, but several officials objected to the proposed assignment to Hingham. The Marine commander, offering what he called his unbiased opinion in the best interests of the service, explained in considerable detail why he thought the assignment of Negroes would jeopardize the fire-fighting ability of the ammunition depot. The commanding officer of the naval depot endorsed these reasons and added that assigning black marines to guard duty that included vehicle search would create a problem in industrial relations.[10-39] The commandant of the First Naval District apparently discounted these arguments, but he too voted against the assignment of Negroes on the grounds that the Hingham area lacked a substantial black population, was largely composed of restricted residential neighborhoods, and was a major summer resort on which the presence of black units would have an adverse effect.[10-40]
[Footnote 10-39: Memo, CO, MB, NAD, Hingham, Mass., for CMC, 26 Jun 47, sub: Comments on Assignment of Negro Marines, AB-1; Memo, CO, NAD, Hingham, Mass., for CMC, 26 Jun 47, 1st Ind to AB-1, 26 Jun 47.]
[Footnote 10-40: Ltr, Cmdt, First Naval District, to CMC, 30 Jun 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines, 2d Ind to AB-1, 26 Jun 47.]
The commander of the Naval Base, New York, meanwhile had refused to approve a plan to assign a black unit to Bayonne, New Jersey, and suggested that it be sent to Earle, New Jersey, instead because there the unit "presented fewer problems and difficulties than at any other Naval activity." The commander noted that stationing Negroes at Bayonne would necessitate a certain amount of integration in mess and ship service facilities. Bayonne was also reputed to have the toughest gate duty in the New York area, and noncommissioned officers had to supervise a white civilian police force. At Earle, on the other hand, the facilities were completely separate, and although some complaints from well-to-do summer colonists in the vicinity could be expected, men could be bused to Newark or Jersey City for recreation. Moreover, Earle could absorb a 175-man unit.[10-41] But chief of the Navy's Bureau of Ordnance wanted to retain white marines at Earle because a recent decision to handle ammonium nitrate fertilizer there made it unwise to relieve the existing trained detachment. Earle was also using contract stevedores and expected to be using Army troops whose use of local facilities would preclude plans for a segregated barracks and mess.[10-42]
[Footnote 10-41: Ltr, CO, Naval Base, New York, to CMC, 10 July 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines to Second Guard Company, Marine Barracks, New York Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, N.Y., NB-139.]
[Footnote 10-42: Ltr, Chief, Bur of Ord, to CNO, 11 Aug 47, sub: Naval Ammunition Depot, Earle, N.J.--Assignment of Negro Marine Complement, NTI-34.]
The commandant accepted these arguments and on 20 August 1947 revoked the assignment of a black unit to Earle. Still, with its ability to absorb 175 men and its relative suitability in terms of separate (p. 265) living facilities, the depot remained a prime candidate for black units, and in November General Vandegrift reversed himself. The Chief of Naval Operations supported the commandant's decision over the renewed objections of the Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance.[10-43] With Hingham, Massachusetts, ruled out, the commandant now considered the substitution of Marine barracks at Trinidad, British West Indies; Scotia, New York; and Oahu, Hawaii. He rejected Trinidad in favor of Oahu, and officials in Hawaii proved amenable.[10-44]
[Footnote 10-43: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 19 Nov 47, sub: First Enlistments of Negro Personnel, A0-1; Memo, Chief, Bur of Ord, for CNO, 15 Dec 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines at Naval Ammunition Depot, Earle, Red Bank, N.J.; Memo, CNO for Chief, Bur of Ord, 6 Jan 48, same sub.]
[Footnote 10-44: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 29 Jul 47, sub: Negro Requirements and Assignments, A0-1, MC files.]
The chief of the Navy's Bureau of Supplies and Accounts objected to the use of black marines at the supply depot in Scotia, claiming that such an assignment to the Navy's sole installation in upper New York State would bring about a "weakening of the local public relations advantage now held by the Navy" and would be contrary to the Navy's best interests. He pointed out that the assignment would necessitate billeting white marine graves registration escorts and black marines in the same squad rooms. The use of black marines for firing squads at funerals, he thought, would be "undesirable." He also pointed out that the local black population was small, making for extremely limited recreational and social opportunities.[10-45] The idea of using Scotia with all these attendant inconveniences was quietly dropped, and the black marines were finally assigned to Earle, New Jersey; Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania; and Oahu, Hawaii.
[Footnote 10-45: Memo, Chief, Bur of Supplies and Accounts, for CNO, 14 Oct 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines, P-16-1; Memo, CNO to CMC, 20 Nov 47, same sub, Op 415 D.]
Approved on 8 November 1946, the postwar plan to assign black units to security guard assignments in the United States was not fully put into practice until 15 August 1948, almost two years later. This episode in the history of discrimination against Americans in uniform brought little glory to anyone involved and revealed much about the extent of race prejudice in American society. It was an indictment of people in areas as geographically diverse as Oklahoma, New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey who objected to the assignment of black servicemen to their communities. It was also an indictment of a great many individual commanders, both in the Navy and Marine Corps, some perhaps for personal prejudices, others for so readily bowing to community prejudices. But most of all the blame must fall on the Marine Corps' policy of segregation. Segregation made it necessary to find assignments for a whole enlisted complement and placed an intolerable administrative burden on the corps. The dictum that black marines could not deal with white civilians, especially in situations in which they would give orders, further limited assignments since such duties were routine in any security unit. Thus, bound to a policy that was neither just nor practical, the commandant spent almost two years trying to place four hundred men.
Despite the obvious inefficiency and discrimination involved, the (p. 266) commandant, General Vandegrift, adamantly defended the Marine segregation policy before Secretary of the Navy Forrestal. Wartime experience showed, he maintained, oblivious to overwhelming evidence to the contrary since 1943, "that the assignment of negro Marines to separate units promotes harmony and morale and fosters the competitive spirit essential to the development of a high esprit."[10-46] His stand was bound to antagonize the civil rights camp; the black press in particular trumpeted the theme that the corps was as full of race discrimination as it had been during the war.[10-47]
[Footnote 10-46: Memo, Gen Vandegrift to SecNav, 25 Aug 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines, 54-1-29, GenRecsNav.]
[Footnote 10-47: See, for example, the analysis that appeared in the Chicago Defender, August 14, 1948.]
Toward Integration
But even as the commandant defended the segregation policy, the corps was beginning to yield to pressure from outside forces and the demands of military efficiency. The first policy breach concerned black officers. Although a proposal for commissions had been rejected when the subject was first raised in 1944, three black candidates were accepted by the officer training school at Quantico in April 1945. One failed to qualify on physical and two on scholastic grounds, but they were followed by five other Negroes who were still in training on V-J day. One of this group, Frederick Branch of Charlotte, North Carolina, elected to stay in training through the demobilization period. He was commissioned with his classmates on 10 November 1945 and placed in the inactive reserves. Meanwhile, three Negroes in the V-12 program graduated and received commissions as second lieutenants in the inactive Marine Corps Reserve. Officer training for all these men was integrated.[10-48]
[Footnote 10-48: Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks and the Marine Corps_, pp. 47-48; see also Selective Service System, Special Groups (Monograph 10), I:105.]
The first Negro to obtain a regular commission in the Marine Corps was John E. Rudder of Paducah, Kentucky, a Marine veteran and graduate of the Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps. Analyzing the case for the commandant in May 1948, the Director of Plans and Policies noted that the law did not require the Marine Corps to commission Rudder, but that he was only the first of several Negroes who would be applying for commissions in the next few years through the Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps. Since the reserve corps program was a vital part of the plan to expand Marine Corps officer strength, rejecting a graduate on account of race, General Robinson warned, might jeopardize the entire plan. He thought that Rudder should be accepted for duty. Rudder was appointed a second lieutenant in the Regular Marine Corps on 28 May 1948 and ordered to Quantico for basic schooling.[10-49] In 1949 Lieutenant Rudder resigned. Indicative of the changing civil rights scene was the apprehension shown by some Marine Corps officials about public reaction to the resignation. But although Rudder reported instances of discrimination at Quantico--stemming for the most (p. 267) part from a lack of military courtesy that amounted to outright ostracism--he insisted his decision to resign was based on personal reasons and was irreversible. The Director of Public Information was anxious to release an official version of the resignation,[10-50] but other voices prevailed, and Rudder's exit from the corps was handled quietly both at headquarters and in the press.[10-51]
[Footnote 10-49: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 11 May 48, sub: Appointment to Commissioned Rank in the Regular Marine Corps, Case of Midshipman John Earl Rudder, A0-1; see also Dept of Navy Press Release, 25 Aug 48.]
[Footnote 10-50: Memo, Dir of Public Information for CMC, 11 Feb 49, sub: Publicity on Second Lieutenant John Rudder, USMC, AG 1364; see also Ltr, Lt Cmdr Dennis Nelson to James C. Evans, 24 Feb 70, CMH files.]
[Footnote 10-51: Memo, Oliver Smith for CMC, 11 Feb 49, with attached CMC note.]
The brief active career of one black officer was hardly evidence of a great racial reform, but it represented a significant breakthrough because it affirmed the practice of integrated officer training and established the right of Negroes to command. And Rudder was quickly followed by other black officer candidates, some of whom made careers in the corps. Rudder's appointment marked a permanent change in Marine Corps policy.
Enlistment of black women marked another change. Negroes had been excluded from the Women's Reserve during World War II, but in March 1949 A. Philip Randolph asked the commandant, in the name of the Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training, if black women could join the corps. The commandant's reply was short and direct: "If qualified for enlistment, negro women will be accepted on the same basis as other applicants."[10-52] In September 1949 Annie N. Graham and Ann E. Lamb reported to Parris Island for integrated training and subsequent assignment.
[Footnote 10-52: Ltr, A. Philip Randolph to Gen C. B. Cates, 8 Mar 49; Ltr, CMC to Randolph, 10 Mar 49, AW 828.]
Yet another racial change, in the active Marine Corps Reserve, could be traced to outside pressure. Until 1947 all black reservists were assigned to inactive and unpaid volunteer reserve status, and applications for transfer to active units were usually disapproved by commanding officers on grounds that such transfers would cost the unit a loss in whites. Rejections did not halt applications, however, and in May 1947 the Director of Marine Corps Reserve decided to seek a policy decision. While he wanted each commander of an active unit left free to decide whether he would take Negroes, the director also wanted units with black enlisted men formed in the organized reserve, all-black voluntary training units recognized, and integrated active duty training provided for reservists.[10-53] A group of Negroes (p. 268) in Chicago had already applied for the formation of a black voluntary training unit.
[Footnote 10-53: Memo, Dir, Div of Reserve, for CMC, 6 May 47, sub: General Policy Governing Negro Reservists, AF 1271; Ltr, William Griffin to CMC, 3 Mar 47; Ltr, Col R. McPate to William Griffin, 11 Mar 47.]
General Thomas, Director of Plans and Policies, was not prepared to go the whole way. He agreed that within certain limitations the local commander should decide on the integration of black reservists into an active unit, and he accepted integrated active duty training. But he rejected the formation of black units in the organized reserve and the voluntary training program; the latter because it would "inevitably lead to the necessity for Negro officers and for authorizing drill pay" in order to avoid charges of discrimination. Although Thomas failed to explain why black officers and drill pay were unacceptable or how rejecting the program would save the corps from charges of discrimination, his recommendations were approved by the commandant over the objection of the Reserve Division.[10-54] But the Director of Reserves rejoined that volunteer training units were organized under corps regulations, the Chicago group had met all the specifications, and the corps would be subject to just criticism if it refused to form the unit. On the other hand, by permitting the formation of some all-black volunteer units, the corps might satisfy the wish of Negroes to be a part of the reserve and thus avoid any concerted attempt to get the corps to form all-black units in the organized reserve.[10-55]
[Footnote 10-54: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 7 May 47, sub: General Policy Governing Negro Reservists, A0-1.]
[Footnote 10-55: Memo, Dir of Reserve for CMC, 15 May 47, sub: General Policy Concerning Negro Reservists, AF 394.]
At this point the Division of Plans and Policies offered to compromise. General Robinson recommended that when the number of volunteers so warranted, the corps should form black units of company size or greater, either separate or organic to larger reserve units around the country. He remained opposed to integrated units, explaining that experience proved--he neglected to mention what experience, certainly none in the Marine Corps--that integrated units served neither the best interests of the individual nor the corps.[10-56] While the commandant's subsequent approval set the stage for the formation of racially composite units in the reserve, the stipulation that the black element be of company size or larger effectively limited the degree of reform.
[Footnote 10-56: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 1 Mar 48, sub: Enlistment of Negro Ex-Marines in Organized Reserve, A0-1.]
The development of composite units in the reserve paralleled a far more significant development in the active forces. In 1947 the Marine Corps began organizing such units along the lines established in the postwar Army. Like the Army, the corps discovered that maintaining a quota--even when the quota for the corps meant maintaining a minimum number of Negroes in the service--in a period of shrinking manpower resources necessitated the creation of new billets for Negroes. At the same time it was obviously inefficient to assign combat-trained Negroes, now surplus with the inactivation of the black defense battalions, to black service and supply units when the Fleet Marine Force battalions were so seriously understrength. Thus the strictures against integration notwithstanding, the corps was forced to begin (p. 269) attaching black units to the depleted Fleet Marine Force units. In January 1947, for example, members of Headquarters Unit, Montford Point Camp, and men of the inactivated 3d Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion were transferred to Camp Geiger, North Carolina, and assigned to the all-black 2d Medium Depot Company, which, along with eight white units, was organized into the racially composite 2d Combat Service Group in the 2d Marine Division.[10-57] Although the units of the group ate in separate mess halls and slept in separate barracks, inevitably the men of all units used some facilities in common. After Negroes were assigned to Camp Geiger, for instance, recreational facilities were open to all. In some isolated cases, black noncommissioned officers were assigned to lead racially mixed details in the composite group.[10-58]
[Footnote 10-57: USMC Muster Rolls, 1947.]
[Footnote 10-58: Interv, Martin Blumenson with 1st Sgt Jerome Pressley, 21 Feb 66, CMH files.]
But these reforms, which did very little for a very few men, scarcely dented the Marine Corps' racial policy. Corps officials were still firmly committed to strict segregation in 1948, and change seemed very distant. Any substantial modification in racial policy would require a revolution against Marine tradition, a movement dictated by higher civilian authority or touched off by an overwhelming military need.
11. (p. 270)
The Postwar Air Force
The Air Force was a new service in 1947, but it was also heir to a long tradition of segregation. Most of its senior officers, trained in the Army, firmly supported the Army's policy of racially separate units and racial quotas. And despite continuing objections to what many saw as the Gillem Board's far too progressive proposals, the Air Force adopted the Army's postwar racial policy as its own. Yet after less than two years as an independent service the Air Force in late 1948 stood on the threshold of integration.
This sudden change in attitude was not so much the result of humanitarian promptings by service officials, although some of them forcibly demanded equal treatment and opportunity. Nor was it a response to civil rights activists, although Negroes in and outside the Air Force continued to exert pressure for change. Rather, integration was forced upon the service when the inefficiency of its racial practices could no longer be ignored. The inefficiency of segregated troops was less noticeable in the Army, where a vast number of Negroes could serve in a variety of expandable black units, and in the smaller Navy, where only a few Negroes had specialist ratings and most black sailors were in the separate Steward's Branch. But the inefficiency of separatism was plainly evident in the Air Force.
Like the Army, the Air Force had its share of service units to absorb the marginal black airman, but postwar budget restrictions had made the enlargement of service units difficult to justify. At the same time, the Gillem Board policy as well as outside pressures had made it necessary to include a black air unit in the service's limited number of postwar air wings. However socially desirable two air forces might seem to most officials, and however easy it had been to defend them as a wartime necessity, it quickly became apparent that segregation was, organizationally at least, a waste of the Air Force's few black pilots and specialists and its relatively large supply of unskilled black recruits. Thus, the inclination to integrate was mostly pragmatic; notably absent were the idealistic overtones sounded by the Navy's Special Programs Unit during the war. Considering the magnitude of the Air Force problem, it was probably just as well that efficiency rather than idealism became the keynote of change. On a percentage basis the Air Force had almost as many Negroes as the Army and, no doubt, a comparable level of prejudice among its commanders and men. At the same time, the Air Force was a new service, its organization still fluid and its policies subject to rapid modification. In such circumstances a straightforward appeal to efficiency had a chance to succeed where an idealistic call for justice and fair play might well have floundered.
Segregation and Efficiency (p. 271)
Many officials in the Army Air Forces had defended segregated units during the war as an efficient method of avoiding dangerous social conflicts and utilizing low-scoring recruits.[11-1] General Arnold himself repeatedly warned against bringing black officers and white enlisted men together. Unless strict unit segregation was imposed, such contacts would be inevitable, given the Air Forces' highly mobile training and operations structure.[11-2] But if segregation restricted contacts between the races it also imposed a severe administrative burden on the wartime Air Forces. It especially affected the black flying units because it ordained that not only pilots but the ground support specialists--mechanics, supply clerks, armorers--had to be black. Throughout most of the war the Air Forces, competing with the rest of the Army for skilled and high-scoring Negroes, was unable to fill the needs of its black air units. At a time when the Air Forces enjoyed a surplus of white air and ground crews, the black fighter units suffered from a shortage of replacements for their combat veterans, a situation as inefficient as it was damaging to morale.[11-3]
[Footnote 11-1: For a comprehensive and authoritative account of the Negro in the Army Air Forces during World War II, sec Osur's Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II.]
[Footnote 11-2: See Memo, CS/AC for G-3, 31 May 40, sub: Employment of Negro Personnel in the Air Corps Units, G-3/6541-Gen 527.]
[Footnote 11-3: For the effect on unit morale, see Charles E. Francis, _The Tuskegee Airmen: The Story of the Negro in the U.S. Air Force_ (Boston: Bruce Humphries, 1955), p. 164; see also USAF Oral History Program, Interview with Lt Gen B. O. Davis, Jr., Jan 73.]
The shortage was compounded in the penultimate year of the war when the all-black 477th Bombardment Group was organized. (Black airmen and civil rights spokesmen complained that restricting Negroes to fighter units excluded them from many important and prestigious types of air service.) In the end the new bombardment group only served to limit black participation in the air war. Already short of black pilots, the Army Air Forces now had to find black navigators and bombardiers as well, thereby intensifying the competition for qualified black cadets. The stipulation that pilots and bombardiers for the new unit be trained at segregated Tuskegee was another obvious cause for the repeated delays in the operational date of the 477th, and its crews were finally assembled only weeks before the end of the war. Competition for black bomber crews also led to a ludicrous situation in which men highly qualified for pilot training according to their stanine scores (achievements on the battery of qualifying tests taken by all applicants for flight service) were sent instead to navigator-bomber training, for which they were only barely qualified.[11-4]
[Footnote 11-4: Lee, Employment of Negro Troops, pp. 462-64; see also Interv, author with Lt Gen Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., 12 Jun 70, CMH files.]
Unable to obtain enough Negroes qualified for flight training, the Army Air Forces asked the Ground and Service Forces to screen their personnel for suitable candidates, but a screening early in 1945 produced only about one-sixth of the men needed. Finally, the Air Forces recommended that the Army staff lower the General Classification Test score for pilot training from 110 to 100, a recommendation the Service and Ground Forces opposed because such a move would eventually mean the mass transfer of high-scoring Negroes to the Air Forces, (p. 272) thus depriving the Service and Ground Forces of their proportionate share. Although the Secretary of War approved the Air Forces proposal, the change came too late to affect the shortage of black pilots and specialists before the end of the war.
While short of skilled Negroes, the Army Air Forces was being inundated with thousands of undereducated and unskilled Negroes from Selective Service. It tried to absorb these recruits, as it absorbed some of its white draftees, by creating a great number of service and base security battalions. A handy solution to the wartime quota problem, the large segregated units eventually caused considerable racial tension. Some of the tension might have been avoided had black officers commanded black squadrons, a logical course since the Air Force had a large surplus of nonrated black officers stationed at Tuskegee.[11-5] Most were without permanent assignment or were assigned such duties as custodial responsibility for bachelor officer quarters, occupations unrelated to their specialties.[11-6]
[Footnote 11-5: A nonrated officer is one not having or requiring a currently effective aeronautical rating; that is, an officer who is not a pilot, navigator, or bombardier.]
[Footnote 11-6: Interv, author with Davis; see also Osur's _Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II_, ch. V.]
Few of these idle black officers commanded black service units because the units were scattered worldwide while the nonrated officers were almost always assigned to the airfield at Tuskegee. Approximately one-third of the Air Forces' 1,559 black officers were stationed at Tuskegee in June 1945. Most others were assigned to the fighter group in the Mediterranean theater or the new bombardment group in flight training at Godman Field, Kentucky. Only twenty-five black (p. 273) officers were serving at other stations in the United States. The Second, Third, and Fourth Air Forces and I Troop Carrier Command, for example, had a combined total of seventeen black officers as against 22,938 black enlisted men.[11-7] Col. Noel F. Parrish, the wartime commander at Tuskegee, explained that the principal reason for this restriction was the prevailing fear of social conflict. If assigned to other bases, black officers might try to use the officers' clubs and other base facilities. Thus, despite the surplus of black officers only too evident at Tuskegee, their requests for transfer to other bases for assignment in their rating were usually denied on the grounds that the overall shortage of black officers made their replacement impossible.[11-8]
[Footnote 11-7: "Summary of AAF Post-War Surveys," prepared by Noel Parrish, copy in NAACP Collection, Library of Congress.]
[Footnote 11-8: Noel F. Parrish, "The Segregation of the Negro in the Army Air Forces," thesis submitted to the USAF Air Command and Staff School, Maxwell AFB, Ala., 1947, pp. 50-55.]
Fearing trouble between black and white officers and assuming that black airmen preferred white officers, the Air Forces assigned white officers to command black squadrons. Actually, such assignments courted morale problems and worse because they were extremely unpopular with both officers and men. Moreover, the Air Forces eventually had to admit that there was a tendency to assign white officers "of mediocre caliber" to black squadrons.[11-9] Yet few assignments demanded greater leadership ability, for these officers were burdened not only with the usual problems of a unit commander but also with the complexities of race relations. If they disparaged their troops, they failed as commanders; if they fought for their men, they were dismissed by their superiors as "pro-Negro." Consequently, they were generally a harassed and bewildered lot, bitter over their assignments and bad for troop morale.[11-10]
[Footnote 11-9: Ltr, Hq AAF, to CG, Tactical Training Cmd, 21 Aug 42, sub: Professional Qualities of Officers Assigned to Negro Units, 220.765-3, AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-10: Parrish, "Segregation of the Negro in the Army Air Forces," pp. 50-55. The many difficulties involved in the assignment of white officers to black units are discussed in Osur's Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II, ch V.]
The social problems predicted for integration proved inevitable under segregation. Commanders found it prohibitively expensive to provide separate but equal facilities, and without them discrimination became more obvious. The walk-in protest at the Freeman Field Officers Club was but one of the natural consequences of segregation rules. And such demonstrations were only the more spectacular problems. Just as time-consuming and perhaps more of a burden were the many administrative difficulties. The Air Transport Command admitted in 1946 that it was too expensive to maintain, as the command was obligated to do, separate and equal housing and messing, including separate orderly and day rooms for black airmen. At the same time it complained of the disproportionately high percentage of black troops violating military and civil law. Although Negroes accounted for 20 percent of the command's troops, they committed more than 50 percent of its law infractions. The only connection the command was able to make between the separate, unequal facilities and the high misconduct rate was to point out that, while it had done its best to provide for Negroes, they "had not earned a very enviable record by themselves."[11-11]
[Footnote 11-11: AAF Transport Cmd, "History of the Command, 1 July 1946-31 December 1946" pp. 120-26.]
In one crucial five-month period of the war, Army Air Forces (p. 274) headquarters processed twenty-two separate staff actions involving black troops.[11-12] To avoid the supposed danger of large-scale social integration, the Air Forces, like the rest of the Army during World War II, had been profligate in its use of material resources, inefficient in its use of men, and destructive of the morale of black troops.
[Footnote 11-12: Parrish, "Segregation of the Negro in the Army Air Forces."]
The Air staff was not oblivious to these facts and made some adjustments in policy as the war progressed. Notably, it rejected separate training of nonrated black officers and provided for integrated training of black navigators and bombardiers. In the last days of the war General Arnold ordered his commanders to "take affirmative action to insure that equity in training and assignment opportunity is provided all personnel."[11-13] And when it came to postwar planning, the Air staff demonstrated it had learned much from wartime experience:
The degree to which negroes can be successfully employed in the Post-War Military Establishment largely depends on the success of the Army in maintaining at a minimum the feeling of discrimination and unfair treatment which basically are the causes for irritation and disorders ... in the event of a future emergency the arms will employ a large number of negroes and their contribution in such an emergency will largely depend on the training, treatment and intelligent use of negroes during the intervening years.[11-14]
[Footnote 11-13: AAF Ltr 35-268, 11 Aug 45.]
[Footnote 11-14: Rpt, ACS/AS-1 to WDSS, 17 Sep 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Post-War Military Establishment, WDSS 291.2.]
But while admitting that discrimination was at the heart of its racial problem, the Air staff failed to see the connection between discrimination and segregation. Instead it adopted the recommendations of its senior commanders. The consensus was that black combat (flying) units had performed "more or less creditably," but required more training than white units, and that the ground echelon and combat support units had performed below average. Rather than abolish these below average units, however, commanders wanted them preserved and wanted postwar policy to strengthen segregation. The final recommendation of the Army Air Forces to the Gillem Board was that blacks be trained according to the same standards as whites but that they be employed in separate units and segregated for recreation, messing, and social activities "on the post as well as off," in (p. 275) keeping with prevailing customs in the surrounding civilian community.[11-15]
[Footnote 11-15: Ibid. For an analysis of these recommendations, see Gropman's The Air Force Integrates, ch. II.]
The Army Air Forces' postwar use of black troops was fairly consonant with the major provisions of the Gillem Board Report. To reduce black combat units in proportion to the reduction of its white units, it converted the 477th Bombardment Group (M) into the 477th Composite Group. This group, under the command of the Army's senior black pilot, Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., included a fighter, a bombardment, and a service squadron. To provide segregated duty for its black specialists, the Army Air Forces organized regular black squadrons, mostly ammunition, motor transport, and engineer throughout its commands. To absorb the large number of unskilled Negroes, it organized one black squadron (Squadron F) in each of the ninety-seven base units in its worldwide base system to perform laboring and housekeeping chores. Finally, it promised "to the fullest possible extent" to assign Negroes with specialized skills and qualifications to overhead and special units.[11-16]
[Footnote 11-16: WD Bureau of Public Relations, Memo for the Press, 20 Sep 45; Office of Public Relations, Godman Field, Ky., "Col. Davis Issues Report on Godman Field," 10 Oct 45; Memo, Chief, Programs and Manpower Section, Troop Basis Branch, Organization Division, D/T&R, for Dir of Military Personnel, 23 Apr 48, no sub; all in Negro Affairs, SecAF files. See also "History of Godman Field, Ky., 1 Mar--15 Oct 45," AFSHRC.]
In the summer of 1947, the Army Air Forces integrated aviation training at Randolph Field, Texas, and quietly closed Tuskegee airfield, thus ending the last segregated officer training in the armed forces. The move was unrelated to the Gillem Board Report or to the demands of civil rights advocates. The Tuskegee operation had simply become impractical. In the severe postwar retrenchment of the armed forces, Tuskegee's cadet enrollment had dropped sharply, only nine men graduated in the October 1945 class.[11-17] To the general satisfaction of the black community, the few black cadets shared both quarters and classes with white students.[11-18] Nine black cadets were in training at the end of 1947.[11-19]
[Footnote 11-17: "History of the 2143d AAF Base Unit, Pilot School, Basic, Advanced, and Tuskegee Army Air Field, 1 Sep 1945-31 Oct 1945," AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-18: For an example of black reaction see Ebony Magazine V (September 1949).]
[Footnote 11-19: Memo, James C. Evans, Adviser to the SecDef, for Capt Robert W. Berry, 10 Feb 48, SecDef 291.2 files.]
Another postwar reduction was not so advantageous for Negroes. By February 1946 the 477th Composite Group had been reduced to sixteen B-25 bombers, twelve P-47 fighter-bombers, and only 746 men--a 40 percent drop in four months.[11-20] Although the Tactical Air Command rated the unit's postwar training and performance satisfactory, and its transfer to the more hospitable surroundings and finer facilities of Lockbourne Field, Ohio, raised morale, the 477th, like other understaffed and underequipped organizations, faced inevitable conversion to specialized service. In July 1947 the 477th was inactivated and replaced by the 332d Fighter Group composed of the 99th, 100th, and 301st Fighter Squadrons. Black bomber pilots were converted to fighter pilots, and the bomber crews were removed from flying status.
[Footnote 11-20: "History of the 477th Composite Group," 15 Sep 45-15 Feb 46, Feb-Mar 46, and 1 Mar-15 Jul 46, AFSHRC.]
These changes flew in the face of the Gillem Board Report, for (p. 276) however slightly that document may have changed the Army's segregation policy, it did demand at least a modest response to the call for equal opportunity in training, assignment, and advancement. The board clearly looked to the command of black units by qualified black officers and the training of black airmen to serve as a cadre for any necessary expansion of black units in wartime. Certainly the conversion of black bomber pilots to fighters did not meet these modest demands. In its defense the Army Air Forces in effect pleaded that there were too many Negroes for its present force, now severely reduced in size and lacking planes and other equipment, and too many of the black troops lacked education for the variety of assignments recommended by the board.
The Army Air Forces seemed to have a point, for in the immediate postwar period its percentage of black airmen had risen dramatically. It was drafting men to replace departing veterans, and in 1946 it was taking anyone who qualified, including many Negroes. In seven months the air arm lost over half its black strength, going from a wartime high of 80,606 on 31 August 1945 to 38,911 on 31 March 1946, but in the same period the black percentage almost doubled, climbing from 4.2 to 7.92.[11-21] The War Department predicted that all combat arms would have a black strength of 15 percent by 1 July 1946.[11-22]
[Footnote 11-21: All figures from STM-30, 1 Sep 45 and 1 Apr 46.]
[Footnote 11-22: Memo, TAG for CG's et al., 4 Feb 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, AG 291.2 (31 Jan 46).]
This prophecy never materialized in the Air Forces. Changes in enlistment standards, curtailment of overseas assignments for Negroes, and, finally, suspension of all black enlistments in the Regular Army except in certain military specialist occupations turned the percentage of Negroes downward. By the fall of 1947, when the Air (p. 277) Force became a separate service,[11-23] the proportion of black airmen had leveled off at nearly 7 percent. Nor did the proportion of Negroes ever exceed the Gillem Board's 10 percent quota during the next decade.
[Footnote 11-23: Under the terms of the National Security Act of 1947 the U.S. Air Force was created as a separate service in a Department of the Air Force on 18 September 1947. The new service included the old Army Air Forces; the Air Corps, U.S. Army; and General Headquarters Air Force. The strictures of WD Circular 124, like those of many other departmental circulars, were adopted by the new service. For convenience' sake the terms Air Force and service will be employed in the remaining sections of this chapter even where the terms Army Air Forces and component would be more appropriate.]
The Air Force seemed on safer ground when it pleaded that it lacked the black airmen with skills to carry out the variety of assignments called for by the Gillem Board. The Air Force was finding it impossible to organize effective black units in appreciable numbers; even some units already in existence were as much as two-thirds below authorized strength in certain ground specialist slots.[11-24] Yet here too the statistics do not reveal the whole truth. Despite a general shortage of Negroes in the high test score categories, the Air Force did have black enlisted men qualified for general assignment as specialists or at least eligible for specialist training, who were instead assigned to labor squadrons.[11-25] In its effort to reduce the number of Negroes, the service had also relieved from active duty other black specialists trained in much needed skills. Finally, the Air Force still had a surplus of black specialists in some categories at Lockbourne Field who were not assigned to the below-strength units.
[Footnote 11-24: "Tactical Air Command (TAC) History, 1 Jan-30 Dec 48," pp. 94-96, AFSHRC; see also Lawrence J. Paszek, "Negroes and the Air Force, 1939-1949," Military Affairs (Spring 1967), p. 8.]
[Footnote 11-25: Memo, DCofS/Personnel, TAC, for CG, TAC, 18 Mar 48, AFSHRC.]
Again it was not too many black enlisted men or too few black officers or specialists but the policy of strict segregation that kept the Air Force from using black troops efficiently. Insistence on segregation, not the number of Negroes, caused maldistribution among the commands. In 1947, for example, the Tactical Air Command contained some 5,000 black airmen, close to 28 percent of the command's strength. This situation came about because the command counted among its units the one black air group and many of the black service units whose members in an integrated service would have been distributed throughout all the commands according to needs and abilities. The Air Force segregation policy restricted all but forty-five of the black officers in the continental United States to one base,[11-26] just as it was the Air Force's attempt to avoid integration that kept black officers from command. In November 1947, 1,581 black enlisted men and only two black officers were stationed at MacDill Field; at San Antonio there were 3,450 black airmen and again two black officers. These figures provide some clue to the cause of the riot involving black airmen at MacDill Field on 27 October 1946.[11-27]
[Footnote 11-26: Memo, DCofS/P&A, USAF, for Asst SecAF, 5 Dec 47, sub: Air Force Negro Troops in the Zone of Interior, Negro Affairs, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 11-27: "History of MacDill Army Airfield, Oct 46," pp. 10-11, AFSHRC. For a detailed analysis of the MacDill riot and its aftermath, see Gropman, The Air Force Integrates, ch. I; see also ch. 5, above.]
Segregation also prevented the use of Negroes on a broader professional scale. In April 1948, 84.2 percent of Negroes in the Air Force were working in an occupational specialty as against 92.7 (p. 278) percent of whites, but the number of Negroes in radar, aviation specialist, wire communications, and other highly specialized skills required to support a tactical air unit was small and far below the percentage of whites. The Air Force argued that since Negroes were assigned to black units and since there was only one black tactical unit, there was little need for Negroes with these special skills.
The fact that rated black officers and specialists were restricted to one black fighter group particularly concerned civil rights advocates. Without bomber, transport, ferrying, or weather observation assignments, black officers qualified for larger aircraft had no chance to diversify their careers. It was essentially the same story for black airmen. Without more varied and large black combat units the Air Force had no need to assign many black airmen to specialist training. In December 1947, for example, only 80 of approximately 26,000 black airmen were attending specialist schools.[11-28] When asked about the absence of Negroes in large aircraft, especially bombers, Air Force spokesmen cited the conversion of the 477th Composite Group, which contained the only black bomber unit, to a specialized fighter group as merely part of a general reorganization to meet the needs (p. 279) of a 55-wing organization.[11-29] That the one black bomber unit happened to be organized out of existence was pure accident.
[Footnote 11-28: Memo, unsigned (probably DCofS/P&A), for Asst SecAF Zuckert, 22 Apr 48, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 11-29: See Air Force Testimony Before the National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs (afternoon session), pp. 29-32, CMH files.]
The Gillem Board had sought to expand the training and placement of skilled Negroes by going outside the regular black units and giving them overhead assignments. After the war some base commanders made such assignments unofficially, taking advantage of the abilities of airmen in the overmanned, all-black Squadron F's and assigning them to skilled duties. In one instance the base commander's secretary was a member of his black unit; in another, black mechanics from Squadron F worked on the flight line with white mechanics. But whatever their work, these men remained members of Squadron F, and often the whole black squadron, rather than individual airmen, found itself functioning as an overhead unit, contrary to the intent of the Gillem Board. Even the few Negroes formally trained in a specialty and placed in an integrated overhead unit did not approximate the Gillem Board's intention of training a cadre that would be readily expandable in an emergency.
The alternative to expanded overhead assignments was continuation of segregated service units and Squadron F's, but, as some manpower experts pointed out, many special purpose units suitable for unskilled airmen were disappearing from the postwar Air Force. Experience gained through the assignment of large numbers of marginal men to such units in peacetime would be of questionable value during large-scale mobilization.[11-30] As Colonel Parrish, the wartime commander of training at Tuskegee, warned, a peacetime policy incapable of wartime application was not only unrealistic, but dangerous.[11-31]
[Footnote 11-30: Memo, DCofS/P&A, TAC, for CG, TAC, 18 Mar 48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-31: Parrish, "Segregation of the Negro in the Army Air Forces," pp. 72-73.]
The Air staff tried to carry out the Gillem Board's suggestion that Negroes be stationed "where attitudes are most favorable for them insofar as military factors permit," but even here the service lagged behind civilian practice. When Marcus H. Ray arrived at Wright Field, Ohio, for a two-day inspection tour in July 1946, he found almost 3,000 black civilians working peacefully and effectively alongside 18,000 white civilians, all assigned to their jobs without regard to race. "I would rate this installation," Ray reported, "as the best example of efficient utilization of manpower I have seen." He went on to explain: "The integration has been accomplished without publicity and simply by assigning workers according to their capabilities and without regard to race, creed, or color." But Ray also noted that there were no black military men on the base.[11-32] Assistant Secretary of War Petersen was impressed. "In view of the fact that the racial climate seems exceptionally favorable at Wright Field," he wrote General Carl Spaatz, "consideration should be given to the employment of carefully selected Negro military personnel with specialist ratings for work in that installation."[11-33]
[Footnote 11-32: Memo, Ray for ASW, 25 Jul 46, ASW 291.2.]
[Footnote 11-33: Memo, Petersen for CG, AAF, 29 Jul 46, ASW 291.2.]
The Air Force complied. In the fall of 1946 it was forming black (p. 280) units for assignment to Air Materiel Command Stations, and it planned to move a black unit to Wright Field in the near future.[11-34] In assigning an all-black unit to Wright, however, the Air Force was introducing segregation where none had existed before, and here as in other areas its actions belied the expressed intent of the Gillem Board policy.
[Footnote 11-34: Memo, Brig Gen Reuben C. Hood, Jr., Office of CG, AAF, for ASW, 13 Sep 46, ASW 291.2.]
Impulse for Change
The problems associated with efficient use of black airmen intensified when the Air Force became an independent service in 1947. The number of Negroes fluctuated during the transition from Army Air Forces to Air Force, and as late as April 1948 the Army still retained a number of specialized black units whose members had the right to transfer to the Air Force. Estimates were that some 5,400 black airmen would eventually enter the Air Force from this source. Air Force officials believed that when these men were added to the 26,507 Negroes already in the new service, including 118 rated and 127 nonrated male officers and 4 female officers, the total would exceed the 10 percent quota suggested by the Gillem Board. Accordingly, soon after it became an independent service, the Air Force set the number of black enlistments at 300 per month until the necessary adjustments to the transfer program could be made.[11-35]
[Footnote 11-35: Memo, unsigned, for Asst SecAF Zuckert, 22 Apr 48, SecAF files. The figures cited in this memorandum were slightly at variance with the official strength figures as compiled later in the Unites States Air Force Statistical Digest I (1948). The Digest put the Air Force's strength (excluding Army personnel still under Air Force control) on 31 March 1948 at 345,827, including 25,404 Negroes (8.9 percent of the total). The 10 percent plus estimate mentioned in the memorandum, however, was right on the mark when statistics for enlisted strength alone are considered.]
In addition to the chronic problems associated with black enlistments and quotas, four very specific problems demonstrated clearly to Air Force officials the urgent need for a change in race policy. The first of these was the distribution of black airmen which threatened the operational efficiency of the Tactical Air Command. A second, related to the first, revolved around the personnel shortages in black tactical units that necessitated an immediate reorganization of those units, a reorganization both controversial and managerially inefficient. The third and fourth problems were related; the demands of black leaders for a broader use of black servicemen suddenly intensified, dovetailing with the personal inclinations of the Secretary of the Air Force, who was making the strict segregation of black officers and specialists increasingly untenable. These four factors coalesced during 1948 and led to a reassessment of policy and, finally, to a volte-face.
Limiting black enlistment to 300 per month did little to ease the situation in the Tactical Air Command. There, the percentage of black personnel, although down from its postwar high of 28 percent to 15.4 percent by the end of 1947, remained several points above the Gillem Board's 10 percent quota throughout 1948. In March 1948 the command's Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, Col. John E. Barr, found that the large number of Negroes gave the command a surplus of "marginal (p. 281) individuals," men who could not be trained economically for the various skills needed. He argued that this theoretical surplus of Negroes was "potentially parasitic" and threatened the command's mission.[11-36]
[Footnote 11-36: Memo, DCofS/P&A, TAC, for CG, TAC, 18 Mar 48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, AFSHRC.]
At the same time, the command's personnel director found that Negroes were being inefficiently used. With one squadron designated for their black airmen, most commanders deemed surplus any Negroes in excess of the needs of that squadron and made little attempt to use them effectively. Even when some of these men were given a chance at skilled jobs in the Tactical Air Command their assignments proved short-lived. Because of a shortage of white airmen at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina, in early 1948, for example, Negroes from the base's Squadron F were assigned to fill all the slots in Squadron C, the base fire department. The Negroes performed so creditably that when enough white airmen to man Squadron C became available the commander suggested that the black fire fighters be transferred to Lockbourne rather than returned to their menial assignments.[11-37] The advantage of leaving the all-black Squadron C at Shaw was apparently overlooked by everyone.
[Footnote 11-37: Memo, Adj, 20th Fighter Wing, for CG, Ninth AF, undated, sub: Transfer of Structural Firefighters; 2d Ind, Hq 332d Fighter Wing, Lockbourne, to CG, Ninth AF, 26 Apr 48, Hist of Ninth AF, AFSHRC.]
Even this limited chance at occupational preferment was exceptional for black airmen in the Tactical Air Command. The command's personnel staff admitted that many highly skilled black technicians were performing menial tasks and that measures taken to raise the performance levels of other black airmen through training were inadequate. The staff also concluded that actions designed by the command to raise morale among black airmen left much to be desired. It mentioned specifically the excessively high turnover of officers assigned to black units, officers who for the most part proved mediocre as leaders. Most devastating of all, the study admitted that promotions and other rewards for duties performed by black airmen were not commensurate with those received by whites.[11-38]
[Footnote 11-38: Memo, DCofS/P&A, TAC, for CG, TAC, 18 Mar 48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, AFSHRC.]
Colonel Barr offered a solution that echoed the plea of Air Force (p. 282) commanders everywhere: revise Circular 124 to allow his organization to reduce the percentage of Negroes. Among a number of "compromise solutions" he recommended raising enlistment standards to reduce the number of submarginal airmen; designating Squadron E, the transportation squadron of the combat wings, a black unit; assigning all skilled black technicians to Lockbourne or declaring them surplus to the command; and selecting only outstanding officers to command black units.
One of these recommendations was under fire in Colonel Barr's own command. All-black transportation squadrons had already been discussed in the Ninth Air Force and had brought an immediate objection from Maj. Gen. William D. Old, its commander. Old explained that few black airmen in his command were qualified for "higher echelon maintenance activities," that is, major motor and transmission overhaul, and he had no black officers qualified to command such troops. On-the-job training would be impossible during total conversion of the squadrons from white to black; formal schooling for whole squadrons would have to be organized. Besides, Old continued, making transportation squadrons all black would only aggravate the command's race problems, for it would result in a further deviation from the "desired ratio of one to ten." Old wanted to reduce the number of black airmen in the Ninth Air Force by 1,633 men. The loss would not materially affect the efficiency of his command, he concluded. It would leave the Ninth Air Force with a ratio of one black officer to ten white and one black airman to eight white, and still permit the manning of black tactical units at full strength.[11-39] In the end none of these recommendations was followed. They needed the approval of Air Force headquarters, and as Lt. Gen. Elwood R. Quesada, commander of the Tactical Air Command, explained to General Old, the headquarters was in the midst of a lengthy review of Circular 124. In the meantime the command would have to carry on without guidance from higher headquarters.[11-40] Carry on it did, but the problems associated with the distribution of black airmen, problems the command constantly shared with Air Force headquarters, lingered throughout 1948.[11-41]
[Footnote 11-39: Memo, Maj Gen Old for CG, TAC, 26 Jan 48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, 9AF 200.3, Hist of Ninth AF, AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-40: Ltr, Lt Gen Quesada to Maj Gen Old, Ninth AF, 9 Apr 48, Hist of Ninth AF, AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-41: Ltrs, CG, TAC, to CS/USAF, 1 Sep 48, sub: Reception of Submarginal Enlisted Personnel; VCS/USAF to CG, TAC, 11 Sep 48, sub: Elimination of Undesirable or Substandard Airmen; CG, TAC, to CS/USAF, 24 Sep 48, same sub. All in AFSHRC.]
The Air Force's segregation policy had meanwhile created a critical situation in the black tactical units. The old 332d, now the 332d Fighter Wing, shared with the rest of the command the burden of too many low-scoring men--35 percent of Lockbourne's airmen were in the two lowest groups, IV and V--but here the problem was acute since the presence of so many persons with little ability limited the number of skilled black airmen that the Tactical Air Command could transfer to the wing from other parts of the command. Under direction of the command, the Ninth Air Force was taking advantage of a regulation that restricted the reenlistment of low-scoring airmen, but the high percentage of unskilled Negroes persisted at Lockbourne. Negroes (p. 283) in the upper test brackets were not reenlisting while the low scorers unquestionably were.[11-42]
[Footnote 11-42: Ltr, DCofS/P&A, TAC, to CG, Ninth AF, 19 May 48, sub: Submarginal Enlisted Personnel; Record of Dir of Per Staff, TAC, Mtg, 28 Oct 48; both in AFSHRC.]
At the same time there was a shortage of rated black officers. The 332d Fighter Wing was authorized 244 officers, but only 200 were assigned in February 1948. There was no easy solution to the shortage, a product of many years of neglect. Segregation imposed the necessity of devising a broad and long-range recruitment and training program for black officers, but not until April 1948 did the Tactical Air Command call for a steady flow of Negroes through officer candidate and flight training schools.[11-43] It hoped to have another thirty-one black pilot graduates by March 1949 and planned to recall thirty-two others from inactive status.[11-44] Even these steps could not possibly alleviate the serious shortage caused by the perennial failure to replace the wing's annual pilot attrition.
[Footnote 11-43: Ltr, CG, TAC, to CG, Ninth AF, 9 Apr 48, TAC 314 (9 Apr 48), AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-44: Hq TAC, Record and Routing Sheet, 16 Apr 48, sub: Supervisory Visit 332d Ftr Gp, Lockbourne AFB, AFSHRC.]
The chronic shortage of black field grade officers in the 332d was the immediate cause of the change in Air Force policy. By February 1948 the 332d had only thirteen of its forty-eight authorized field grade officers on duty. The three tactical units of the wing were commanded by captains instead of the authorized lieutenant colonels. If Colonel Davis were reassigned, and his attendance at the Air War College was expected momentarily, his successor as wing commander would be a major with five years' service.[11-45] The Tactical Air Commander was trying to have all field grade Negroes assigned to the 332d, but even that expedient would not provide enough officers.[11-46] Finally, General Quesada decided to recommend that "practically all" the key field grade positions in the 332d Wing be filled by whites.[11-47]
[Footnote 11-45: Ltr, CG, Ninth AF, to CG, TAC, 10 Feb 48, sub: Assignment of Negro Personnel, Hist of Ninth AF, AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-46: Hq TAC, Record and Routing Sheet, 16 Apr 48, sub: Supervisory Visit 332d Ftr Gp, Lockbourne AFB, AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-47: Ltrs, CG, TAC, to CG, Ninth AF, 9 Apr 48, and DCG, TAC, to CG, Ninth AF, 7 May 48, TAC 210.3; both in Hist of Ninth AF, AFSHRC.]
Subsequent discussions at Air Force headquarters gave the Air Force Chief of Staff, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, three choices: leave Lockbourne manned exclusively by black officers; assign a white wing commander with a racially mixed staff; or permit Colonel Davis to remain in command with a racially mixed staff. Believing that General Vandenberg would approve the last course, the Tactical Air Command proceeded to search for appropriate white officers to fill the key positions under Davis.[11-48]
[Footnote 11-48: Memo, A-1, Ninth AF, for C/S, Ninth AF, 18 May 48, sub: Manning of 332d Fighter Wing, Hist of Ninth AF; Record of the TAC Staff Conf, 18 May 48; both in AFSHRC.]
The deputy commander of the Ninth Air Force, Brig. Gen. Jarred V. Crabb, predicted that placing whites in key positions in the 332d would cause trouble, but leaving Davis in command of a mixed staff "would be loaded with dynamite."[11-49] The commander of the Ninth (p. 284) Air Force called the proposal to integrate the 332d's staff contrary to Air Force policy, which prescribed segregated units of not less than company strength. General Old was forthright:
[Integration] would be playing in the direction in which the negro press would like to force us. They are definitely attempting to force the Army and Air Force to solve the racial problem. As you know, they have been strongly advocating mixed companies of white and colored. For obvious reasons this is most undesirable and to do so would definitely limit the geographical locations in which such units could be employed. If the Air Forces go ahead and set a precedent, most undesirable repercussions may occur. Regardless of how the problem is solved, we would certainly come under strong criticism of the negro press. That must be expected.
In view of the combat efficiency demonstrated by colored organizations during the last war, my first recommendation in the interest of national defense and saving the taxpayer's money is to let the organization die on the vine. We make a big subject of giving the taxpayers the maximum amount of protection for each dollar spent, then turn around and support an organization that would contribute little or nothing in an emergency. It is my own opinion that it is an unnecessary drain on our national resources, but for political reasons I presume the organization must be retained. Therefore, my next recommended solution is to transfer all of the colored personnel from the Wing Headquarters staff to the Tactical and Service Organizations within the Wing structure and replace it with a completely white staff.[11-50]
[Footnote 11-49: Ltr, Brig Gen J. V. Crabb to Maj Gen Robert M. Lee, Hq TAC, 19 May 48, Hist of Ninth AF, AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-50: Ltr, CG, Ninth AF, to Maj Gen R. M. Lee, TAC, 18 May 48, Hist of Ninth AF, AFSHRC.]
It is difficult to estimate the extent to which these views were shared by other senior commanders, but they were widespread and revealed the tenacious hold of segregation.[11-51]
[Footnote 11-51: For discussion of these views and their influence on officers, see USAF Oral History Program, Interviews with Brig Gen Noel Parrish, 30 Mar 73, Col Jack Marr, 1 Oct 73, and Eugene Zuckert, Apr 73.]
The Ninth Air Force's deputy commander offered another solution: use "whatever colored officers we have" to run Lockbourne. He urged that Colonel Davis's absence at the Air War College be considered a temporary arrangement. Meanwhile, the general added, "we can carry Lockbourne along for that period of time by close supervision from this headquarters."[11-52] As Davis later put it, cost effectiveness, not prejudice, was the key factor in the Air Force's wish to get rid of the 332d. The Air Force, he concluded, "wasn't getting its money's worth from negro pilots in a black air force."[11-53]
[Footnote 11-52: Ltr, Brig Gen J. V. Crabb to Maj Gen Robert M. Lee, Hq TAC, 19 May 48, Hist of Ninth AF, AFSHRC.]
[Footnote 11-53: Interv, author with Davis.]
The Tactical Air Command's use of black troops is always singled out because of the numbers involved, but the problem was common to nearly all commands. Most Negroes in the Strategic Air Command, for example, were assigned to aviation engineer units where, as construction workers, they built roads, runways, and housing for the command's far-flung bases. These duties were transient, however, and like migrant workers at home, black construction crews were shifted from base to base as the need arose; they had little chance for promotion, let alone the opportunity to develop other skills.[11-54]
[Footnote 11-54: See history of various aviation air units in "History of the Strategic Air Command, 1948," vols VI and VIII, AFSHRC.]
The distribution of Negroes in all commands, and particularly the shortage of black specialists and officers in the 332d Fighter Wing, strongly influenced the Air Force to reexamine its racial policy, (p. 285) but pressures came from outside the department as well as from the black community which began to press its demands on the new service.[11-55] The prestigious Pittsburgh Courier opened the campaign in March 1948 by directing a series of questions on Air Force policy to the Chief of Staff. General Carl Spaatz responded with a smooth summary of the Gillem Board Report, leaning heavily on that document's progressive aims. "It is the feeling of this Headquarters," the Chief of Staff wrote, "that the ultimate Air Force objective must be to eliminate segregation among its personnel by the unrestricted use of Negro personnel in free competition for any duty within the Air Force for which they may qualify."[11-56] Unimpressed with this familiar rhetoric, the Courier headlined its account of the exchange, "Air Force to Keep Segregated Policy."
[Footnote 11-55: For discussion of the strength of this outside pressure, see USAF Oral History Program. Interviews with Davis and Brig Gen Lucius Theus, Jan 73.]
[Footnote 11-56: Ltr, Lemuel Graves to Gen Carl Spaatz, 26 Mar 48; Ltr, Spaatz to Graves, 19 Apr 48. A copy of the correspondence was also sent to the SecAF. See Col Jack F. Marr, "A Report on the First Year of Implementation of Current Policies Regarding Negro Personnel," n.d., PPB 291.2.]
Assistant Secretary Eugene M. Zuckert followed General Spaatz's line when he met with black leaders at the National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs in April 1948, but his audience also showed little interest in future intentions. Putting it bluntly, they wanted to know why segregation was necessary in the Air Force. Zuckert could only assure them that segregation was a "practical military expediency," not an "endorsement of belief in racial distribution."[11-57] But the black leaders pressed the matter further. Why was it expedient in a system dedicated to consideration of the individual, asked the president of Howard University, to segregate a Negro of superior mentality? At Yale or Harvard, Dr. Mordecai Johnson continued, he would be kept on the team, but if he entered the Air Force he would be "brigaded with all the people from Mississippi and Alabama who had had education that costs $100 a year."[11-58]
[Footnote 11-57: Department of National Defense, "National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs," 26 Apr 48 (morning session) p. 62. The conference, convened by Secretary of Defense Forrestal, provided an opportunity for a group of black leaders to question major defense officials on the department's racial policies. See ch. 13.]
[Footnote 11-58: Department of National Defense, "National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs," 28 Apr 48, (morning session), p. 67.]
Answering for the Air Force, Lt. Gen. Idwal H. Edwards, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, admitted segregation was unnecessary, promised eventual integration, but stated firmly that for the present segregation remained Air Force policy. As evidence of progress, (p. 286) Edwards pointed to the peaceful integration of black officers in training at Randolph Field. For one conferee this "progress" led to another conclusion: resistance to integration had to emanate from the policymakers, not from the fighting men. All Edwards could manage in the way of a reply was that Air Force policy was considered "the best way to make this thing work under present conditions."[11-59] Later Edwards, who was not insensitive to the arguments of the black leaders, told Secretary of the Air Force W. Stuart Symington that perhaps some recommendation "looking toward the integration of whites and negroes in the same units may be forthcoming" from the Air Board's study of racial policy which was to commence the first week in May.[11-60]
[Footnote 11-59: Ibid., p. 69.]
[Footnote 11-60: Memo, Edwards for SecAF, 29 Apr 48, sub: Conference With Group of Prominent Negroes, Negro Affairs 1948, SecAF files.]
If the logic of the black leaders impressed General Edwards, the demands themselves had little effect on policy. It remained for James C. Evans, now the adviser to Secretary of Defense Forrestal, to translate these questions and demands into recommendations for specific action. Taking advantage of a long acquaintance with the Secretary of the Air Force, Evans discussed the department's race problem with him in May 1948. Symington was sympathetic. "Put it on paper," he told Evans.[11-61]
[Footnote 11-61: Interv, author with Evans, 7 Apr 70; Note, Evans to Col Marr, 8 Jun 50, SD 291.2.]
Couching his recommendations in terms of the Gillem Board policy, Evans faithfully summarized for the secretary the demands of black leaders. Specifically, he asked that Colonel Davis, the commander of Lockbourne Air Force Base, be sent for advanced military schooling without delay. Diversification of career was long overdue for Davis, the ranking black officer in the Air Force, as it was for others who were considered indispensable because of the small number of qualified black leaders. For Davis, most of all, the situation was unfair since he had always been in command of practically all rated black officers. Nor was it good for his subordinates. The Air Force should not hesitate to assign a white replacement for Davis. In effect, Evans was telling Symington that the black community would understand the necessity for such a move.
Besides, under the program Evans was recommending, the all-black wing would soon cease to exist. He wanted the Air Force to "deemphasize" Lockbourne as the black air base and scatter the black units concentrated there. He wanted to see Negroes dispersed throughout the Air Force, either individually or in small units contemplated by the Gillem Board, but he wanted men assigned on the basis of technical specialty and proficiency rather than race. It was unrealistic, he declared, to assume all black officers could be most effectively utilized as pilots and all enlisted men as Squadron F laborers. Limiting training and job opportunity because of race reduced fighting potential in a way that never could be justified. The Air Force should open to its Negroes a wide variety of training, experience, and opportunity to acquire versatility and proficiency.[11-62]
[Footnote 11-62: Memo, Evans for SecAF, 7 Jun 48, sub: Negro Air Units, D54-1-12. SecDef files.]
If followed, this program would fundamentally alter Air Force (p. 287) racial practices. General Edwards recommended that the reply to Evans should state that certain policy changes would be forthcoming, although they would have to await the outcome of a departmental reevaluation currently under way. The suggestions had been solicited by Symington, and Edwards was anxious for Evans to understand the delay was not a device to defer action.[11-63]
[Footnote 11-63: DCofS/P Summary Sheet for CofS, 15 Jul 48, sub: Negro Air Units, Negro Affairs 1948, SecAF files.]
Edwards was in a position to make such assurances. He was an influential member of the Air staff with considerable experience in the field of race relations. As a member of the Army staff during World War II he had worked closely with the old McCloy committee on black troops and had strongly advocated wartime experiments with the integration of small-scale units.[11-64] His background, along with his observations as chief personnel officer in the new Air Force, had taught him to avoid abstract appeals to justice and to make suggestions in terms of military efficiency. Concern with efficiency led him, soon after the Air Force became a separate service, to order Lt. Col. Jack F. Marr, a member of his staff, to study the Air Force's racial policy and practices. Testifying to Edwards's pragmatic approach, Marr later said of his own introduction to the subject: "There was no sociology involved. It was merely a routine staff action along with a bunch of other staff actions that were taking place."[11-65]
[Footnote 11-64: During World War II, Edwards served as the Army's Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3. For a discussion of his opposition at that time to the concentration of large groups of men in categories IV and V, see Edwin W. Kenworthy, "The Case Against Army Segregation," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 275 (May 1951):29. See also Lee's Employment of Negro Troops, p. 159. Edward's part in the integration program is based on USAF Oral History Program, Interviews with Zuckert, General William F. McKee, Davis, Senator Stuart Symington, and Marr. See also Interv, author with Lt Gen Idwal H. Edwards, Nov 73, CMH files.]
[Footnote 11-65: Ltr, Marr to author, 19 Jun 70, CMH files.]
A similar concern for efficiency, this time triggered by criticism at the National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs in April 1948 and Evans's discussions with Secretary Symington the following month, led Edwards, after talking it over with Assistant Secretary Zuckert, to raise the subject of the employment of Negroes in the Air Board in May.[11-66] In the wake of the Air Board discussion the Chief of Staff appointed a group under Maj. Gen. Richard E. Nugent, then Director (p. 288) of Civilian Personnel, to reexamine the service's race policy.[11-67] Nugent was another Air Force official who viewed the employment of Negroes as a problem in military efficiency.[11-68] These three, Edwards, Nugent, and Marr, were the chief figures in the development of the Air Force integration plan, which grew out of the Nugent group's study. Edwards and Nugent supervised its many refinements in the staff while Marr, whom Zuckert later described as the indispensable man, wrote the plan and remained intimately connected with it until the Air Force carried it out.[11-69] Antedating the Truman order to integrate the services, the provisions of this plan eventually became the program under which the Air Force was integrated.[11-70]
[Footnote 11-66: A group created to review policy and make recommendations to the Chief of Staff when called upon, the Air Board consisted at this time of the Assistant Chiefs of the Air Staff, the Air Inspector, the Air Comptroller, the Director of Information, the Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff for Research and Development, and other officials when appropriate.]
[Footnote 11-67: Memo, Maj Leon Bell for Zuckert, 27 Oct 48, SecAF files. Nugent later succeeded Edwards as the chief Air Force personnel officer.]
[Footnote 11-68: This attitude is strongly displayed in the USAF Oral History Program, Interviews with Lt Gen Richard E. Nugent, 8 Jun 73, and Marr, 1 Oct 73.]
[Footnote 11-69: USAF Oral Hist Interv with Zuckert.]
[Footnote 11-70: Colonel Marr recalled a different chronology for the Air Force integration plan. According to Marr, his proposals were forwarded by Edwards to Symington who in turn discussed them at a meeting of the Secretary of Defense's Personnel Policy Board sometime before June 1948. The board rejected the plan at the behest of Secretary of the Army Royall, but later in the year outside pressure caused it to be reconsidered. Nothing is available in the files to corroborate Marr's recollections, nor do the other participants remember that Royall was ever involved in the Air Force's internal affairs. The records do not show when the Air Force study of race policy, which originated in the Air Board in May 1948, evolved into the plan for integration that Marr wrote and the Chief of Staff signed in December 1948, but it seems unlikely that the plan would have been ready before June. See Ltrs, Marr to author, 19 Jun 70, and 28 Jul 70, CMH files; see also USAF Oral Hist Interv with Marr.]
As it evolved during the months of deliberation,[11-71] the Air Force study of black manpower weighed Air Force practices against the Gillem Board Report and found them "considerably divergent" from the policy as outlined. It isolated several reasons for this divergence. Black airmen on the whole, as measured by classification tests, were unsuitable and inadequate for operating all-black air units organized and trained for modern combat. To achieve a balance of skills and training in black units was a "never ending problem for which there appears to be no solution under either the current Air Force policies or the policies recommended by the Gillem Board." In short, practices with respect to Negroes were "wasteful, deleterious to military effectiveness and lacking in wartime application."
[Footnote 11-71: The Air Force integration plan underwent considerable revision and modification before its submission to the Secretary of Defense in January 1949. The quotations in the next paragraphs are taken from the version approved by the Chief of Staff on 29 December 1948.]
Edwards and his staff saw several advantages in complete (p. 289) integration. Wherever qualified black airmen had been permitted to compete with whites on their individual qualifications and abilities, the Negroes "achieved a certain amount of acceptance and recognition." Students in some schools lived and learned side by side as a matter of practical necessity. "This degree of integration and acceptance on a competitive basis has been eminently successful and has to a remarkable degree solved the 'Negro problem' for the training schools involved." At some bases qualified black airmen were administratively assigned to black units but actually performed duties in white units. Some commanders had requested that these men be permanently transferred and assigned to the white units because the men deserved higher grades but could not receive them in black units and because it was poor management to have individuals performing duties for one military organization and living under the administrative jurisdiction of another.
In the end consideration of full integration was dropped in favor of a program based on the Navy's postwar integration of its general service. Edwards and his personnel staff dismissed the Navy's problems with stewards and its difficulty in enlisting skilled Negroes as temporary embarrassments with little practical consequence. This problem apparently allowed an economic and efficient use of Negroes and also "relieved the Navy of the necessity for repeated efforts to justify an untenable position." They saw several practical advantages in a similar policy for the Air Force. It would allow the elimination of the 10 percent quota. The inactivation of some black units--"and the pronounced relief of the problems involved in maintaining those units under present conditions"--could be accomplished without injustice to Negroes and with benefit to the Air Force. Nor would the integration of qualified Negroes in technical and combat units appreciably alter current practices; according to contemporary estimates such skilled men would never total more that 1 percent of the service's manpower.
The logic of social justice might have led to total integration, but it would not have solved the Air Force's pressing problem of too many unskilled blacks. It was consideration of military efficiency, therefore, that led these personnel experts to propose a system of limited integration along the lines of the Navy's postwar policy. Such a system, they concluded, would release the Air Force from its quota obligation--and hence its continuing surplus of unskilled men--and free it to assign its relatively small group of skilled black recruits where they were needed and might advance.
Although limited, the proposed reform was substantial enough to arouse opposition. General Edwards reported overwhelming opposition to any form of integration among Air Force officers, and never during the spring of 1948 did the Chief of Staff seriously consider even partial integration.[11-72] But if integration, even in a small dose, was unpalatable, widespread inefficiency was intolerable. And a new (p. 290) service, still in the process of developing policy, might embrace the new and the practical, especially if pressure were exerted from above. Assistant Secretary Zuckert intimated as much when he finally replied to James Evans, "You have my personal assurance that our present position is not in the interest of maintaining the status quo, but it is in anticipation of a more progressive and more satisfactory action in the relatively near future."[11-73]
[Footnote 11-72: Memo, Edwards for SecAF, 29 Apr 48, sub: Conference With Group of Prominent Negroes, Negro Affairs 1948, SecAF files.]
[Footnote 11-73: Memo, Zuckert to Evans, 22 Jul 48, sub: Negro Air Units, SecAF files.]