[Footnote 16-21: Freedom to Serve, pp. 37-38.]

[Footnote 16-22: Memo, SecAF for Chmn, PPB, 30 Apr 49, copy in FC file. McCoy and Ruetten, Quest and Response, p. 223, call the deletion a victory for the committee.]

The screening of officers and men at Lockbourne got under way on 17 May. A board of officers under the presidency of Col. Davis, the commander of Lockbourne, and composed of representatives of Air Force headquarters, the Continental Air Command, and the Air Training Command, and important officers of Lockbourne, interviewed every officer in the wing. After considering each man's technical training, his performance, and his career field preference, the board recommended him for reassignment in a specific duty field. Although Edwards had promised that the screening boards would also judge each man's "adaptability" to integrated service, this requirement was quickly dropped by Davis and his fellow board members.[16-23] In fact, the whole idea of having screening boards was resented by some black officers. Zuckert later admitted that the screening may have been a mistake, but at the time it had been considered the best mechanism for ascertaining the proper assignment for the men.[16-24]

[Footnote 16-23: USAF Oral Hist Interv with Davis.]

[Footnote 16-24: USAF Oral Hist Interv with Zuckert.]

At the same time, a screening team in the Air Training Command gave a written examination to Lockbourne's more than 1,100 airmen and WAF's to determine if they were in appropriate military occupational specialties. A team of personnel counselors interviewed all (p. 403) airmen, weighed test scores, past performances, qualifications outside of assigned specialty, and choices of a career field, and then placed them in one of three categories. First, they could be earmarked for general reassignment in a specific military occupational specialty different from the one they were now in; second, they could be scheduled for additional or more advanced technical training; or third, they could be trained in their current specialties. The screeners referred marginal or extraordinary cases to Colonel Davis's board for decision.[16-25]

[Footnote 16-25: NME Fact Sheet No. 105-49, 27 Jul 49.]

Concurrently with the Lockbourne processing, individual commanders established similar screening procedures wherever black airmen were then assigned. All these teams uncovered a substantial number of men and women considered eligible for further training or reassignment. (Table 4)

Table 4—Disposition of Black Personnel at Eight Air Force Bases, 1949

Percentages Total Asgmt to Asgmt to Asgmt to Recom for Base Tested Instr Tech Present Board Duty School MOS Action

Lockbourne Male 970 .32 12.08 64.64 22.98 Female 58 0.00 25.86 55.17 18.97 Lackland 247 1.62 20.65 67.61 10.12 Barksdale 158 0.00 20.25 65.82 13.93 Randolph 252 2.38 26.19 57.14 14.29 Waco 146 2.06 30.14 57.53 10.27 Mather 126 .79 27.78 40.48 30.95 Williams 144 8.33 21.53 39.58 30.56 Goodfellow 122 .82 36.89 40.89 21.31

Total 2,223 1.35 19.61 59.20 19.84

Source: President's Cmte on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces, "A First Report on the Racial Integration Program of the Air Force," 6 Feb 50, FC file.

The process of screening Lockbourne's troops was quickly completed, but the process of reassigning them was considerably more drawn-out. The reassignments were somewhat delayed in the first place by indecision, caused by budgetary uncertainties, on the future of Lockbourne itself. By 25 July, a full two months after the screening began, the Lockbourne board had recommended only 181 officers and 700 airmen to Air Force headquarters for new assignment. A short time later, however, Lockbourne was placed on inactive status and its remaining men and women, with the exception of a small caretaker detachment, were quickly reassigned throughout the Air Force.

The staff had predicted that the speed with which the integration order was carried out would follow a geographical pattern, with southern bases the last to integrate, but in fact no special pattern prevailed. For the many Negroes assigned to all-black base squadrons for administrative purposes but serving on a day-to-day basis in integrated units, the change was relatively simple. These men had already demonstrated their ability to perform their duties competently under integration, and in conformity with the new order most (p. 404) commanders immediately assigned them to the units in which they were already working. Except for their own squadron overhead, some base service squadrons literally disappeared when these reassignments were effected. After the screening process, most commanders also quickly reassigned troops serving in the other all-black units, such as Squadron F's, air ammunition, motor transport, vehicle repair, signal heavy construction, and aviation engineer squadrons.[16-26]

[Footnote 16-26: "Report on the First Year of Implementation of Current Policies Regarding Negro Personnel," Incl to Memo, Maj Gen Richard E. Nugent for ASecAF, 14 Jul 50, sub: Distribution of Negro Personnel, PPB 291.2 (9 Jul 50) (hereafter referred to as Marr Report). See also USAF Oral Hist Interv with Marr.]

There were of course a few exceptions. Some commanders, noticeably more cautious than the majority, began the integration process with considerably less ease and speed.[16-27] As late as January 1950, for example, the Fahy Committee's executive secretary found that, with the exception of a small number of Negroes assigned to white units, the black airmen at Maxwell Air Force Base were still assigned to the all-black 3817th Base Service Squadron, the only such unit he found, incidentally, in a tour of seven installations.[16-28] But as the months went by even the most cautious commander, learning of the success of the new policy in other commands, began to reassign his black airmen according to the recommendations of the screening board. Despite the announcement that some black units would be retained, practically all units were integrated by the end of the first year of the new program. Even using the Air staff's very restricted definition of a "Negro unit," that is, one whose strength was over 50 percent black, statistics show how radical was the change in just one year. (Table 5)

[Footnote 16-27: USAF Oral Hist Interv with Davis.]

[Footnote 16-28: President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces, "A First Report on the Racial Integration Program of the Air Force," 6 Feb 50, FC file (hereafter cited as Kenworthy Report).]

Table 5—Racial Composition of Air Force Units

Negroes Assigned Negroes Assigned Month Black Integrated to Black to Integrated Units Units Units Units[1]

1949 June 106 167 Not available Not available July 89 350 14,609 7,369 August 86 711 11,921 11,977 September 91 863 11,521 13,290 October 88 1,031 9,522 15,980 November 75 1,158 8,038 17,643 December 67 1,253 7,402 18,489

1950 January 59 1,301 6,773 18,929 February 36 1,399 5,511 20,654 March 26 1,476 5,023 20,938 April 24 1,515 4,728 20,793 May 24 1,506 4,675 21,033

[Tablenote 1: Figures extracted from the Marr Report; see also monthly reports on AF integration, for example Memo, Dir, Pers Plng, for Osthagen (SecAF office), 10 Mar 50, sub: Distribution of Negro Personnel, SecAF files.]

Despite the predictions of some analysts, the effect of (p. 405) integration on black recruitment proved to be negligible. In a service whose total strength remained about 415,000 men during the first year of integration, Negroes numbered as follows (Table 6):

Table 6—Black Strength in the Air Force

Percentage Officer Enlisted of Air Force Date Strength[1] Strength[1] Strength

December 1948 Not available Not available 6.5 June 1949 319 (47) 21,782 (2,196) 6.0 August 1949 330 (32) 23,568 (2,275) 6.5 December 1949 368 (18) 25,523 (3,072) 7.2 May 1950 341 (8) 25,367 (2,611) 7.1

[Tablenote 1: Includes in parentheses the Special Category Army Personnel with Air Force (SCARWAF), those soldiers assigned for duty in the Air Force but still administratively under the segregated Army, leftovers from the Department of Defense reorganization of 1947. Figures extracted from Marr Report.]

The Air staff explained that the slight surge in black recruits in the early months of integration was related less to the new policy than to the abnormal recruiting conditions of the period. In addition to the backlog of Negroes who for some time had been trying to enlist only to find the Air Force quota filled, there were many black volunteers who had turned to the quota-free Air Force when the Army, its quota of Negroes filled for some time, stopped recruiting Negroes.

With Negroes serving in over 1,500 separate units there was no need to invoke the 10 percent racial quota in individual units as Vandenberg had ordered. One notable exception during the first months of the program was the Air Training Command, where the rapid and unexpected reassignment of many black airmen caused some bases, James Connally in Texas, for example, to acquire a great many Negroes while others received few or none. To prevent a recurrence of the Connally experience and "to effect a smooth operation and proper adjustment of social importance," the commander of the Air Training Command imposed an 8 to 10 percent black quota on his units and established a procedure for staggering the assignment of black airmen in small groups over a period of thirty to sixty days instead of assigning them to any particular base in one large increment. These quotas were not applied to the basic training flights, which were completely integrated. It was not uncommon to find black enlistees in charge of racially mixed training flights.[16-29] Of all Air Force organizations, the Training Command received the greatest number of black airmen as a result of the screening and reassignment. (Table 7)

[Footnote 16-29: ATC, "History of ATC, July-December 1949," I:29-31; New York Times, September 18, 1949.]

Table 7—Racial Composition of the Training Command, December 1949 (p. 406)

A. Flight Training Percent White Black Black Officers 1,345 11 .8 Enlisted 2,063 22 1.0 Total 3,408 33 .9 B. Technical Training Officers 1,897 37 1.9 Enlisted 25,838 1,819 6.5 Total 27,735 1,856 6.0 C. Indoctrination (Basic) Training White 7,649 Black 1,007 Total 8,656 Percent black 11.6[a] D. Officers Candidate Training (candidates graduating from 28 November through 26 December 1949) White 225 Black 7 Total 232 Percent black 3.0 E. Course Representation

Base No. of Courses[b] No. of Courses with Blacks Chanute 31 21 Warren 11 10 Keesler 16 7 Lowry 23 13 Scott 6 4 Sheppard 4 1

[Tablenote a: In January 1950, probably as a result of a decline in backlog and the raising of enlistment standard to GCT 100, this percentage dropped to 8.8.]

[Tablenote b: Negroes in 61 percent of the courses offered as of 26 Dec 1949.]

Source: Kenworthy Report.

At the end of the first year under the new program, the Acting Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, General Nugent, informed Zuckert that integration had progressed "rapidly, smoothly and virtually without incident."[16-30] In view of this fact and at Nugent's recommendation, the Air Force canceled the monthly headquarters check on the program.

[Footnote 16-30: Memo, Actg DCSPER for Zuckert, 14 Jul 50, USAF file No. 3370, SecAF files.]

To some extent the Air Force's integration program ran away with itself. Whatever their personal convictions regarding discrimination, senior Air Force officials had agreed that integration would be limited. They were most concerned with managerial problems associated with continued segregation of the black flying unit and the black specialists scattered worldwide. Other black units were not considered an immediate problem. Assistant Secretary Zuckert admitted as much in March 1949 when he reported that black service units would be retained since they performed a "necessary Air Force function."[16-31] As originally conceived, the Air Force plan was frankly imitative of the Navy's postwar program, stressing merit and ability as the limiting factors of change. The Air Force promised to discharge all its substandard men, but those black airmen either ineligible for discharge or for reassignment to specialist duty would remain in segregated units.

[Footnote 16-31: Memo, ASecAF for Symington, 25 Mar 49, sub: Salient Factors of Air Force Policy Regarding Negro Personnel, SecAF files.]

Yet once begun, the integration process quickly became universal. By the end of 1950, for example, the Air Force had reduced the number of black units to nine with 95 percent of its black airmen serving in integrated units. The number of black officers rose to 411, an (p. 407) increase of 10 percent over the previous year, and black airmen to 25,523, an increase of 15 percent, although the proportion of blacks to whites continued to remain between 6 and 7 percent.[16-32] Some eighteen months later only one segregated unit was left, a 98-man outfit, itself more than 26 percent white. Negroes were then serving in 3,466 integrated units.[16-33]

[Footnote 16-32: Air Force Times, 10 February 1951. These figures do not take into account the SCARWAF (Army personnel) who continued to serve in segregated units within the Air Force.]

[Footnote 16-33: Memo, DepSecAF for Manpower and Organizations for ASD/M, 5 Sep 52, SecAF files.]

There were several reasons for the universal application of what was conceived as a limited program. First, the Air Force was in a sense the captive of its own publicity. While Secretary Symington had carefully delineated the limits of his departmental plan for the Personnel Policy Board in January 1949, he was carried considerably beyond these limits when he addressed President Truman in the open forum of the Fahy Committee's first formal meeting:

As long as you mentioned the Air Force, sir, I just want to report to you that our plan is to completely eliminate segregation in the Air Force. For example, we have a fine group of colored boys. Our plan is to take those boys, break up that fine group, and put them with the other units themselves and go right down the line all through these subdivisions one hundred percent.[16-34]

[Footnote 16-34: Transcript of the Meeting of the President and the Four Service Secretaries With the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 12 Jan 49, FC file, which reports the President's response as being "That's all right."]

Later, Symington told the Fahy Committee that while the new program would probably temporarily reduce Air Force efficiency "we are ready, willing, and anxious to embark on this idea. We want to eliminate the fundamental aspect of class in this picture."[16-35] Clearly, the retention of large black units was incompatible with the elimination of class distinctions.

[Footnote 16-35: Testimony of the Secretary of the Air Force Before the Fahy Committee, 28 Mar 49, afternoon session, p. 33.]

The more favorable the publicity garnered by the plan in succeeding months, the weaker the distinction became between the limited integration of black specialists and total integration. Reinforcing the favorable publicity were the monthly field reports that registered a steady drop in the number of black units and a corresponding rise in the number of integrated black airmen. This well-publicized progress provided another, almost irresistible reason for completing the task.

More to the point, the success of the program provided its own impetus to total integration. The prediction that a significant number of black officers and men would be ineligible for reassignment or further training proved ill-founded. The Air Force, it turned out, had few untrainable men, and after the screening process and transfer of those eligible was completed, many black units were so severely reduced in strength that their inactivation became inevitable. The fear of white opposition that had inhibited the staff planners and local commanders also proved groundless. According to a Fahy Committee staff report in March 1950, integration had been readily accepted at all levels and the process had been devoid of friction. "The men," E. W. (p. 408) Kenworthy reported, "apparently were more ready for equality of treatment and opportunity than the officer corps had realized."[16-36] At the same time, Kenworthy noted the effect of successful integration on the local commanders. Freed from the charges of discrimination that had plagued them at every turn, most of the commanders he interviewed remarked on the increased military efficiency of their units and the improved utilization of their manpower that had come with integration. They liked the idea of a strictly competitive climate of equal standards rigidly applied, and some expected that the Air Force example would have an effect, eventually, on civilian attitudes.[16-37]

[Footnote 16-36: Kenworthy Report, as quoted and commented on in Memo, Worthington Thompson (Personnel Policy Board staff) for Leva, 9 Mar 50, sub: Some Highlights of Fahy Committee Report on Air Force Racial Integration Program, SD 291.2.]

[Footnote 16-37: Ltr, Kenworthy to Zuckert, 5 Jan 50, SecAF files.]



For the Air Force, it seemed, the problem of segregation was all over but for the celebrating. And there was plenty of that, thanks to the Fahy Committee and the press. In a well-publicized tour of a cross section of Air Force installations in early 1950, Kenworthy surveyed the integration program for the committee. His favorable report won the Air Force laudatory headlines in the national press and formed the core of the Air Force section of the Fahy Committee's final report, Freedom to Serve.[16-38] For its part, the black press covered the program in great detail and gave its almost unanimous approval. As early as July 1949, for example, Dowdal H. Davis, president of the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association, reported on the highly encouraging reaction to the breakup of the 332d, and the headlines reflected this attitude: "The Air Force Leads the Way," the Chicago Defender headlined; "Salute to the Air Force," the Minneapolis Spokesman editorialized; and "the swiftest and most amazing upset of racial policy in the history of the U.S. Military," Ebony concluded. Pointing to the Air Force program as the best, the Pittsburgh Courier called the progress toward total integration "better than most dared hope."[16-39]

[Footnote 16-38: See, for example, the Washington Post, March 27, 1950.]

[Footnote 16-39: Press reaction summarized in Memo, James C. Evans for PPB, 19 Jan 50, PPB 291.2. See also, Ltr, Dowdal Davis, Gen Manager of the Kansas City Call, to Evans, 9 Jul 49, SD 291.2; Memo, Evans for SecAF, 5 Jul 49; and Memo, Zuckert for SecAF, 2 Aug 49, both in SecAF files; Chicago Defender, June 18, 1949; Minneapolis Spokesman, January 13, 1950; Ebony Magazine, 4 (September 1949):15; Pittsburgh Courier, July 25, 1952; Detroit Free Press, May 14, 1953.]

General Vandenberg and his staff were well aware of the rapid and (p. 409) profound change in the Air Force wrought by the integration order. From the start his personnel chief carefully monitored the program and reviewed the reports from the commands, ready to investigate any racial incidents or differences attributable to the new policy. The staff had expected a certain amount of testing of the new policy by both white and black troops, and with few exceptions the incidents reported turned out to be little more than that. Some arose from attempts by Negroes to win social acceptance at certain Air Force installations, but the majority of cases involved attempts by white airmen to introduce their black comrades into segregated off-base restaurants and theaters. Two examples might stand for all. The first involved a transient black corporal who stopped off at the Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C., to get a haircut in a post exchange barbershop. He was refused service and in the absence of the post exchange officer he returned to the shop to trade words and eventually blows with the barber. The corporal was subsequently court-martialed, but the sentence was set aside by a superior court.[16-40] Another case involved a small group of white airmen who ordered refreshments at a segregated lunch counter in San Antonio, Texas, for themselves "and a friend who would join them later." The friend, of course, was a black airman. The Inspector General reported this incident to be just one of a number of attempts by groups of white and black airmen to integrate lunch counters and restaurants. In each case the commanders concerned cautioned their men against such action, and there were few reoccurrences.[16-41]

[Footnote 16-40: Memo, IG, USAF, for ASecAF, 25 Jul 49, SecAF files.]

[Footnote 16-41: Idem for DCSPER, 7 Sep 49, copy in SecAF files; see also ACofS, G-2, Fourth Army, Ft. Sam Houston, Summary of Information, 7 Sep 49, copy in SA 291.2.]

The commanders' warnings were understandable because, as any official from Secretary Symington on down would quickly explain, the Air Force did not regard itself as being in the business of forcing changes in American society; it was simply trying to make the best use of its manpower to build military efficiency in keeping with its national defense mission.[16-42] But in the end the integration order proved effective on both counts. Racial feelings, racial incidents, charges of discrimination, and the problems of procurement, training, and assignment always associated with racially designated units had been reduced by an appreciable degree or eliminated entirely. The problems anticipated from the mingling of blacks and whites in social situations had proved to be largely imaginary. The Air Force adopted a standard formula for dealing with these problems during the next decade. Incidents involving black airmen were treated as individual incidents and dealt with on a personal basis like any ordinary disciplinary case. Only when there was no alternative was an incident labeled "racial" and then the commander was expected to deal speedily and firmly with the troublemakers.[16-43] This sensible procedure freed the Air Force for a decade from the charges of on-base discrimination that had plagued it in the past.

[Footnote 16-42: See, for example, Memo, SecAF for SecDef, 17 Feb 49; Ltr, SecAF to Sen. Burnet R. Maybank, 21 Jul 49; both in SecAF files.]

[Footnote 16-43: Memo, Evans, OSD, for Worthington Thompson, 18 May 53, sub: Summary of Topics Reviewed in Thompson's office 15 May 53, SD 291.2.]



Without a doubt the new policy improved the Air Force's manpower (p. 410) efficiency, as the experience of the 3202d Installation Group illustrates. A segregated unit serving at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, the 3202d was composed of an all-black heavy maintenance and construction squadron, a black maintenance repair and utilities squadron, and an all-white headquarters and headquarters squadron. This rigid segregation had caused considerable trouble for the unit's personnel section, which was forced to assign men on the basis of color rather than military occupational specialty. For example, a white airman with MOS 345, a truck driver, although assigned to the unit, could not be assigned to the heavy maintenance and construction squadron where his specialty was authorized but had to be assigned to the white headquarters squadron where his specialty was not authorized. Clearly operating in an inefficient manner, the unit was charged with misassignment of personnel by the Air Inspector; in July 1950 it was swiftly and peaceably, if somewhat belatedly, integrated, and its three squadrons were converted to racially mixed units, allowing an airman to be assigned according to his training and not his color.[16-44]

[Footnote 16-44: History Officer, 3202d Installations Groups, "History of the 3202d Installations Group, 1 July-31 October 1950," Eglin AFB, Fla., pp. 8-9.]

The preoccupation of high officials with the effects of integration on a soldier's social life seemed at times out of keeping with the issues of national defense and military efficiency. At one of the Fahy Committee hearings, for instance, an exasperated Charles Fahy asked Omar Bradley, "General, are you running an Army or a dance?"[16-45] Yet social life on military bases at swimming pools, dances, bridge parties, and service clubs formed so great a part of the fabric of military life that the Air Force staff could hardly ignore the possibility of racial troubles in the countless social exchanges that characterized the day-to-day life in any large American institution. The social situation had been seriously considered before the new racial policy was approved. At that time the staff had predicted that problems developing out of integration would not prove insurmountable, and indeed on the basis of a year's experience a member of the Air staff declared that (p. 411)

at the point where the Negro and the white person are actually in contact the problem has virtually disappeared. Since all races of Air Force personnel work together under identical environmental conditions on the base, it is not unnatural that they participate together, to the extent that they desire, in certain social activities which are considered a normal part of service life. This type of integration has been entirely voluntary, without incident, and considerably more complete and more rapid than was anticipated.[16-46]

[Footnote 16-45: This off-the-record comment occurred during the committee hearings in the Pentagon and was related to the author by E. W. Kenworthy in interview on 17 October 1971. See also Memo, Kenworthy to Brig Gen James L. Collins, Jr., 13 Oct 76, copy in CMH.]

[Footnote 16-46: Marr Report.]



The Air staff had imposed only two rules on interracial social activities: with due regard for sex and rank all Air Force facilities were available for the unrestricted use of all its members; troublemakers would get into trouble. Under these inflexible rules, the Fahy Committee later reported, there was a steady movement in the direction of shared facilities. "Here again, mutual respect engendered on the job or in the school seemed to translate itself into friendly association."[16-47] Whether it liked it or not, the Air Force was in the business of social change.

[Footnote 16-47: Freedom to Serve, p. 41.]

Typical of most unit reports was one from the commander of the 1701st Air Transport Wing, Great Falls Air Force Base, Montana, who wrote Secretary Symington that the unit's eighty-three Negroes, serving in ten different organizations, lived and worked with white airmen "on an apparently equal and friendly basis."[16-48] The commander had been unable to persuade local community leaders, however, to promote equality of treatment outside the base, and beyond its movie theaters Great Falls had very few places that allowed black airmen. The commander was touching upon a problem that would eventually trouble all the services: airmen, he reported to Secretary Symington, although they have good food and entertainment on the base, sooner or later want to go to town, sit at a table, and order what they want. The Air Force was now coming into conflict with local custom which it could see no way to control. As the Air Force Times put it, "The Air Force, like the other services, feels circumspect policy in this regard is the only advisable one on the grounds that off-base segregation is a matter for civilian rather than military decision."[16-49]

[Footnote 16-48: Ltr, Col Paul H. Prentiss, Cmdr, 1701st AT Wing, to SecAF, 27 Dec 49, SecAF files.]

[Footnote 16-49: Air Force Times, 10 February 1951.]

But this problem could not detract from what had been accomplished on the bases. Judged by the standards it set for itself before the Fahy Committee, the Air Force had achieved its goals. Further, they (p. 412) were achieved in the period between 1949 and 1956 when the percentage of blacks in the service doubled, an increase resulting from the Defense Department's qualitative distribution of manpower rather than the removal of the racial quota.[16-50] During these years the number of black airmen rose from 5.1 to 10.4 percent of the enlisted strength and the black officers from 0.6 to 1.1 percent. Reviewing the situation in 1960, Ebony noted that the program begun in 1949 was working well and that white men were accepting without question progressive racial practices forbidden in their home communities. Minor racial flare-ups still occurred, but integration was no longer a major problem in the Air Force; it was a fact of life.[16-51]

[Footnote 16-50: Memo for Rcd, ADS(M), 12 Sep 56, sub: Integration Percentages, ADS(M) 291.2. For further discussion of the qualitative distribution program, see Navy section, below.]

[Footnote 16-51: "Integration in the Air Force Abroad," Ebony 15 (March 1960):27.]

The Navy and Executive Order 9981

The changing government attitude toward integration in the late 1940's had less dramatic effect on the Navy than upon the other services because the Navy was already the conspicuous possessor of a racial policy guaranteeing equal treatment and opportunity for all its members. But as the Fahy Committee and many other critics insisted, the Navy's 1946 equality guarantee was largely theoretical; its major racial problem was not one of policy but of practice as statistics demonstrated. It was true, for example, that the Navy had abolished racial quotas in recruitment, yet the small number of black sailors—17,000 during 1949, averaging 4.5 percent of the total strength—made the absence of a quota academic.[16-52] It was true that Negroes served side by side with white sailors in almost every occupation and training program in the Navy, but it was also a fact that 62 percent of all Negroes in the Navy in 1949 were still assigned to the nonwhite Steward's Branch. This figure shows that as late as December 1949 fewer than 7,000 black sailors were serving in racially integrated assignments.[16-53] Again, with only 19 black officers, including 2 nurses, in a 1949 average officer strength of 45,464, it meant little to say that the Navy had an integrated officer corps. A shadow had fallen, then, between the promise of the Navy's policy and its fulfillment, partly because of indifferent execution.

[Footnote 16-52: Unless otherwise noted all statistics are from information supplied by the Bureau of Naval Personnel. The exact percentage on 1 July 1949 was 4.7; see Memo for Rcd, ASD(M), 12 Sep 56, sub: Integration Percentages, ASD(M) 291.2.]

[Footnote 16-53: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Under SecNav, 5 Dec 49, sub: Proposed Report to Chairman Personnel Policy Board Regarding the Implementation of Executive Order 9981, Pers 21, GenRecsNav.]

Submitted to and approved by the Secretary of Defense, the new Navy plan announced on 7 June 1949 called for a specific series of measures to bring departmental practices into line with policy.[16-54] Once he had gained Johnson's approval, Secretary of the Navy Matthews did not tarry. On 23 June he issued an explicit statement to all ships and stations, abjuring racial distinctions in the Navy and Marine (p. 413) Corps and ordering that all personnel be enlisted or appointed, trained, advanced or promoted, assigned and administered without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.[16-55] Admirable and comprehensive, Matthew's statement scarcely differed in intent from his predecessor's general declaration of equal treatment and opportunity of 12 December 1945 and the more explicit directive of the Chief of Naval Operations on the same subject on 27 February 1946. Yet despite the close similarity, a reiteration was clearly necessary. As even the most ardent apologist for the navy's postwar racial policy would admit, these groundbreaking statements had not done the job, and, to satisfy the demands of the Fahy Committee and the Secretary of Defense, Secretary Matthews had to convince his subordinates that the demand for equal treatment and opportunity was serious and had to be dealt with immediately. His specific mention of the Marine Corps and the problems of enlistment, assignment, and promotion, subjects ignored in the earlier directives, represented a start toward the reform of his department's racial practices currently out of step with its expressed policy.

[Footnote 16-54: Memo, SecNav for SecDef, 23 May 49, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces, copy in FC file.]

[Footnote 16-55: ALNAV 447-49, which remained in force until 23 March 1953 when SecNav Instruction 1000.2 superseded it without substantial change.]

Yet a restatement of policy, no matter how specific, was not enough. As Under Secretary Dan A. Kimball admitted, the Navy had the formidable task of convincing its own people of the sincerity of its policy and of erasing the distrust that had developed in the black community "resulting from past discriminating practices."[16-56] Those who were well aware of the Navy's earlier failure to achieve integration by fiat were bound to greet Secretary Matthews's directive with skepticism unless it was accompanied by specific reforms. Matthews, aware of the necessity, immediately inaugurated a campaign to recruit more black sailors, commission more black officers, and remove the stigma attached to service in the Steward's Branch.

[Footnote 16-56: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec 49, sub: Implementation of Executive Order 9981, PPB 291.2.]

It was logical enough to start a reform of the Navy's integration program by attacking the perennial problem of too few Negroes in the general service. In his annual report to the Secretary of Defense, Matthews outlined some of the practical steps the Navy was taking to attract more qualified young blacks. The Bureau of Naval Personnel, he explained, planned to assign black sailors and officers to its recruiting service. As a first step it assigned eight Negroes to Recruitment Procurement School and subsequently to recruit duty in eight major cities with further such assignments planned when current manpower ceilings were lifted.[16-57]

[Footnote 16-57: SecNav, Annual Report to SecDef, FY 1949, p. 230; Memo, Under SecNav Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec 49, sub: Implementation of Executive Order 9981, PPB 291.2.]

The Bureau of Naval Personnel had also polled black reservists on the possibility of returning to active duty on recruiting assignments, and from this group had chosen five officers for active duty in the New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Detroit, and Chicago recruiting offices. At the same time black officers and petty officers were sent to extol the advantages of a naval career before black student (p. 414) bodies and citizen groups.[16-58] Their performances were exceedingly well received. The executive secretary of the Dayton, Ohio, Urban League, for example, thanked Secretary Matthews for the appearances of Lieutenant Nelson before groups of students, reporters, and community leaders in the city. The lieutenant, he added, not only "clearly and effectively interpreted the opportunities open to Negro youth in the United States Navy" but also "greatly accelerated" the community's understanding of the Navy's integration program.[16-59] Nelson, himself, had been a leading advocate of an accelerated public relations program to advertise the opportunities for Negroes in the Navy.[16-60] The personnel bureau had adopted his suggestion that all recruitment literature, including photographs testifying to the fact that Negroes were serving in the general service, be widely distributed in predominantly black institutions. Manpower ceilings, however, had forced the bureau to postpone action on Nelson's suggestion that posters, films, pamphlets, and the like be used.[16-61]

[Footnote 16-58: Memo, Dir, Recruiting Div, BuPers, for Admin Aide to SecNav, 22 Dec 50, sub: Negro Officer in Recruiting on the West Coast; Ltr, SecNav to Actg Exec Dir, Urban League, Los Angeles, 22 Dec 50; both in Pers B6, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-59: Ltr, Charles W. Washington, Exec Secy, Dayton, Ohio, Urban League, to SecNav, 19 Oct 50, copy in Pers 1376, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-60: Memo, Nelson for Charles Durham, Fahy Committee, sub: Implementation of Proposed Navy Racial Policy, 17 Jun 49, FC file.]

[Footnote 16-61: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec 49, sub: Implementation of Executive Order 9981, PPB 291.2.]

An obvious concomitant to the increase in the number of black sailors was an increase in the number of black officers. The personnel bureau was well aware of this connection; Comdr. Luther C. Heinz, officer in charge of naval reserve officer training, called the shortage of Negroes in his program a particularly important problem. He promised, "in accord with the desires of the President," as he put it, to increase black participation in the Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps, and his superior, the Chief of Naval Personnel, started a program in the bureau for that purpose.[16-62] With the help of the National Urban League, Heinz arranged a series of lectures by black officers at forty-nine black schools and other institutions to interest Negroes in the Navy's reserve officers program. In August 1949, for example, Ens. Wesley Brown, the first Negro to be graduated from Annapolis, addressed gatherings in Chicago on the opportunities for Negroes as naval officers.[16-63]

[Footnote 16-62: Memo, Off in Charge, NROTC Tng, for Chief, Plans & Policy Div, BuPers, 14 Jul 49, sub: NROTC Personnel Problems, Pers 424, BuPersRecs.]

[Footnote 16-63: Ltr, Granger to Chief, NavPers, 3 Aug 49, Pers 42, BuPersRecs.]

At the same time the Bureau of Naval Personnel wrote special press releases, arranged interviews for naval officials with members of the black press, and distributed publicity materials in predominantly black schools to attract candidates and to assure interested young men that race was no bar to their selection. In this connection Commander Heinz bid for and received an invitation to address the Urban League's annual conference in August 1949 to outline the Navy's program. The Chief of Naval Personnel, Rear Adm. Thomas L. Sprague, also (p. 415) arranged for the training of all those engaged in promoting the program—professors of naval science, naval procurement officers, and the like. In states where such assignments were considered acceptable, Sprague planned to appoint Negroes to selection committees.[16-64] In a related move he also ordered that when local law or custom required the segregation of facilities used for the administration of qualifying tests for reserve officer training, the Navy would use its own facilities for testing. This ruling was used when the 1949 examinations were given in Atlanta and New Orleans; to the delight of the black press the Navy transferred the test site to its nearby facilities.[16-65] These efforts had some positive effect. In 1949 alone some 2,700 black youths indicated an interest in the Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps by submitting applications.[16-66]

[Footnote 16-64: Memo, Dir of Tng, BuPers, for Chief, NavPers, 1 Jul 49; Ltr, Granger to Cmdr Luther Heinz, 3 Aug 49; Ltr, Heinz to Granger, 18 Aug 49. All in Pers 42, BuPersRecs. See also Interv, author with Nelson, 26 May 69, and Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70, both in CMH files.]

[Footnote 16-65: Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to Cmdt, All Continental Naval Dists, 17 Mar 50, Pers 42, BuPersRecs; Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec 49, PPB 291.2.]

[Footnote 16-66: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec 49, PPB 291.2.]

Despite these well-intentioned efforts, the Navy failed to increase significantly the number of black officers or sailors in the next decade (Table 8). The percentage of Negroes in the Navy increased so slowly that not until 1955, in the wake of the great manpower buildup during the Korean War, did it exceed the 1949 figure. Although the percentage of black enlistments increased significantly at times—approximately 12 percent of all enlistments in 1955 were black, for example—the proportion of Negroes in the Navy's enlisted ranks was only 0.4 percent higher in 1960 than in 1949. While the number of black officers increased more than sevenfold in the same decade, it was still considerably less than 1 percent of the total officer strength, well below Army and Air Force percentages.

Table 8—Black Manpower, U.S. Navy

A. Enlisted Strength

Percent Year Total Strength Black Strength Black

1949 363,622 17,051 4.5 1950 329,114 14,858 3.7 1951 656,371 17,604 2.7 1952 728,511 23,010 3.2 1953 698,367 24,734 3.5 1954 635,103 24,236 3.8 1955 574,157 30,623 5.3 1956 586,782 37,308 6.3 1957 593,022 38,222 6.4 1958 558,955 30,978 5.7 1959 547,236 30,098 5.5 1960 544,323 26,760 4.9

B. Percentage of Blacks Enlisted in Steward's and Other Branches

Year Steward's Branch Other Branches

1949 65.12 34.88 1950 57.07 42.93 1951 55.27 44.73 1952 54.95 45.05 1953 51.73 48.27 1954 53.43 48.57 1955 51.19 48.81 1956 25.38 74.62 1957 21.66 78.34 1958 23.35 76.65

C. Officer Strength (Selected Years)

Year Black Officers on Active Duty Total Officers

1949 19 45,464 1951 23 66,323 1953 53 78,095 1955 81 71,591 1960 149

Source: BuPers, Personnel Statistics Branch. See especially BuPers, "Memo on Discrimination of the Negro," 24 Jan 59, BAF2-014. BuPers Technical Library. All figures represent yearly averages.

The Navy had an explanation for the small number of Negroes. The reduced manpower ceilings imposed on the Navy, even during the Korean War, had caused a drastic curtailment in recruiting. At the same time, with the brief exception of the Korean War, the Navy had depended on volunteers for enlistment and had required volunteers to score ninety or higher on the general classification test. The percentage of those who scored above ninety was lower for blacks than for whites—16 percent against 67 percent, a ratio, naval spokesmen suggested, that explained the enlistment figures. Furthermore, the low enlistment quotas produced a long waiting list of those desiring to volunteer. All applicants for the relatively few openings were thoroughly screened, and competition was so keen that any Negroes accepted for the monthly quota had to be extraordinarily well qualified.[16-67]

[Footnote 16-67: For a public expression of these sentiments see, for example, Ltr, Capt R. B. Ellis, Policy Control Br, BuPers, to President of Birmingham, Ala., Branch, NAACP, 30 Mar 50, Pers 66 MM, GenRecsNav.]

What the Navy's explanation failed to mention was that the rise and decline in the Navy's black strength during the 1950's was intimately related to the number of group IV enlistees being forced on the services under the provisions of the Defense Department's program (p. 416) for the qualitative distribution of manpower. Each service was required to accept 24 percent of all recruits in group IV from fiscal year 1953 to 1956, 18 percent in fiscal year 1957, and 12 percent thereafter. Between 1953 and 1956 the Navy accepted well above the required 24 percent of group IV men, but in fiscal year 1957 took only 15.1 percent, and in 1958 only 6.8 percent. In 1958, with the knowledge of the Secretary of Defense, all the services took in fewer of the group IV's than the distribution program required, but justified the reduction on the grounds that declining strength made it necessary to emphasize high quality in recruits. In a move endorsed by the Navy, the Air Force finally requested in 1959 that the qualitative distribution program be held in abeyance. On the basis of this request the Navy temporarily ceased to accept all group IV and some group III men, but resumed recruiting them when it seemed likely that the (p. 417) Secretary of Defense would refuse the request.[16-68]

[Footnote 16-68: BuPers, "Memo on Discrimination of the Negro," 24 January 1959, Pers A1224, BuPers Tech Library.]



The correlation between the rise and fall of the group IV enlistments and the percentage of Negroes in the Navy shows that all the increases in black strength between 1952 and 1959 came not through the Navy's publicized and organized effort to attract the qualified black volunteers it had promised the Fahy Committee, but from the men forced upon it by the Defense Department's distribution program. The correlation also lends credence to the charges of some of the civil rights critics who saw another reason for the shortage of Negroes. They claimed that there had been no drop in the number of applicants but that fewer Negroes were being accepted by Navy recruiters. One NAACP official claimed that Negroes were "getting the run around." Those who had fulfilled all enlistment requirements were not being informed, and others were being given false information by recruiters. He concluded that the Navy was operating under an unwritten policy of filling recruit quotas with whites, accepting Negroes only when whites were unavailable.[16-69] If these accusations were true, the Navy was denying itself the services of highly qualified black applicants at a time when the Defense Department's qualitative distribution program was forcing it to take large numbers of the less gifted. Certainly the number of Negroes capable of moving up the career and promotion ladder was reduced and the Navy left vulnerable to further charges of discrimination.

[Footnote 16-69: Ltr, Exec Secy, Birmingham, Ala., Branch, NAACP, to Chief, NavPers, 14 Mar 50, Pers A, GenRecsNav.]

As for the shortage of officers, Nelson cited the awareness among candidates that promotions were slower for blacks in the Navy than in the other services where there was "less caste and class to buck."[16-70] Nelson was aware that out of the 2,700 blacks who had indicated an interest in the reserve officer training program in 1949 only 250 actually took the aptitude tests. Of these, only two passed the tests and one of these was later rejected for poor eyesight. An Urban League spokesman believed that some failed to take the tests out of fear of failure but that many harbored a suspicion that the program was not entirely open to all regardless of race.[16-71] Reinforcing this suspicion was the fact that, despite the intentions of the (p. 418) Bureau of Naval Personnel and the Navy's increasing control over the appointment process, as of 1965 not a single Negro had been appointed to any of the 150-man state selection committees on reserve officer training.[16-72] Also to be considered, as the American Civil Liberties Union later pointed out, was the promotion record of black officers. As late as 1957 no black officer had ever commanded a ship, and while both black and white officers started up the same promotion ladder, the blacks were usually transferred out of the line into staff billets.[16-73]

[Footnote 16-70: Interv, Nichols with Nelson, 1953, in Nichols Collection; Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70; both in CMH files.]

[Footnote 16-71: Quoted in Memo, Dir of Tng, BuPers, for Chief, NavPers, 1 Jul 49, Pers 42, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-72: Memo for Rcd, Evans, 23 Jun 65, sub: NROTC Boards, ASD/M 291.2.]

[Footnote 16-73: Ltr, Exec Dir, ACLU, to SecNav, 26 Nov 57, GenRecsNav.]



Given the pressure on the personnel bureau to develop some respectable black manpower statistics, it is unlikely that the lack of educated, black recruits can be blamed on widespread subterfuge at the recruiting level. Far more likely is the explanation offered by Under Secretary Kimball, that the black community distrusted the Navy.[16-74] First apparent in the 1940's, this distrust lasted throughout the next decade as young Negroes continued to show a general apathy toward the Navy, which at times turned into open hostility. In September 1961 the Chief of Naval Personnel reported that recruiters were not infrequently being treated to "booing, hissing and other disorderly conduct" when they tried to discuss the opportunities for naval careers before black audiences.[16-75]

[Footnote 16-74: Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec 49, sub: Implementation of Executive Order 9981, PPB 291.2.]

[Footnote 16-75: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Pers B, 23 Sep 61, copy in Harris Wofford Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]

The Navy's poor reputation in the black community centered on the continued existence of the racially separate servants' branch, in the eyes of many the symbol of the service's racial exclusiveness. The Steward's Branch remained predominantly black. In 1949 it had 10,499 Negroes, 4,707 Filipinos, 741 other nonwhites, and 1 white man. Chief stewards continued to be denied the grade of chief petty officer, on the grounds that since stewards were not authorized to exercise military command over others than stewards because of their lack of military training, chief stewards were not chiefs in the military sense of the word. This difference in authority also explained, as the Chief of Naval Personnel put it, why as a general rule chief stewards were not quartered with other petty officers.[16-76] These (p. 419) distinctions were true also for stewards in the first, second, and third classes, a fact in their case symbolized by differences in uniform. Most of the thousands of black stewards continued to be recruited, trained, and employed exclusively in that branch, and thus for over half the Negroes—65 percent—in the 1949 Navy the chance for advancement was severely limited and the chance to qualify for a different job almost nonexistent.

[Footnote 16-76: Testimony of Vice Adm William M. Fechteler Before the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services (the Fahy Cmte), 28 Mar 49, p. 18.]



The Navy instituted several changes in the branch in the wake of the Fahy Committee's recommendations. On 25 July 1949 the Chief of Naval Personnel ordered all chief stewards designated chief petty officers with all the prerogatives of that status; in precedence they came immediately after chief dental technicians,[16-77] who were at the bottom of the list. That the change was limited to chief stewards did not go unnoticed. Joseph Evans of the Fahy Committee staff charged that the bureau "seemed to have ordered this to accede to the committee's recommendations never intending to go beyond Chief Stewards."[16-78] Nelson, by now a sort of unofficial ombudsman and gadfly for black sailors, urged his superiors to broaden the reform, and Kimball warned Admiral Sprague that limiting the change to chief stewards might be "justified on the literal statement of (p. 420) intention, but is vulnerable to criticism of continued discrimination." Without compelling reasons to the contrary, he added, "I do not feel that we can afford to risk any possible impression of reluctant implementation of the spirit of the directive."[16-79]

[Footnote 16-77: BuPers Cir Ltr 115-49, 25 Jul 49.]

[Footnote 16-78: Memo, Evans for Fahy Cmte, 23 Aug 49, sub: Progress in Navy, Fahy Papers, Truman Library.]

[Footnote 16-79: Memo, Under SecNav for Chief, NavPers, 10 Aug 49, MM (1) GenRecsNav.]

Admiral Sprague got the point, and on 30 August he announced that effective with the new year, stewards—first, second, and third class—would be designated petty officers with appropriate pay, prerogatives, and precedence, and that their uniforms would be changed to conform to those of other petty officers. He also amended the bureau's manual to allow commanding officers to change the ratings of stewards without headquarters approval, thus enlarging the opportunity for stewards, in all other respects qualified, to transfer into other ratings.[16-80] These reforms brought about a slow but steady change in the assignment of black sailors. Between January 1950 and August 1953, the percentage of Negroes in the general service rose from 42 to 47 percent of the Navy's 23,000 man black strength, with a corresponding drop in the percentage of those assigned to the Steward's Branch.[16-81]

[Footnote 16-80: BuPers Cir Ltr 141-49, 30 Aug 49. See also Memo, Under SecNav for Chmn, PPB, 22 Dec 49, sub: Implementation of Executive Order 9981, PPB 291.2; Memo, Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, 4 May 50, sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity, Pers 42, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-81: Memo, Dir, Plans and Policy, BuPers, for Capt Brooke Schumm, USN, PPB, 17 Jul 50, sub: Secretary of Defense Semi-Annual Report, Negro Enlisted Personnel Data for, Pers 14B; Memo, Head, Strength and Statistics Br, BuPers, for Head, Technical Info Br, BuPers, 25 Aug 53, sub: Information Requested by LCDR D. D. Nelson Concerning Negro Strength, Pers A14; both in BuPersRecs.]

Yet these reforms were modest in terms of the pressing need for a substantive change in the racial composition of the Steward's Branch. Despite the changes in assignment policy, the Steward's Branch was still nearly 65 percent black in 1952, and the rest were mostly Filipino citizens under contract. Secretary of the Navy Kimball's observation that 133 stewards had transferred out of the branch in a recent four-month period hardly promised any speedy change in the current percentages.[16-82] In fact there was evidence even at that late date that some staff members in the personnel bureau were working at cross-purposes to the Navy's expressed policy. Worried about the shortages of volunteers for the Steward's Branch, a group of officials had met in August 1951 to discuss ways of improving branch morale. Some suggested publicizing the branch to the black press and schools, showing that Negroes were in all branches of the Navy including the Steward's. They also studied a pamphlet called "The Advantages of Stewards Duty in the Navy" that gave nine reasons why a man should become a steward.[16-83]

[Footnote 16-82: Kimball was sworn in as Secretary of the Navy on 31 July 1951. Ltr, SecNav to Granger, 19 Nov 52, SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-83: BuPers, Plans and Policy Div, "Review of Suggestions and Recommendations to Improve Standards, Morale, and Attitudes Toward Stewards Branch of U.S. Navy" (ca. 2 Aug 51), BuPersRecs.]

Obviously the Navy had to set a steady course if it intended any lasting racial reform of the Steward's Branch, but its leaders seemed ambivalent toward the problem. Despite his earlier efforts to raise the status of stewards, Kimball, in a variation on an old postwar argument, tried to show that the exclusiveness of the Steward's (p. 421) Branch actually worked to the Negro's advantage. As he explained to Lester Granger in November 1952, any action to effect radical or wholesale changes in ratings "would not only tend to reduce the efficiency of the Navy, but also in many instances be to the disadvantage or detriment of the individuals concerned, particularly those in the senior Steward ratings."[16-84] Supporting this line of argument, the Chief of Naval Personnel announced the reenlistment figures for the Steward's Branch—over 80 percent during the Korean War period. These figures, Vice Admiral James L. Holloway, Jr., added, proved the branch to be the most popular in the Navy and offered "a rational measure of the state of the morale and job satisfaction."[16-85]

[Footnote 16-84: Ltr, SecNav for Granger, 19 Nov 52, SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-85: Ltrs, Chief, NavPers, to James C. Evans, OSD, 19 Jun 53, and Granger, 28 Jul 53, both in P 8 (4), BuPersRecs.]

These explanations still figured prominently in the Navy's 1961 defense of its racial statistics. Discussing the matter at a White House meeting of civil rights leaders, the Chief of Naval Personnel pointed out that all the black stewards could be replaced with Filipinos, but the Navy had refrained from such a course for several reasons. The branch still had the highest reenlistment rate. It provided jobs for those group IV men the Navy was obliged to accept but could never use in technical billets. Without the opportunity provided by the branch, moreover, "many of the rated black stewards would probably not achieve a petty officer rating at all."[16-86]

[Footnote 16-86: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Pers B, 23 Sep 61, Harris Wofford Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library. See also Memo, Chief, NavPers, for ASD/M, 29 Mar 61, sub: Stewards in U.S. Navy, Pers 8 (4), BuPersRecs; Memo, Special Asst to SecDef, Adam Yarmolinsky, for Frederic Dutton, Special Asst to President, 31 Oct 61, sub: Yarmolinsky Memo of October 26, Harris Wofford Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]

However well founded these arguments were, they did not satisfy the Navy's critics, who continued to press for the establishment of one recruitment standard and the assignment of men on the basis of interest and training rather than race. Lester Granger, for example, warned Secretary Kimball of the skepticism that persisted among sections of the black community: "As long as that branch [the Steward's Branch] is composed entirely of nonwhite personnel, the Navy is apt to be held by some to be violating its own stated policy."[16-87] To Kimball's successor, Robert B. Anderson,[16-88] Granger was even more blunt. The Steward's Branch, he declared, was "a constant irritant to the Negro public." He saw some logical reason for the continued concentration of Negroes in the branch but added "logic does not necessarily imply wisdom and I sincerely believe that it is unwise from the standpoint of efficiency and public relations to continue the Stewards Branch on its present basis."[16-89]

[Footnote 16-87: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 24 Oct 52, SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-88: Secretary Anderson, appointed by President Eisenhower, became Secretary of the Navy on 4 February 1953.]

[Footnote 16-89: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 24 Apr 53, SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]

Granger's suggestion for change was straightforward. He wanted the Bureau of Naval Personnel to find a way to introduce a sufficiently large number of whites into the branch to transform its racial composition. The task promised to be difficult if the charges leveled in the Detroit Free Press were accurate. In May 1953 the paper (p. 422) reported incidents of naval recruiting officers who, "by one ruse or another," were shunting young volunteers, sometimes without their knowledge, into the Steward's Branch.[16-90]

[Footnote 16-90: Detroit Free Press, May 16, 1953.]

Granger's suggestions were taken up by Secretary Anderson, who announced his intention of integrating the Steward's Branch and ordered the Chief of Naval Personnel to draw up plans to that end.[16-91] To devise some practical measures for handling the problem, the personnel bureau brought back to active duty three officers who had been important to the development of the Navy's 1946 integration policy. Their study produced three recommendations: abolish the segregation of the Steward's Branch from the general service and separate recruitment for its members; consider consolidating the branch with the predominantly white Commissary Branch; and change the steward's insignia.[16-92]

[Footnote 16-91: UP News Release, September 21, 1953, copy in CMH.]

[Footnote 16-92: Ltr, Cmdr Durwood W. Gilmore, USNR et al., to Chief, NavPers, Vice Adm J. L. Holloway, Jr., 31 Aug 53, P 8 (4), BuPersRecs.]

The group acknowledged that the Steward's Branch was a "sore spot with the Negroes, and is our weakest position from the standpoint of Public Relations," and two of their recommendations were obviously aimed at immediate improvement of public relations. Combining the messmen and commissary specialists would of course create an integrated branch, which Granger estimated would be only 20 percent black, and would probably provide additional opportunities for promotions, but in the end it could not mask the fact that a high proportion of black sailors were employed in food service and valet positions. Nor was it clear how changing the familiar crescent insignia, symbolic of the steward's duties, would change the image of a separate group that still performed the most menial duties. Long-term reform, everyone agreed, demanded the presence of a significant number of whites in the branch, and there was strong evidence that the general service contained more than a few group IV white sailors. The group's proposal to abolish separate recruiting would probably increase the number of blacks in the general service and eliminate the possibility that unsuspecting black recruits would be dragooned into a messman's career; both were substantial reforms but did not guarantee that whites would be attracted or assigned to the branch.

Admiral Holloway was concerned about this latter point, which dominated his discussions with the Secretary of the Navy on 1 September 1953. He had, he told Anderson, discussed with his recruiting specialists the possibility of recruiting white sailors for the branch, and while they all agreed that whites must not be induced to join by "improper procedures," such as preferential recruitment to escape the draft, they felt that whites could be attracted to steward duty by skillful recruiters, especially in areas of the country where industrial integration had already been accomplished. His bureau was considering the abolition of separate recruiting, but to make specific recommendations on matters involving the stewards he had created an ad hoc committee, under the Deputy Chief of Naval Personnel and composed of (p. 423) representatives of the other bureaus. When he received this committee's views, Holloway promised to take "definite administrative action."[16-93]

[Footnote 16-93: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, 1 Sep 53, sub: Mr. Granger's Visit and Related Matters, Pers, GenRecsNav.]



The three recommendations of the reservist experts did not survive intact the ad hoc committee's scrutiny. At the committee's suggestion, Holloway rejected the proposed merger of the commissary and steward functions on the grounds that such a move was unnecessary in an era of high reenlistment. He also decided that stewards would retain their branch insignia. He did approve, however, in a decision announced on 28 February 1954, putting an end to the separate recruitment of stewards with the exception of the contract enlistment of Filipino citizens. As Anderson assured Congressman Adam Clayton Powell of New York, only after recruit training and "with full knowledge of the opportunities in various categories of administrative specialties" would an enlistee be allowed to volunteer for messman's duty.[16-94]

[Footnote 16-94: Ltr, SecNav to Congressman Adam C. Powell, 19 Mar 54, SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]

Admiral Holloway promised a further search for ways to eliminate "points of friction" regarding the stewards, and naval officials discussed the problem with civil rights leaders and Defense Department officials on several occasions in the next years.[16-95] The (p. 424) Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, Adam Yarmolinsky, reported in 1961 that the Bureau of Naval Personnel "was not sanguine" about recruiting substantial numbers of white seamen for the Steward's Branch.[16-96] In answer, the Chief of Naval Personnel could only point out that no matter what their qualifications or ambitions all men assigned to the Steward's Branch were volunteers. As one commentator observed, white sailors were very rarely attracted to the messmen's field because of its reputation as a black specialty.[16-97]

[Footnote 16-95: See, for example, ASD/M, Thursday Reports, 7 Jan 54 and 12 Apr 56, copies in Dep ASD (Civil Rights) files; see also Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Special Asst to SecDef, 29 Mar 61, sub: Stewards in U.S. Navy, BuPersRecs.]

[Footnote 16-96: Memo, Adam Yarmolinsky for Fred Dutton, 31 Oct 61, sub: Yarmolinsky Memo of October 26, Harris Wofford Collection, J. F. Kennedy Library.]

[Footnote 16-97: Greenberg, Race Relations and American Law, p. 359.]

Nevertheless, by 1961 a definite pattern of change had emerged in the Steward's Branch. The end of separate recruitment drastically cut the number of Negroes entering the rating, while the renewed emphasis on transferring eligible chief stewards to other specialties somewhat reduced the number of Negroes already in the branch. Between 1956 and 1961, some 600 men out of the 1,800 tested transferred to other rating groups or fields. The substantial drop in black strength resulting from these changes combined with a corresponding rise in the number of contract messmen from the western Pacific region reduced for the first time in some thirty years Negroes in the Steward's Branch to a minority. Even for those remaining in the branch, life changed considerably. Separate berthing for stewards, always justified on the grounds of different duties and hours, was discontinued, and the amount of time spent by stewards at sea, with the varied military work that sea duty involved, was increased.[16-98]

[Footnote 16-98: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Special Asst to SecDef, 29 Mar 61, sub: Stewards in U.S. Navy, Pers 8 (4), GenRecsNav.]

If these changes caused by the increased enlistment of stewards from the western Pacific relieved the Steward's Branch of its reputation as the black man's navy, they also perpetuated the notion that servants' duties were for persons of dark complexion. The debate over a segregated branch that had engaged the civil rights leaders and the Navy since 1932 was over, but it had left a residue of ill will; some were bitter at what they considered the listless pace of reform, a pace which left the impression that the service had been forced to change against its will. To some extent the Navy in the 1950's failed to capitalize on its early achievements because it had for so long missed the point of the integrationists' arguments about the stewards. In the fifties the Navy expended considerable time and energy advertising for black officer candidates and recruits whom they guaranteed a genuinely equal chance to participate in all specialties, but these efforts were to some extent dismissed by critics as not germane. In 1950, for example, only 114 Negroes served in the glamorous submarine assignments and even fewer in the naval air service.[16-99] Yet this obvious underrepresentation caused no great outcry from the black community. What did cause bitterness and (p. 425) protest in an era of aroused racial pride was the fact that servants' duties fell almost exclusively on nonwhite Americans. That these duties were popular—the 80 percent reenlistment rate in the Steward's Branch continued throughout the decade and the transfer rate into the branch almost equaled the transfer out—was disregarded by many of the more articulate spokesmen, who considered the branch an insult to the black public. As Congressman Powell informed the Navy in 1953, "no one is interested in today's world in fighting communism with a frying pan or shoe polish."[16-100] Although statistics showed nearly half the black sailors employed in other than menial tasks, Powell voiced the mood of a large segment of the black community.

[Footnote 16-99: The Navy commissioned its first black pilot, Ens. Jesse L. Brown, in 1950. He was killed in action in Korea.]

[Footnote 16-100: Ltr, Powell to John Floberg, Asst SecNav for Air, 29 Jun 53, SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]



The Fahy Committee had acknowledged that manpower statistics alone were not a reliable index of equal opportunity. Convinced that Negroes were getting a full and equal chance to enlist in the general service and compete for officer commissions, the committee had approved the Navy's policy, trusting to time and equal opportunity to produce the desired result. Unfortunately for the Navy, there would be many critics both in and out of government in the 1960's who disagreed with the committee's trust in time and good intentions, for equal opportunity would remain very much a matter of numbers and percentages. In an (p. 426) era when a premium would be placed on the size of minority membership, the palm would go to the other services. "The blunt fact is," Granger reminded the Secretary of the Navy in 1954, "that as a general rule the most aspiring Negro youth are apt to have the least interest in a Navy career, chiefly because the Army and Air Force have up to now captured the spotlight."[16-101] A decade later the statement still held.

[Footnote 16-101: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 7 Jan 54, SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]



It was ironic that black youth remained aloof from the Navy in the 1950's when the way of life for Negroes on shipboard and at naval bases had definitely taken a turn for the better. The general service was completely integrated, although the black proportion, 4.9 percent in 1960, was still far less than might reasonably be expected, considering the black population.[16-102] Negroes were being trained in every job classification and attended all the Navy's technical schools. Although not yet represented in proportionate numbers in the top grades within every rating, Negroes served in all ratings in every branch, a fact favorably noticed in the metropolitan press.[16-103] Black officers, still shockingly out of proportion to black strength, were not much more so than in the other services and were serving more often with regular commissions in the line as well as on the staff. Their lack of representation in the upper ranks demonstrated that the climb to command was slow and arduous even when the discriminatory tactics of earlier times had been removed. In 1961 the Navy could finally announce that a black officer, Lt. Comdr. Samuel L. Gravely, Jr., had been ordered to command a destroyer escort, the USS Falgout.[16-104]

[Footnote 16-102: Memo, ASD/M for SA et al., 21 Nov 51, sub: Manuscript on the Negro in the Armed Forces, SecDef 291.2.]

[Footnote 16-103: See New York Herald Tribune, December 2, 1957, and New York Post, March 14, 1957.]

[Footnote 16-104: Gravely would eventually become the first black admiral in the U.S. Navy.]

But how were these changes being accepted among the rank and file? Comments from official sources and civil rights groups alike showed the leaven of racial tolerance at work throughout the service.[16-105] Reporter Lee Nichols, interviewing members of all the services in (p. 427) 1953,[16-106] found that whites expected blacks to prove themselves in their assignments while blacks were skeptical that equal opportunities for assignment were really open to them. Yet the Nichols interviews reveal a strain of pride and wonderment in the servicemen at the profound changes they had witnessed.

[Footnote 16-105: See, for example, Ltr, Exec Secy, President's Cmte on Equal Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, to CNO, 21 Jun 49, FC file; Memo, Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, BuPersRecs; Memo, ASD/M for SA et al., 21 Nov 51, sub: Manuscript on the Negro in the Armed Forces, SecDef 291.2; Ltr, Exec Secy, ACLU, to SecNav, 26 Nov 57, SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 16-106: Nichols's sampling, presented in the form of approximately a hundred interviews with men and women from all the services, was completely unscientific and informal and was undertaken for the preparation of his book, Breakthrough on the Color Front. Considering their timing, the interviews supply an interesting sidelight to the integration period. They are included in the Nichols Collection, CMH.]

In time integrated service became routine throughout the Navy, and instances of Negroes in command of integrated units increased. Bigots of both races inevitably remained, and the black community continued to resent the separate Steward's Branch, but the sincerity of the Navy's promise to integrate the service seemed no longer in doubt.



CHAPTER 17 (p. 428)

The Army Integrates

The integration of the United States Army was not accomplished by executive fiat or at the demand of the electorate. Nor was it the result of any particular victory of the civil rights advocates over the racists. It came about primarily because the definition of military efficiency spelled out by the Fahy Committee and demonstrated by troops in the heat of battle was finally accepted by Army leaders. The Army justified its policy changes in the name of efficiency, as indeed it had always, but this time efficiency led the service unmistakably toward integration.

Race and Efficiency: 1950

The Army's postwar planners based their low estimate of the black soldier's ability on the collective performance of the segregated black units in World War II and assumed that social unrest would result from mixing the races. The Army thus accepted an economically and administratively inefficient segregated force in peacetime to preserve what it considered to be a more dependable fighting machine for war. Insistence on the need for segregation in the name of military efficiency was also useful in rationalizing the prejudice and thoughtless adherence to traditional practice which obviously played a part in the Army's tenacious defense of its policy.

An entirely different conclusion, however, could be drawn from the same set of propositions. The Fahy Committee, for example, had clearly demonstrated the inefficiency of segregation, and more to the point, some senior Army officials, in particular Secretary Gray and Chief of Staff Collins, had come to question the conventional pattern. Explaining later why he favored integration ahead of many of his contemporaries, Collins drew on his World War II experience. The major black ground units in World War II, and to a lesser degree the 99th Pursuit Squadron, he declared, "did not work out." Nor, he concluded, did the smaller independent black units, even those commanded by black officers, who were burdened with problems of discipline and inefficiency. On the other hand, the integrated infantry platoons in Europe, with which Collins had personal experience, worked well. His observations had convinced him that it was "pointless" to support segregated black units, and while the matter had "nothing to do with sociology itself," he reasoned that if integration worked at the platoon level "why not on down the line?" The best plan, he believed, was to assign two Negroes to each squad in the Army, always assuming that the quota limiting the total number of black soldiers would be preserved.[17-1]

[Footnote 17-1: Interv, author with Collins.]

But the Army had promised the Fahy Committee in April 1950 it (p. 429) would abolish the quota. If carried out, such an agreement would complicate an orderly and controlled integration, and Collins's desire for change was clearly tempered by his concern for order and control. So long as peacetime manpower levels remained low and inductions through the draft limited, a program such as the one contemplated by the Chief of Staff was feasible, but any sudden wartime expansion would change all that. Fear of such a sudden change combined with the strong opposition to integration still shared by most Army officials to keep the staff from any initiative toward integration in the period immediately after the Fahy Committee adjourned.

Even before Gray and Collins completed their negotiations with the Fahy Committee, they were treated by the Chamberlin Board to yet another indication of the scope of Army staff opposition to integration. Gray had appointed a panel of senior officers under Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Chamberlin on 18 September 1949 in fulfillment of his promise to review the Army's racial policy periodically "in the light of changing conditions and experiences of this day and time."[17-2] After sitting four months and consulting more than sixty major Army officials and some 280 officers and men, the board produced a comprehensive summary of the Army's racial status based on test scores, enlistment rates, school figures, venereal disease rates, opinion surveys, and the like.

[Footnote 17-2: Memo, SA for Lt Gen Stephen J. Chamberlin, 30 Nov 49, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army, CSGPA 291.2. See also Dir, P&A, Summary Sheet to CofS, 2 Nov 49, sub: Board to Study the Utilization of Negro Manpower in Peacetime Army, CSGPA 291.2, and TAG to Chamberlin, 18 Nov 49, same sub, AG 334 (17 Nov 49). In addition to Chamberlin, the board included Maj. Gen. Withers A. Buress, commanding general of the Infantry Center; Maj. Gen. John M. Divine, commanding general of 9th Infantry Division, Fort Dix; and Col. M. VanVoorst, Personnel and Administration Division, as recorder without vote.]

The conclusions and recommendations of the Chamberlin Board represent perhaps the most careful and certainly the last apologia for a segregated Army.[17-3] The Army's postwar racial policy and related directives, the board assured Secretary Gray, were sound, were proving effective, and should be continued in force. It saw only one objection to segregated units: black units had an unduly high proportion of men with low classification test scores, a situation, it believed, that could be altered by raising the entrance level and improving training and leadership. At any rate, the board declared, this disadvantage was a minor one compared to the advantages of an organization that did not force Negroes into competition they were unprepared to face, did not provoke the resentment of white soldiers with the consequent risk of lowered combat effectiveness, and avoided placing black officers and noncommissioned officers in command of white troops, "a position which only the exceptional Negro could successfully fill."

[Footnote 17-3: Memo, Gen Chamberlin et al. for SA, 9 Feb 50, sub: Report of Board of Officers on Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army, AG 291.2 (6 Dec 49). A copy of the report and many of the related and supporting documents are in CMH.]

A decision on these matters, the board stated, had to be based on combat effectiveness, not the use of black manpower, and what constituted maximum effectiveness was best left to the judgment of war-tested combat leaders. These men, "almost without exception," vigorously opposed integration. Ignoring the Army's continuing (p. 430) negotiations with the Fahy Committee on the matter, the board called for retaining the 10 percent quota. To remove the quota without imposing a higher entrance standard, it argued, would result in an influx of Negroes "with a corresponding deterioration of combat efficiency." In short, ignoring the political and budgetary realities of the day, the board called on Secretary Gray to repudiate the findings of the Fahy Committee and the stipulations of Executive Order 9981 and to maintain a rigidly segregated service with a carefully regulated percentage of black members.

While Gray and Collins let the recommendations of the Chamberlin Board go unanswered, they did very little to change the Army's racial practices in the year following their agreements with the Fahy Committee. The periodic increase in the number of critical specialties for which Negroes were to be trained and freely assigned did not materialize. The number of trained black specialists increased, and some were assigned to white units, but this practice, while substantially different from the Gillem Board's idea of limiting such integration to overhead spaces, nevertheless produced similar results. Black specialists continued to be assigned to segregated units in the majority of cases, and in the minds of most commanders such assignment automatically limited black soldiers to certain jobs and schools no matter what their qualifications. Kenworthy's blunt conclusion in May 1951 was that the Army had not carried out the policy it had agreed to.[17-4] Certainly the Army staff had failed to develop a successful mechanism for gauging its commanders' compliance with its new policy. Despite the generally progressive sentiments of General Collins and Secretary Gray's agreement with the Fahy Committee, much of the Army clung to old sentiments and practices for the same old reasons.

[Footnote 17-4: Kenworthy, "The Case Against Army Segregation," p. 32.]

The catalyst for the sudden shift away from these sentiments and practices was the Korean War. Ranking among the nation's major conflicts, the war caused the Army to double in size in five months. By June 1951 it numbered 1.6 million, with 230,000 men serving in Korea in the Eighth Army. This vast expansion of manpower and combat commitment severely tested the Army's racial policy and immediately affected the racial balance of the quota-free Army. When the quota was lifted in April 1950, Negroes accounted for 10.2 percent of the total enlisted strength; by August this figure reached 11.4 percent. On 1 January 1951, Negroes comprised 11.7 percent of the Army, and in December 1952 the ratio was 13.2 percent. The cause of this striking rise in black strength was the large number of Negroes among wartime enlistments. The percentage of Negroes among those enlisting in the Army for the first time jumped from 8.2 in March 1950 to 25.2 in August, averaging 18 percent of all first-term enlistments during the first nine months of the war. Black reenlistment increased from 8.5 to 12.9 percent of the total reenlistment during the same period, and the percentage of black draftees in the total number of draftees supplied by Selective Service averaged 13 percent.[17-5]

[Footnote 17-5: Memo, G-1 for VCofS, sub: Negro Statistics, 16 Jun 50-6 Oct 50, CS 291.2 Negro; idem for G-3, 18 Apr 51, sub: Training Spaces for Negro Personnel, OPS 291.2; Memo, Chief, Mil Opers Management Branch, G-1, for G-1, 1 Feb 51, sub: Distribution of Negro Manpower in the Army, G-1 291.2, and Memo, Chief, Procurement and Distribution Div, G-1, for G-1, 20 Oct 53, same sub and file.]



The effect of these increases on a segregated army was tremendous. (p. 431) By April 1951, black units throughout the Army were reporting large overstrengths, some as much as 60 percent over their authorized organization tables. Overstrength was particularly evident in the combat arms because of the steady increase in the number of black soldiers with combat occupational specialties. Largely assigned to service units during World War II—only 22 percent, about half the white percentage, were in combat units—Negroes after the war were assigned in ever-increasing numbers to combat occupational specialties in keeping with the Gillem Board recommendation that they be trained in all branches of the service. By 1950 some 30 percent of all black soldiers were in combat units, and by June 1951 they were being assigned to the combat branches in approximately the same percentage as white soldiers, 41 percent.[17-6]

[Footnote 17-6: STM-30, Strength of the Army, Sep 50, Mar 51, and Jul 51.]

The Chief of Staff's concern with the Army's segregation policy went beyond immediate problems connected with the sudden manpower increases. Speaking to Maj. Gen. Lewis A. Craig, the Inspector General, in August 1950, Collins declared that the Army's social policy was unrealistic and did not represent the views of younger Americans whose attitudes were much more relaxed than those of the senior officers who (p. 432) established policy. Reporting Collins's comment to the staff, Craig went on to say the situation in Korea confirmed his own observations that mixing whites and blacks "in reasonable proportions" did not cause friction. Continued segregation, on the other hand, would force the Army to reinstate the old division-size black unit, with its ineffectiveness and frustrations, to answer the Negro's demand for equitable promotions and job opportunities. In short, both Collins and Craig agreed that the Army must eventually integrate, and they wanted the use of black servicemen restudied.[17-7]

[Footnote 17-7: IG Summary Sheet for CofS, 7 Dec 50, sub: Policy Regarding Negro Segregation, CS 291.2 (7 Dec 50).]

Their view was at considerable variance with the attitude displayed by most officers on the Army staff and in the major commands in December 1950. His rank notwithstanding, Collins still had to persuade these men of the validity of his views before they would accept the necessity for integration. Moreover, with his concept of orderly and controlled social change threatened by the rapid rise in the number of black soldiers, Collins himself would need to assess the effects of racial mixing in a fluid manpower situation. These necessities explain the plethora of staff papers, special boards, and field investigations pertaining to the employment of black troops that characterized the next six months, a period during which every effort was made to convince senior officers of the practical necessity for integration. The Chief of Staff's exchange of views with the Inspector General was not circulated within the staff until December 1950. At that time the personnel chief, Lt. Gen. Edward H. Brooks, recommended reconvening the Chamberlin Board to reexamine the Army's racial policy in light of the Korean experience. Brooks wanted to hold off the review until February 1951 by which time he thought adequate data would be available from the Far East Command. His recommendation was approved, and the matter was returned to the same group which had so firmly rejected integration less than a year before.[17-8]

[Footnote 17-8: G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 18 Dec 50, sub: Policy Regarding Negro Segregation, G-1 291.2.]

Even as the Chamberlin Board was reconvening, another voice was added to those calling for integration. Viewing the critical overstrength in black units, Assistant Secretary Earl D. Johnson recommended distributing excess black soldiers among other units of the Army.[17-9] The response to his proposal was yet another attempt to avoid the dictates of the draft law and black enlistments. Maj. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe, the G-1, advised against integrating the organized white units on the grounds that experience gained thus far on the social impact of integration was inadequate to predict its effect on "overall Army efficiency." Since the Army could not continue assigning more men to the overstrength black units, McAuliffe wanted to organize additional black units to accommodate the excess, and he asked Maj. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, the G-3, to activate the necessary units.[17-10]

[Footnote 17-9: Memo, ASA for SA, 3 Apr 51, sub: Present Overstrength in Segregated Units, G-1 291.2.]

[Footnote 17-10: Memo, G-1 for CofS, 26 May 51, sub: Present Overstrength in Segregated Units; DF, G-1 for G-3, 16 Apr 51, sub: Training Spaces for Negro Personnel; both in G-1 291.2.]

The chief of the Army Field Forces was even more direct. Integration was untimely, General Mark W. Clark advised, and the Army should instead reimpose the quota and push for speedy implementation of the Secretary of Defense's directive on the qualitative distribution (p. 433) of manpower.[17-11] Clark's plea for a new quota was one of many circulating in the staff since black enlistment percentages started to rise. But time had run out on the quota as a solution to overstrength black units. Although the Army staff continued to discuss the need for the quota, and senior officials considered asking the President for permission to reinstitute it, the Secretary of Defense's acceptance of parity of enlistment standards had robbed the Army of any excuse for special treatment on manpower allotments.[17-12]

[Footnote 17-11: Memo, CG, AFF, for G-1, 8 May 51, sub: Negro Strength in the Army, G-1 291.2.]

[Footnote 17-12: Memo, ASA for SA, 1 Jul 51, and Draft Memo, SA for President (not sent), both in SA 291.2.]



McAuliffe's recommendation for additional black units ran into serious opposition and was not approved. Taylor's staff, concerned with the practical problems of Army organization, objected to the proposal, citing budget limitations that precluded the creation of additional units and policy restrictions that forbade the creation of new units merely to accommodate black recruits. The operations staff recommended instead that black soldiers in excess of unit strength be shipped directly from training centers to overseas commands as replacements without regard for specific assignment. McAuliffe's personnel staff, in turn, warned that on the basis of a monthly average dispatch of 25,000 replacements to the Far East Command, the portion of Negroes in those shipments would be 15 percent for May 1951, 21 percent for June, 22 percent for July, and 16 percent for August. McAuliffe listed the familiar problems that would accrue to the Far East commanders from this decision, but he was unable to break the impasse in Washington. Thus the problem of excess black manpower was passed on to the overseas commanders for resolution.[17-13]

[Footnote 17-13: CMT 2 (Brig Gen D. A. Ogden, Chief, Orgn & Tng Div, G-3), 3 May 51, CMT 3 (Brig Gen W. E. Dunkelberg, Chief, Manpower Control Div, G-1), 21 May 51, and CMT 4 (Ogden), 24 May 51, to G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 18 Apr 51, sub: Negro Overstrengths, G-1 291.2.]

Commanders in Korea had already begun to apply the only practical remedy. Confronted with battle losses in white units and a growing surplus of black replacements arriving in Japan, the Eighth Army began assigning individual black soldiers just as it had been assigning individual Korean soldiers to understrength units.[17-14] In August 1950, for example, initial replacements for battle casualties in (p. 434) the 9th Infantry of the U.S. 2d Infantry Division included two black officers and eighty-nine black enlisted men. The commander assigned them to units in his severely undermanned all-white 1st and 2d Battalions. In September sixty more soldiers from the regiment's all-black 3d Battalion returned to the regiment for duty. They were first attached but later, with the agreement of the officers and men involved, assigned to units of the 1st and 2d Battalions. Subsequently, 225 black replacements were routinely assigned wherever needed throughout the regiment.[17-15] By December the 9th Infantry had absorbed Negroes to about their proportion of the national population, 11 percent. Of six black officers among them, one commanded Company C and another was temporarily in command of Company B when that unit fought in November on the Ch'ongch'on River line. S. L. A. Marshall later described Company B as "possibly the bravest" unit in that action.[17-16]

[Footnote 17-14: The Korean Augmentation to the United States Army, known as KATUSA, a program for integrating Korean soldiers in American units, was substantially different from the integration of black Americans in terms of official authorization and management; see CMH study by David C. Skaggs, "The Katusa Program," in CMH.]

[Footnote 17-15: Memo, CO, 9th Inf, for TIG, 29 Oct 50, attached to IG Summary Sheet for CofS, 7 Dec 50, sub: Policy Regarding Negro Segregation, CS 291.2 (7 Dec 50); FEC, "G-1 Command Report, 1 January-31 October 1950."]