[Footnote 3-71: Interv, Lee Nichols with Lester Granger, 1953, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]

Secretary Knox often referred to Adlai Stevenson as "my New Dealer," and, as the expression suggested, the Illinois lawyer was in an excellent position to influence the secretary's thinking.[3-72] Although not so forceful an advocate as Christopher Sargent, Stevenson lent his considerable intelligence and charm to the support of those in the department who sought equal opportunity for the Negro. He was an invaluable and influential ally for the Special Programs Unit. Stevenson knew Knox well and understood how to approach him. He was particularly effective in getting Negroes commissioned. In September 1943 he pointed out that, with the induction of 12,000 Negroes a month, the demand for black officers would be mounting in the black community and in the government as well. The Navy could not and should not, he warned, postpone much longer the creation of some black officers. Suspicion of discrimination was one reason the Navy was failing to get the best qualified Negroes, and Stevenson believed it wise to act quickly. He recommended that the Navy commission ten or twelve Negroes from among "top notch civilians just as we procure white officers" and a few from the ranks. The commissioning should be treated as a matter of course without any special publicity. The news, he added wryly, would get out soon enough.[3-73]

[Footnote 3-72: Kenneth S. Davis, The Politics of Honor: A Biography of Adlai E. Stevenson (New York: Putnam, 1957), p. 146; Ltr, A. E. Stevenson to Dennis D. Nelson, 10 Feb 48, Nelson Collection, San Diego, California.]

[Footnote 3-73: Memo, Stevenson for the Secretary [Knox], 29 Sep 43, 54-1-50, GenRecsNav.]

There were in fact three avenues to a Navy commission: the Naval Academy, the V-12 program, and direct commission from civilian life or the enlisted ranks. But Annapolis had no Negroes enrolled at the time Stevenson spoke, and only a dozen Negroes were enrolled in V-12 programs at integrated civilian colleges throughout the country.[3-74] The lack of black students in the V-12 program could be attributed in part to the belief of many black trainees that the program barred Negroes. Actually, it never had, and in December 1943 the bureau publicized this fact. It issued a circular letter emphasizing to all commanders that enlisted men were entitled to consideration for transfer to the V-12 program regardless of race.[3-75] Despite this effort (p. 081) it was soon apparent that the program would produce only a few black officers, and the Bureau of Naval Personnel, at the urging of its Special Programs Unit, agreed to follow Stevenson's suggestion and concentrate on the direct commissioning of Negroes. Unlike Stevenson the bureau preferred to obtain most of the men from the enlisted ranks, and only in the case of certain specially trained men did the Navy commission civilians.

[Footnote 3-74: The V-12 program was designed to prepare large numbers of educated men for the Navy's Reserve Midshipmen schools and to increase the war-depleted student bodies of many colleges. The Navy signed on eligible students as apprentice seamen and paid their academic expenses. Eventually the V-12 program produced some 80,000 officers for the wartime Navy. For an account of the experiences of a black recruit in the V-12 program, see Carl T. Rowan, "Those Navy Boys Changed My Life," Reader's Digest 72 (January 1958):55-58. Rowan, the celebrated columnist and onetime Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, was one of the first Negroes to complete the V-12 program. Another was Samuel Gravely.]

[Footnote 3-75: BuPers Cir Ltr 269-43, 15 Dec 43.]



The Bureau of Naval Personnel concluded that, since many units were substantially or wholly manned by Negroes, black officers could be used without undue difficulty, and when Secretary Knox, prodded by Stevenson, turned to the bureau, it recommended that the Navy (p. 082) commission twelve line and ten staff officers from a selected list of enlisted men.[3-76] Admiral King endorsed the bureau's recommendation and on 15 December 1943 Knox approved it, although he conditioned his approval by saying: "After you have commissioned the twenty-two officers you suggest, I think this matter should again be reviewed before any additional colored officers are commissioned."[3-77]

[Footnote 3-76: Memo, SecNav for Chief, NavPers, 20 Nov 43, 54-1-50; Memo, Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, 2 Dec 43, sub: Negro Officers. Both in GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-77: Memo, SecNav for Rear Adm Jacobs, 15 Dec 43, quoted in "BuPers Hist," p. 33.]

On 1 January 1944 the first sixteen black officer candidates, selected from among qualified enlisted applicants, entered Great Lakes for segregated training. All sixteen survived the course, but only twelve were commissioned. In the last week of the course, three candidates were returned to the ranks, not because they had failed but because the Bureau of Naval Personnel had suddenly decided to limit the number of black officers in this first group to twelve. The twelve entered the U.S. Naval Reserve as line officers on 17 March. A thirteenth man, the only candidate who lacked a college degree, was made a warrant officer because of his outstanding work in the course.

Two of the twelve new ensigns were assigned to the faculty at Hampton training school, four others to yard and harbor craft duty, and the rest to training duty at Great Lakes. All carried the label "Deck Officers Limited—only," a designation usually reserved for officers whose physical or educational deficiencies kept them from performing all the duties of a line officer. The Bureau of Naval Personnel never explained why the men were placed in this category, but it was clear that none of them lacked the physical requirements of a line officer and all had had business or professional careers in civil life.

Operating duplicate training facilities for officer candidates was costly, and the bureau decided shortly after the first group of black candidates was trained that future candidates of both races would be trained together. By early summer ten more Negroes, this time civilians with special professional qualifications, had been trained with whites and were commissioned as staff officers in the Medical, Dental, Chaplain, Civil Engineer, and Supply Corps. These twenty-two men were the first of some sixty Negroes to be commissioned during the war.

Since only a handful of the Negroes in the Navy were officers, the preponderance of the race problems concerned relations between black enlisted men and their white officers. The problem of selecting the proper officers to command black sailors was a formidable one never satisfactorily solved during the war. As in the Army, most of the white officers routinely selected for such assignments were southerners, chosen by the Bureau of Naval Personnel for their assumed "understanding" of Negroes rather than for their general competency. The Special Programs Unit tried to work with these officers, assembling them for conferences to discuss the best techniques and procedures for dealing with groups of black subordinates. Members of the unit sought to disabuse the officers of preconceived biases, constantly reminding them that "our prejudices must be subordinated to our traditional (p. 083) unfailing obedience to orders."[3-78] Although there was ample proof that many Negroes actively resented the paternalism exhibited by many of even the best of these officers, this fact was slow to filter through the naval establishment. It was not until January 1944 that an officer who had compiled an enviable record in training Seabee units described how his organization had come to see the light:

We in the Seabees no longer follow the precept that southern officers exclusively should be selected for colored battalions. A man may be from the north, south, east or west. If his attitude is to do the best possible job he knows how, regardless of what the color of his personnel is, that is the man we want as an officer for our colored Seabees. We have learned to steer clear of the "I'm from the South—I know how to handle 'em variety." It follows with reference to white personnel, that deeply accented southern whites are not generally suited for Negro battalions.[3-79]

[Footnote 3-78: Quoted in Record of "Conference With Regard to Negro Personnel," held at Hq, Fifth Naval District, 26 Oct 43, Incl to Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to All Sea Frontier Cmds et al., 5 Jan 44, sub: Negro Personnel—Confidential Report of Conference With Regard to the Handling of, Pers 1013, BuPers Recs. The grotesque racial attitudes of some commanders, as well as the thoughtful questions and difficult experiences of others, were fully aired at this conference.]

[Footnote 3-79: Ibid.]

Further complicating the task of selecting suitable officers for black units was the fact that when the Bureau of Naval Personnel asked unit commanders to recommend men for such duty many commanders used the occasion to rid themselves of their least desirable officers. The Special Programs Unit then tried to develop its own source of officers for black units. It discovered a fine reservoir of talent among the white noncommissioned officers who ran the physical training and drill courses at Great Lakes. These were excellent instructors, mature and experienced in dealing with people. In January 1944 arrangements were made to commission them and to assign them to black units.

Improvement in the quality of officers in black units was especially important because the attitude of local commanders was directly related to the degree of segregation in living quarters and recreational facilities, and such segregation was the most common source of racial tension. Although the Navy's practice of segregating units clearly invited separate living and recreational facilities, the rules were unwritten, and local commanders had been left to decide the extent to which segregation was necessary. Thus practices varied greatly and policy depended ultimately on the local commanders. Rather than attack racial practices at particular bases, the unit decided to concentrate on the officers. It explained to these leaders the Navy's policy of equal treatment and opportunity, a concept basically incompatible with many of their practices.

This conclusion was embodied in a pamphlet entitled Guide to the Command of Negro Naval Personnel and published by the Bureau of Naval Personnel in February 1944.[3-80] The Special Programs Unit had to overcome much opposition within the bureau to get the pamphlet published. Some thought the subject of racial tension was best ignored; others objected to the "sociological" content of the work, considering this approach outside the Navy's province. The unit (p. 084) argued that racial tension in the Navy was a serious problem that could not be ignored, and since human relations affected the Navy's mission the Navy should deal with social matters objectively and frankly.[3-81]

[Footnote 3-80: NavPers 15092, 12 Feb 44.]

[Footnote 3-81: "BuPers Hist," pt. II, pp. 2-3.]

Scholarly and objective, the pamphlet was an important document in the history of race relations in the Navy. In language similar to that used in the War Department's pamphlet on race, the Bureau of Naval Personnel stated officially for the first time that discrimination flowed of necessity out of the doctrine of segregation:

The idea of compulsory racial segregation is disliked by almost all Negroes, and literally hated by many. This antagonism is in part a result of the fact that as a principle it embodies a doctrine of racial inferiority. It is also a result of the lesson taught the Negro by experience that in spite of the legal formula of "separate but equal" facilities, the facilities open to him under segregation are in fact usually inferior as to location or quality to those available to others.[3-82]

[Footnote 3-82: NavPers 15092, 12 Feb 44, p. 10.]

The guide also foreshadowed the end of the old order of things: "The Navy accepts no theories of racial differences in inborn ability, but expects that every man wearing its uniform be trained and used in accordance with his maximum individual capacity determined on the basis of individual performance."[3-83]

[Footnote 3-83: Ibid., p. 1.]

Forrestal Takes the Helm

The Navy got a leader sympathetic to the proposition of equal treatment and opportunity for Negroes, and possessed of the bureaucratic skills to achieve reforms, when President Roosevelt appointed Under Secretary James Forrestal to replace Frank Knox, who died suddenly on 28 April 1944. During the next five years Forrestal, a brilliant, complex product of Wall Street, would assume more and more responsibility for directing the integration effort in the defense establishment. Although no racial crusader, Forrestal had been for many years a member of the National Urban League, itself a pillar of the civil rights establishment. He saw the problem of employing Negroes as one of efficiency and simple fair play, and as the months went by he assumed an active role in experimenting with changes in the Navy's policy.[3-84]

[Footnote 3-84: See Columbia University Oral Hist Interv with Granger; USAF Oral History Program, Interview with James C. Evans, 24 Apr 73.]

His first experiment was with sea duty for Negroes. After the experience of the Mason and the other segregated ships which actually proved very little, sentiment for a partial integration of the fleet continued to grow in the Bureau of Naval Personnel. As early as April 1943, officers in the Planning and Control Activity recommended that Negroes be included in small numbers in the crews of the larger combat ships. Admiral Jacobs, however, was convinced that "you couldn't dump 200 colored boys on a crew in battle,"[3-85] so this and similar proposals later in the year never survived passage through the bureau.

[Footnote 3-85: Interv, Lee Nichols with Vice Adm Randall Jacobs, 29 Mar 53, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]

Forrestal accepted Jacob's argument that as long as the war (p. 085) continued any move toward integrating the fighting ships was impractical. At the same time, he agreed with the Special Programs Unit that large concentrations of Negroes in shore duties lowered efficiency and morale. Forrestal compromised by ordering the bureau to prepare as an experiment a plan for the integration of some fleet auxiliary ships. On 20 May 1944 he outlined the problem for the President:

"From a morale standpoint, the Negroes resent the fact that they are not assigned to general service billets at sea, and white personnel resent the fact that Negroes have been given less hazardous assignments." He explained that at first Negroes would be used only on the large auxiliaries, and their number would be limited to not more than 10 percent of the ship's complement. If this step proved workable, he planned to use Negroes in small numbers on other types of ships "as necessity indicates." The White House answered: "OK, FDR."[3-86]

[Footnote 3-86: Memo, SecNav for President, 20 May 44, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

Secretary Forrestal also won the support of the Chief of Naval Operations for the move, but Admiral King still considered integration in the fleet experimental and was determined to keep strict control until the results were known. On 9 August 1944 King informed the commanding officers of twenty-five large fleet auxiliaries that Negroes would be assigned to them in the near future. As Forrestal had suggested, King set the maximum number of Negroes at 10 percent of the ship's general service. Of this number, 15 percent would be third-class petty officers from shore activities, selected as far as possible from volunteers and, in any case, from those who had served the longest periods of shore duty. Of the remainder, 43 percent would be from Class A schools and 42 percent from recruit training. The basic 10 percent figure proved to be a theoretical maximum; no ship received that many Negroes.

Admiral King insisted that equal treatment in matters of training, promotion, and duty assignments must be accorded all hands, but he left the matter of berthing to the commanding officers, noting that experience had proved that in the shore establishment, when the percentage of blacks to whites was small, the two groups could be successfully mingled in the same compartments. He also pointed out that a thorough indoctrination of white sailors before the arrival of the Negroes had been useful in preventing racial friction ashore.[3-87]

[Footnote 3-87: Ltr, CNO to CO, USS Antaeus et al., 9 Aug 44, sub: Negro Enlisted Personnel—Assignment of to Ships of the Fleet, P16-3/MM, OpNavArchives.]

King asked all commanders concerned in the experiment to report their experiences.[3-88] Their judgment: integration in the auxiliary fleet worked. As one typical report related after several months of integrated duty:

The crew was carefully indoctrinated in the fact that Negro personnel should not be subjected to discrimination of any sort and should be treated in the same manner as other members of the crew.

The Negro personnel when they came aboard were berthed indiscriminately throughout the crew's compartments in the same manner as if they had been white. It is felt that the assimilation of the general service Negro personnel aboard this ship has been remarkably successful. To the present date (p. 086) there has been no report of any difficulty which could be laid to their color. It is felt that this is due in part, at least, to the high calibre of Negroes assigned to this ship.[3-89]

[Footnote 3-88: Idem to Cmdr, Antaeus et al., 9 Jan 45, P16-3, OpNavArchives.]

[Footnote 3-89: Ltr, CO, USS Antaeus, to Chief, NavPers, 16 Jan 45, sub: Negro Enlisted Personnel—Assignment of to Ships of the Fleet, Ag67/P16-3/MM; see also Memo, Cmdr D. Armstrong for ComSerForPac, 29 Dec 44, sub: Negro Enlisted Personnel (General Service Ratings) Assignment of to Ships of the Fleet; Ltr, ComSerForPac to Chief, NavPers, 2 Jan 45, with CINCPac&POA end thereto, same sub; Ltrs to Chief, NavPers, from CO, USS Laramie, 17 Jan 45, USS Mattole, 19 Jan 45, with ComSerForLant end, and USS Ariel, 1 Feb 45. All Incl to Memo, Chief, NavPers, for CINCUSFLEET, 6 Mar 45, sub: Negro Personnel—Expanded Use of, Pers 2119 FB. All in OpNavArchives.]

The comments of his commanders convinced King that the auxiliary vessels in the fleet could be integrated without incident. He approved a plan submitted by the Chief of Naval Personnel on 6 March 1945 for the gradual assignment of Negroes to all auxiliary vessels, again in numbers not to exceed 10 percent of the general service billets in any ship's complement.[3-90] A month later Negroes were being so assigned in an administratively routine manner.[3-91] The Bureau of Naval Personnel then began assigning black officers to sea duty on the integrated vessels. The first one went to the Mason in March, and in succeeding months others were sent in a routine manner to auxiliary vessels throughout the fleet.[3-92] These assignments were not always carried out according to the bureau's formula. The commander of the USS Chemung, for example, told a young black ensign:

I'm a Navy Man, and we're in a war. To me, it's that stripe that counts—and the training and leadership that it is supposed to symbolize. That's why I never called a meeting of the crew to prepare them, to explain their obligation to respect you, or anything like that. I didn't want anyone to think you were different from any other officer coming aboard.[3-93]

[Footnote 3-90: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for CINCUSFLEET, 6 Mar 45, sub: Negro Personnel—Expanded Use of, with 1st Ind, from Fleet Adm, USN, for Vice CNO, 28 Mar 45, same sub, FFI/P16-3/MM, OpNavArchives.]

[Footnote 3-91: BuPers Cir Ltr 105-45, 13 Apr 45, sub: Negro General-Service Personnel, Assignment of to Auxiliary Vessels of the Fleet.]

[Footnote 3-92: Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to CO, USS Mason, 16 Mar 45, sub: Negro Officer—Assignment of, Pers 2119-FB; see also idem to CO, USS Kaweah, 16 Jul 45, sub: Negro Officer—Assignment of to Auxiliary Vessel of the Fleet, AO 15/P16-1; idem to CO, USS Laramie, 21 Aug 45, same sub, AO 16/P16-1. All in OpNavArchives.]

[Footnote 3-93: Quoted in Rowan, "Those Navy Boys Changed My Life." pp 57-58.]

Admitting Negroes to the WAVES was another matter considered by the new secretary in his first days in office. In fact, the subject had been under discussion in the Navy Department for some two years. Soon after the organization of the women's auxiliary, its director, Capt. Mildred H. McAfee, had recommended that Negroes be accepted, arguing that their recruitment would help to temper the widespread criticism of the Navy's restrictive racial policy. But the traditionalists in the Bureau of Naval Personnel had opposed the move on the grounds that WAVES were organized to replace men, and since there were more than enough black sailors to fill all billets open to Negroes there was no need to recruit black women.

Actually, both arguments served to mask other motives, as did Knox's rejection of recruitment on the grounds that integrating women into the Navy was difficult enough without taking on the race (p. 087) problem.[3-94] In April 1943 Knox "tentatively" approved the "tentative" outline of a bureau plan for the induction of up to 5,000 black WAVES, but nothing came of it.[3-95] Given the secretary's frequent protestation that the subject was under constant review,[3-96] and his statement to Captain McAfee that black WAVES would be enlisted "over his dead body,"[3-97] the tentative outline and approval seems to have been an attempt to defer the decision indefinitely.

[Footnote 3-94: Ltr, Mildred M. Horton to author, 14 Mar 75, CMH files.]

[Footnote 3-95: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, 27 Apr 43, Pers 17MD, BuPersRecs, Memo, SecNav for Adm Jacobs, 29 Apr 43, 54-1-43, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-96: See, for example, Ltr, SecNav to Algernon D. Black, City-Wide Citizen's Cmte on Harlem, 23 Apr 43, 54-1-43, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-97: Quoted in Ltr, Horton to author, 14 Mar 75.]

Secretary Knox's delay merely attracted more attention to the problem and enabled the protestors to enlist powerful allies. At the time of his death, Knox was under siege by a delegation from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) demanding a reassessment of the Navy's policy on the women's reserve.[3-98] His successor turned for advice to Captain McAfee and to the Bureau of Naval Personnel where, despite Knox's "positive and direct orders" against recruiting black WAVES, the Special Programs Unit had continued to study the problem.[3-99] Convinced that the step was just and inevitable, the unit also agreed that the WAVES should be integrated. Forrestal approved, and on 28 July 1944 he recommended to the President that Negroes be trained in the WAVES on an integrated basis and assigned "wherever needed within the continental limits of the United States, preferably to stations where there are already Negro men." He concluded by reiterating a Special Programs Unit warning: "I consider it advisable to start obtaining Negro WAVES before we are forced to take them."[3-100]

[Footnote 3-98: Memo, Ralph Bard for Forrestal, 4 May 44, sub: Navy Policy on Recruitment of Negro Females as WAVES; Ltr, Nathan Cowan, CIO, to Forrestal, 20 May 44, 54-1-1. Both in GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-99: Memo, J. V. F. (Forrestal) for Adm Denfeld (ca. 7 Jun 44); Memo, Capt Mildred McAfee for Adm Denfeld, 7 Jun 44; both in 54-1-4, GenRecsNav. See also Memo, Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, 11 May 44, sub: Navy Policy on Recruitment of Negro Females as WAVES, Pers 17, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-100: Memo, Forrestal for President, 28 Jul 44, 54-1-4, GenRecsNav.]

To avoid the shoals of racial controversy in the midst of an election year, Secretary Forrestal did trim his recommendations to the extent that he retained the doctrine of separate but equal living quarters and mess facilities for the black WAVES. Despite this offer of compromise, President Roosevelt directed Forrestal to withhold action on the proposal.[3-101] Here the matter would probably have stood until after the election but for Thomas E. Dewey's charge in a Chicago speech during the presidential campaign that the White House was discriminating against black women. The President quickly instructed the Navy to admit Negroes into the WAVES.[3-102]

[Footnote 3-101: Memo, Lt Cmdr John Tyree (White House aide) for Forrestal, 9 Aug 44, 54-1-4, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-102: Navy Dept Press Release, 19 Oct 44.]

The first two black WAVE officers graduated from training at Smith College on 21 December, and the enlistment of black women began a week later. The program turned out to be more racially progressive than initially outlined by Forrestal. He had explained to the President that the women would be quartered separately, a provision (p. 088) interpreted in the Bureau of Naval Personnel to mean that black recruits would be organized into separate companies. Since a recruit company numbered 250 women, and since it quickly became apparent that such a large group of black volunteers would not soon be forthcoming, some of the bureau staff decided that the Navy would continue to bar black women. In this they reckoned without Captain McAfee who insisted on a personal ruling by Forrestal. She warned the secretary that his order was necessary because the concept "was so strange to Navy practice."[3-103] He agreed with her that the Negroes would be integrated along with the rest of the incoming recruits, and the Bureau of Naval Personnel subsequently ordered that the WAVES be assimilated without making either special or separate arrangements.[3-104]

[Footnote 3-103: Oral History Interview, Mildred McAfee Horton, 25 Aug 69, Center of Naval History.]

[Footnote 3-104: Ltr, Asst Chief, NavPers, to CO, NavTraScol (WR), Bronx, N.Y., 8 Dec 44, sub: Colored WAVE Recruits, Pers-107, BuPersRecs.]



By July 1945 the Navy had trained seventy-two black WAVES at Hunter College Naval Training School in a fully integrated and routine manner. Although black WAVES were restricted somewhat in specialty assignments and a certain amount of separate quartering within integrated barracks prevailed at some duty stations, the Special Programs Unit came to consider the WAVE program, which established a forceful precedent for the integration of male recruit training, its most important wartime breakthrough, crediting Captain McAfee and her unbending insistence on equal treatment for the achievement.

Forrestal won the day in these early experiments, but he was a skillful administrator and knew that there was little hope for any fundamental social change in the naval service without the active cooperation of the Navy's high-ranking officers. His meeting with Admiral King on the subject of integration in the summer of 1944 has been reported by several people. Lester Granger, who later became Forrestal's special representative on racial matters, recalled:

He [Forrestal] said he spoke to Admiral King, who was then chief of staff, and said, "Admiral King, I'm not satisfied with the situation here—I don't think that our Navy Negro personnel are getting a square break. I want to do something about it, but I can't do anything about it unless the officers are behind me. I want your help. What do you say?"

He said that Admiral King sat for a moment, and looked out (p. 089) the window and then said reflectively, "You know, we say that we are a democracy and a democracy ought to have a democratic Navy. I don't think you can do it, but if you want to try, I'm behind you all the way." And he told me, "And Admiral King was behind me, all the way, not only he but all of the Bureau of Personnel, BuPers. They've been bricks."[3-105]

[Footnote 3-105: Quoted in the Columbia University Oral History Interview with Granger. Granger's incorrect reference to Admiral King as "chief of staff" is interesting because it illustrates the continuing evolution of that office during World War II.]



Admiral Jacobs, the Chief of Naval Personnel, also pledged his support.[3-106]

[Footnote 3-106: James V. Forrestal, "Remarks for Dinner Meeting at National Urban League," 12 Feb 58, Box 31, Misc file, Forrestal Papers, Princeton Library. Forrestal's truncated version of the King meeting agreed substantially with Granger's lengthier remembrance.]

As news of the King-Forrestal conversation filtered through the department, many of the programs long suggested by the Special Programs Unit and heretofore treated with indifference or disapproval suddenly received respectful attention.[3-107] With the high-ranking officers cooperating, the Navy under Forrestal began to attack some of the more obvious forms of discrimination and causes of racial tension. Admiral King led the attack, personally directing in August 1944 that all elements give close attention to the proper selection of officers to command black sailors. As he put it: "Certain officers will be temperamentally better suited for such commands than others."[3-108] The qualifications of these officers were to be kept under constant (p. 090) review. In December he singled out the commands in the Pacific area, which had a heavy concentration of all-black base companies, calling for a reform in their employment and advancement of Negroes.[3-109]

[Footnote 3-107: Intervs, Lee Nichols with Adm Louis E. Denfeld (Deputy Chief of Naval Personnel, later CNO) and with Cmdr Charles Dillon (formerly of BuPers Special Unit), 1953; both in Nichols Collection, CMH.]

[Footnote 3-108: ALNAV, 7 Aug 44, quoted in Nelson, "Integration of the Negro," p. 46.]

[Footnote 3-109: Dir, CNO, to Forward Areas, Dec 44, quoted in Nelson's "Integration of the Negro," p. 51.]



The Bureau of Naval Personnel also stepped up the tempo of its reforms. In March 1944 it had already made black cooks and bakers eligible for duty in all commissary branches of the Navy.[3-110] In June it got Forrestal's approval for putting all rated cooks and stewards in chief petty officer uniforms.[3-111] (While providing finally for the proper uniforming of the chief cooks and stewards, this reform set their subordinates, the rated cooks and stewards, even further apart from their counterparts in the general service who of course continued to wear the familiar bell bottoms.) The bureau also began to attack the concentration of Negroes in ammunition depots and base companies. On 21 February 1945 it ordered that all naval magazines and ammunition depots in the United States and, wherever practical, overseas limit their black seamen to 30 percent of the total employed.[3-112] It (p. 091) also organized twenty logistic support companies to replace the formless base companies sent to the Pacific in the early months of the recruitment program. Organized to perform supply functions, each company consisted of 250 enlisted men and five officers, with a flexible range of petty officer billets.

[Footnote 3-110: BuPers Cir Ltr 72-44, 13 Mar 44, sub: Negro Personnel of the Commissary Branch, Assignment to Duty of.]

[Footnote 3-111: Idem, 182-44, 29 Jun 44, "Uniform for Chief Cooks and Chief Stewards and Cooks and Stewards."]

[Footnote 3-112: Idem, 45-18, 21 Feb 45, and 45-46, 31 May 45, sub: Negro Enlisted Personnel—Limitation on Assignment of to Naval Ammunition Depots and Naval Magazines.]

In the reform atmosphere slowly permeating the Bureau of Naval Personnel, the Special Programs Unit found it relatively easy to end segregation in the specialist training program.[3-113] From the first, the number of Negroes eligible for specialist training had been too small to make costly duplication of equipment and services practical. In 1943, for example, the black aviation metalsmith school at Great Lakes had an average enrollment of eight students. The school was quietly closed and its students integrated with white students. Thus, when the Mason's complement was assembled in early 1944, Negroes were put into the destroyer school at Norfolk side by side with whites, and the black and white petty officers were quartered together. As a natural consequence of the decision to place Negroes in the auxiliary fleet, the Bureau of Naval Personnel opened training in seagoing rates to Negroes on an integrated basis. Citing the practicality of the move, the bureau closed the last of the black schools in June 1945.[3-114]

[Footnote 3-113: There is some indication that integration was already going on unofficially in some specialist schools; see Ltr, Dr. M. A. F. Ritchie to James C. Evans, 13 Aug 65, CMH files.]

[Footnote 3-114: BuPers Cir Ltr 194-44, sub: Advanced Schools, Nondiscrimination in Selection of Personnel for Training in; Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to CO, AdComd, NavTraCen, 12 Jun 45, sub: Selection of Negro Personnel for Instruction in Class "A" Schools, 54-1-21, GenRecsNav.]

Despite these reforms, the months following Forrestal's talk with King saw many important recommendations of the Special Programs Unit wandering uncertainly through the bureaucratic desert. For example, a proposal to make the logistic support companies interracial, or at least to create comparable white companies to remove the stigma of segregated manual labor, failed to survive the objections of the enlisted personnel section. The Bureau of Naval Personnel rejected a suggestion that Negroes be assigned to repair units on board ships and to LST's, LCI's, and LCT's during the expansion of the amphibious program. On 30 August 1944 Admiral King rejected a bureau recommendation that the crews of net tenders and mine ships be integrated. He reasoned that these vessels were being kept in readiness for overseas assignment and required "the highest degree of experienced seamanship and precision work" by the crews. He also cited the crowded living quarters and less experienced officers as further reasons for banning Negroes.[3-115]

[Footnote 3-115: Memo, CNO for Chief, NavPers, 30 Aug 44, sub: Negro Personnel—Assignment to ANs and YMs, P13-/MM, BuPersRecs.]

There were other examples of backsliding in the Navy's racial practices. Use of Negroes in general service had created a shortage of messmen, and in August 1944 the Bureau of Naval Personnel authorized commanders to recruit among black seamen for men to transfer to the Steward's Branch. The bureau suggested as a talking point the fact (p. 092) that stewards enjoyed more rapid advancement, shorter hours, and easier work than men in the general service.[3-116] And, illustrating that a move toward integration was sometimes followed by a step backward, a bureau representative reported in July 1945 that whereas a few black trainees at the Bainbridge Naval Training Center had been integrated in the past, many now arriving were segregated in all-black companies.[3-117]

[Footnote 3-116: BuPers Cir Ltr 227-44, 12 Aug 44, sub: Steward's Branch, Procurement of From General-Service Negroes.]

[Footnote 3-117: Memo, Lt William H. Robertson, Jr., for Rear Adm William M. Fechteler, Asst Chief, NavPers, 20 Jul 45, sub: Conditions Existing at NTC, Bainbridge, Md., Regarding Negro Personnel, Reported on by Lt Wm. H. Robertson, Jr., Pers-2119-FB, BuPersRecs.]

There were reasons for the inconsistent stance in Washington. The Special Programs Unit had for some time been convinced that only full integration would eliminate discrimination and dissolve racial tensions in the Navy, and it had understood Forrestal's desire "to do something" for the Negro to mean just that. Some senior commanders and their colleagues in the Bureau of Naval Personnel, on the other hand, while accepting the need for reform and willing to accept some racial mixing, nevertheless rejected any substantial change in the policy of restricted employment of Negroes on the grounds that it might disrupt the wartime fleet. Both sides could argue with assurance since Forrestal and King had not made their positions completely clear. Whatever the secretary's ultimate intention, the reforms carried out in 1944 were too little and too late. Perhaps nothing would have been sufficient, for the racial incidents visited upon the Navy during the last year of the war were symptomatic of the overwhelming dissatisfaction Negroes felt with their lot in the armed forces. There had been incidents during the Knox period, but investigation had failed to isolate any "single, simple cause," and troubles continued to occur during 1944.[3-118]

[Footnote 3-118: "BuPers Hist," p. 75.]

Three of these incidents gained national prominence.[3-119] The first was a mutiny at Mare Island, California, after an explosion destroyed two ammunition ships loading at nearby Port Chicago on 17 July 1944. The explosion killed over 300 persons, including 250 black seamen who had toiled in large, segregated labor battalions. The survivors refused to return to work, and fifty of them were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to prison. The incident became a cause celebre. Finally, through the intervention of the black press and black organizations and the efforts of Thurgood Marshall and Lester Granger, the convictions were set aside and the men restored to active duty.

[Footnote 3-119: Nelson, "Integration of the Negro," ch. VIII.]

A riot on Guam in December 1944 was the climax of months of friction between black seamen and white marines. A series of shootings in and around the town of Agana on Christmas Eve left a black and a white marine dead. Believing one of the killed a member of their group, black sailors from the Naval Supply Depot drove into town to confront the outnumbered military police. No violence ensued, but the next day two truckloads of armed Negroes went to the white Marine camp. A riot followed and forty-three Negroes were arrested, charged with rioting and theft of the trucks, and sentenced to up to four years in prison. The authorities also recommended that several of the white marines (p. 093) involved be court-martialed. These men too were convicted of various offenses and sentenced.[3-120] Walter White went to Guam to investigate the matter and appeared as a principal witness before the Marine Court of Inquiry. There he pieced together for officials the long history of discrimination suffered by men of the base company. This situation, combined with poor leadership in the unit, he believed, caused the trouble. His efforts and those of other civil rights advocates led to the release of the black sailors in early 1946.[3-121]

[Footnote 3-120: Henry I. Shaw, Jr., and Ralph W. Donnelly, Blacks in the Marine Corps (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1975), pp. 44-45.]

[Footnote 3-121: White's testimony before the Court of Inquiry was attached to a report by Maj Gen Henry L. Larsen to CMC (ca. 22 Jan 45), Ser. No. 04275, copy in CMH.]



A hunger strike developed as a protest against discrimination in a Seabee battalion at Port Hueneme, California, in March 1945. There was no violence. The thousand strikers continued to work but refused to eat for two days. The resulting publicity forced the Navy to investigate the charges; as a result, the commanding officer, the focus of the grievance, was replaced and the outfit sent overseas.

The riots, mutinies, and other incidents increased the pressure for further modifications of policy. Some senior officers became convinced that the only way to avoid mass rebellion was to avert the (p. 094) possibility of collective action, and collective action was less likely if Negroes were dispersed among whites. As Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet and an eloquent proponent of the theory that integration was a practical means of avoiding trouble, explained to the captain of an attack cargo ship who had just received a group of black crewmen and was segregating their sleeping quarters: "If you put all the Negroes together they'll have a chance to share grievances and to plot among themselves, and this will damage discipline and morale. If they are distributed among other members of the crew, there will be less chance of trouble. And when we say we want integration, we mean integration."[3-122] Thus integration grew out of both idealism and realism.

[Footnote 3-122: As quoted in White, A Man Called White, p. 273. For a variation on this theme, see Interv, Nichols with Hillenkoetter.]

If racial incidents convinced the admirals that further reforms were necessary, they also seem to have strengthened Forrestal's resolve to introduce a still greater change in his department's policy. For months he had listened to the arguments of senior officials and naval experts that integration of the fleet, though desirable, was impossible during the war. Yet Forrestal had seen integration work on the small patrol craft, on fleet auxiliaries, and in the WAVES. In fact, integration was working smoothly wherever it had been tried. Although hard to substantiate, the evidence suggests that it was in the weeks after the Guam incident that the secretary and Admiral King agreed on a policy of total integration in the general service. The change would be gradual, but the progress would be evident and the end assured—Negroes were going to be assigned as individuals to all branches and billets in the general service.[3-123]

[Footnote 3-123: Ltr, Rear Adm Hillenkoetter to Nichols, 22 May 53; see also Intervs, Nichols with Granger, Hillenkoetter, Jacobs, Thomas Darden, Dillon, and other BuPers officials. In contrast to the Knox period, where the files are replete with Secretary of the Navy memos, BuPers letters, and General Board reports on the development of the Navy's racial policy, there is scant documentation on the same subject during the early months of the Forrestal administration. This is understandable because the subject of integration was extremely delicate and not readily susceptible to the usual staffing needed for most policy decisions. Furthermore, Forrestal's laconic manner of expressing himself, famous in bureaucratic Washington, inhibited the usual flow of letters and memos.]

Forrestal and King received no end of advice. In December 1944 a group of black publicists called upon the secretary to appoint a civilian aide to consider the problems of the Negro in the Navy. The group also added its voice to those within the Navy who were suggesting the appointment of a black public relations officer to disseminate news of particular interest to the black press and to improve the Navy's relations with the black community.[3-124] One of Forrestal's assistants proposed that an intradepartmental committee be organized to standardize the disparate approaches to racial problems throughout the naval establishment; another recommended the appointment of a black civilian to advise the Bureau of Naval Personnel; and still another recommended a white assistant on racial affairs in the office of the under secretary.[3-125]

[Footnote 3-124: Ltr, John H. Sengstacke to Forrestal, 19 Dec 44, 54-1-9, GenRecsNav; Interv, Nichols with Granger.]

[Footnote 3-125: Memo, Under Sec Bard for SecNav, 1 Jan 45; Memo, H Struve Hensel (Off of Gen Counsel) for Forrestal, 5 Jan 45; both in 54-1-9, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

These ideas had merit. The Special Programs Unit had for some time been urging a public relations effort, pointing to the existence of an influential black press as well as to the desirability of (p. 095) fostering among whites a greater knowledge of the role of Negroes in the war. Forrestal brought two black officers to Washington for possible assignment to public relations work, and he asked the director of public relations to arrange for black newsmen to visit vessels manned by black crewmen. Finally, in June 1945, a black officer was added to the staff of the Navy's Office of Public Relations.[3-126]

[Footnote 3-126: Memo, SecNav for Eugene Duffield (Asst to Under Sec), 16 Jan 45, 54-1-9; idem for Rear Adm A. Stanton Merrill (Dir of Pub Relations), 24 Mar and 4 May 45, 54-1-16. All in Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

Appointment of a civilian aide on racial affairs was under consideration for some time, but when no agreement could be reached on where best to assign the official, Forrestal, who wanted someone he could "casually talk to about race relations,"[3-127] invited the Executive Secretary of the National Urban League to "give us some of your time for a period."[3-128] Thus in March 1945 Lester B. Granger began his long association with the Department of Defense, an association that would span the military's integration effort.[3-129] Granger's assignment was straightforward. From time to time he would make extensive trips representing the secretary and his special interest in racial problems at various naval stations.

[Footnote 3-127: Quoted in Forrestal, "Remarks for Dinner of Urban League."]

[Footnote 3-128: Ltr, SecNav to Lester Granger, 1 Feb 45, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-129: Ltrs, Granger to Forrestal, 19 Mar and 3 Apr 45, 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav. Granger and Forrestal had attended Dartmouth College, but not together as Forrestal thought. For a detailed and affectionate account of their relationship, see Columbia University Oral History Interview with Granger.]

Forrestal was sympathetic to the Urban League's approach to racial justice, and in Granger he had a man who had developed this approach into a social philosophy. Granger believed in relating the Navy's racial problems not to questions of fairness but to questions of survival, comfort, and security for all concerned. He assumed that if leadership in any field came to understand that its privilege or its security were threatened by denial of fairness to the less privileged, then a meeting of minds was possible between the two groups. They would begin to seek a way to eliminate insecurity, and from the process of eliminating insecurity would come fairness. As Granger explained it, talk to the commander about his loss of efficient production, not the shame of denying a Negro a man's right to a job. Talk about the social costs that come from denial of opportunity and talk about the penalty that the privileged pay almost in equal measure to what the Negro pays, but in different coin. Only then would one begin to get a hearing. On the other hand, talk to Negroes not about achieving their rights but about making good on an opportunity. This would lead to a discussion of training, of ways to override barriers "by maintaining themselves whole."[3-130] The Navy was going to get a lesson in race relations, Urban League style.

[Footnote 3-130: Columbia University Oral Hist Interv with Granger.]

At Forrestal's request, Granger explained how he viewed the special adviser's role. He thought he could help the secretary by smoothing the integration process in the general service through consultations with local commanders and their men in a series of field visits. He could also act as an intermediary between the department and the civil rights organizations and black press. Granger urged the formation (p. 096) of an advisory council, which would consist of ranking representatives from the various branches, to interpret and administer the Navy's racial policy. The need for such intradepartmental coordination seemed fairly obvious. Although in 1945 the Bureau of Naval Personnel had increased the resources of its Special Programs Unit, still the only specialized organization dealing with race problems, that group was always too swamped with administrative detail to police race problems outside Washington. Furthermore, the Seabees and the Medical and Surgery Department were in some ways independent of the bureau, and their employment of black sailors was different from that of other branches—a situation that created further confusion and conflict in the application of race policy.[3-131]

[Footnote 3-131: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Cmdr Richard M. Paget (Exec Office of the SecNav), 21 Apr 45, sub: Organization of Advisory Cmte, Pers 2119, GenRecsNav. See also "BuPers Hist," pt. II, p. 3.]

Assuming that the advisory council would require an executive agent, Granger suggested that the secretary have a full-time assistant for race relations in addition to his own part-time services. He wanted the man to be black and he wanted him in the secretary's office, which would give him prestige in the black community and increase his power to deal with the bureaus. Forrestal rejected the idea of a council and a full-time assistant, pleading that he must avoid creating another formal organization. Instead he decided to assemble an informal committee, which he invited Granger to join, to standardize the Navy's handling of Negroes.[3-132]

[Footnote 3-132: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 19 Mar 45; Ltrs, SecNav to Granger, 26 Mar and 5 Apr 45. All in 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav. The activities of the intradepartmental committee will be discussed in Chapter 5.]

It was obvious that Forrestal, convinced that the Navy's senior officials had made a fundamental shift in their thinking on equal treatment and opportunity for Negroes in the Navy, was content to let specific reforms percolate slowly throughout the department. He would later call the Navy's wartime reforms "a start down a long road."[3-133] In these last months of the war, however, more barriers to equal treatment of Negroes were quietly falling. In March 1945, after months of prodding by Forrestal, the Surgeon General announced that the Navy would accept a "reasonable" number of qualified black nurses and was now recruiting for them.[3-134] In June the Bureau of Naval Personnel ordered the integration of recruit training, assigning black general service recruits to the nearest recruit training command "to obtain the maximum utilization of naval training and housing facilities."[3-135] Noting that this integration was at variance with some individual attitudes, the bureau justified the change on the grounds of administrative efficiency. Again at the secretary's urging, plans were set in motion in July for the assignment of Negroes to submarine and aviation pilot training.[3-136] At the same time Lester Granger, acting as the secretary's personal representative, was visiting the (p. 097) Navy's continental installations, prodding commanders and converting them to the new policy.[3-137]

[Footnote 3-133: Ltr, Forrestal to Marshall Field III (publisher of PM), 14 Jul 45, 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-134: Memo, SecNav for Rear Adm W. J. C. Agnew, Asst Surg Gen, 28 Jan 45; Memo, Surg Gen for Eugene Duffield, 19 Mar 45; both in 54-1-3, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav. By V-J day the Navy had four black nurses on active duty.]

[Footnote 3-135: Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to Cmdts, All Naval Districts, 11 Jun 45, sub: Negro Recruit Training—Discontinuance of Special Program and Camps for, P16-3/MM, BuPersRecs.]

[Footnote 3-136: Memo, SecNav for Artemus L. Gates, Asst Sec for Air, et al. 16 Jul 45; Ltr, SecNav to Granger, 14 Jul 45; both in 54-1-20, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-137: Ltr, Granger to Forrestal, 4 Aug 45, 54-1-13, GenRecsNav.]



The Navy's wartime progress in race relations was the product of several forces. At first Negroes were restricted to service as messmen, but political pressure forced the Navy to open general service billets to them. In this the influence of the civil rights spokesmen was paramount. They and their allies in Congress and the national political parties led President Roosevelt to demand an end to exclusion and the Navy to accept Negroes for segregated general service. The presence of large numbers of black inductees and the limited number of assignments for them in segregated units prevented the Bureau of Naval Personnel from providing even a semblance of separate but equal conditions. Deteriorating black morale and the specter of racial disturbance drove the bureau to experiment with all-black crews, but the experiment led nowhere. The Navy could never operate a separate but equal fleet. Finally in 1944 Forrestal began to experiment with integration in seagoing assignments.

The influence of the civil rights forces can be overstated. Their attention tended to focus on the Army, especially in the later years of the war; their attacks on the Navy were mostly sporadic and uncoordinated and easily deflected by naval spokesmen. Equally important to race reform was the fact that the Navy was developing its own group of civil rights advocates during the war, influential men in key positions who had been dissatisfied with the prewar status of the Negro and who pressed for racial change in the name of military efficiency. Under the leadership of a sympathetic secretary, (p. 098) himself aided and abetted by Stevenson and other advisers in his office and in the Bureau of Naval Personnel, the Navy was laying plans for a racially integrated general service when Japan capitulated.

To achieve equality of treatment and opportunity, however, takes more than the development of an integration policy. For one thing, the liberalization of policy and practices affected only a relatively small percentage of the Negroes in the Navy. On V-J day the Navy could count 164,942 enlisted Negroes, 5.37 percent of its total enlisted strength.[3-138] More than double the prewar percentage, this figure was still less than half the national ratio of blacks to whites. In August 1945 the Navy had 60 black officers, 6 of whom were women (4 nurses and 2 WAVES), and 68 enlisted WAVES who were not segregated. The integration of the Navy officer corps, the WAVES, and the nurses had an immediate effect on only 128 people. Figures for black enlisted men show that they were employed in some sixty-seven ratings by the end of the war, but steward and steward's mate ratings accounted for some 68,000 men, about 40 percent of the total black enlistment. Approximately 59,000 others were ordinary seamen, some were recruits in training or specialists striking for ratings, but most were assigned to the large segregated labor units and base companies.[3-139] Here again integrated service affected only a small portion of the Navy's black recruits during World War II.

[Footnote 3-138: Pers 215-BL, "Enlisted Strength—U.S. Navy," 26 Jul 46, BuPersRecs.]

[Footnote 3-139: Pers 215-12-EL, "Number of Negro Enlisted Personnel on Active Duty," 29 Nov 45 (statistics as of 31 Oct 45), BuPersRecs.]

Furthermore, a real chance existed that even this limited progress might prove to be temporary. On V-J day the Regular Navy had 7,066 Negroes, just 2.14 percent of its total.[3-140] Many of these men could be expected to stay in the postwar Navy, but the overwhelming majority of them were in the separate Steward's Branch and would remain there after the war. Black reservists in the wartime general service would have to compete with white regulars and reservists for the severely reduced number of postwar billets and commissions in a Navy in which almost all members would have to be regulars. Although Lester Granger had stressed this point in conversations with James Forrestal, neither the secretary nor the Bureau of Naval Personnel took the matter up before the end of the war. In short, after setting in motion a number of far-reaching reforms during the war, the Navy seemed in some danger of settling back into its old prewar pattern.

[Footnote 3-140: Pers-215-BL, "Enlisted Strength—U.S. Navy," 26 Jul 46.]

Still, the fact that reforms had been attempted in a service that had so recently excluded Negroes was evidence of progress. Secretary Forrestal was convinced that the Navy's hierarchy had swung behind the principle of equal treatment and opportunity, but the real test was yet to come. Hope for a permanent change in the Navy's racial practices lay in convincing its tradition-minded officers that an integrated general service with a representative share of black officers and men was a matter of military efficiency.



CHAPTER 4 (p. 099)

World War II: The Marine Corps and the Coast Guard

The racial policies of both the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard were substantially the same as the Navy policy from which they were derived, but all three differed markedly from each other in their practical application. The differences arose partly from the particular mission and size of these components of the wartime Navy, but they were also governed by the peculiar legal relationship that existed in time of war between the Navy and the other two services.

By law the Marine Corps was a component of the Department of the Navy, its commandant subordinate to the Secretary of the Navy in such matters as manpower and budget and to the Chief of Naval Operations in specified areas of military operations. In the conduct of ordinary business, however, the commandant was independent of the Navy's bureaus, including the Bureau of Naval Personnel. The Marine Corps had its own staff personnel officer, similar to the Army's G-1, and, more important for the development of racial policy, it had a Division of Plans and Policies that was immediately responsible to the commandant for manpower planning. In practical terms, the Marine Corps of World War II was subject to the dictates of the Secretary of the Navy for general policy, and the secretary's 1942 order to enlist Negroes applied equally to the Marine Corps, which had no Negroes in its ranks, and to the Navy, which did. At the same time, the letters and directives of the Chief of Naval Operations and the Chief of Naval Personnel implementing the secretary's order did not apply to the corps. In effect, the Navy Department imposed a racial policy on the corps, but left it to the commandant to carry out that policy as he saw fit. These legal distinctions would become more important as the Navy's racial policy evolved in the postwar period.

The Coast Guard's administrative position had early in the war become roughly analogous to that of the Marine Corps. At all times a branch of the armed forces, the Coast Guard was normally a part of the Treasury Department. A statute of 1915, however, provided that during wartime or "whenever the President may so direct" the Coast Guard would operate as part of the Navy, subject to the orders of the Secretary of the Navy.[4-1] At the direction of the President, the Coast Guard passed to the control of the Secretary of the Navy on 1 November 1941 and so remained until 1 January 1946.[4-2]

[Footnote 4-1: 38 U.S. Stat. at L (1915), 800-2. Since 1967 the Coast Guard has been a part of the Department of Transportation.]

[Footnote 4-2: Executive Order 8928, 1 Nov 41. A similar transfer under provisions of the 1915 law was effected during World War I. The service's predecessor organizations, the Revenue Marine, Revenue Service, Revenue-Marine Service, and the Revenue Cutter Service, had also provided the Navy with certain specified ships and men during all wars since the Revolution.]

At first a division under the Chief of Naval Operations, the (p. 100) headquarters of the Coast Guard was later granted considerably more administrative autonomy. In March 1942 Secretary Knox carefully delineated the Navy's control over the Coast Guard, making the Chief of Naval Operations responsible for the operation of those Coast Guard ships, planes, and stations assigned to the naval commands for the "proper conduct of the war," but specifying that assignments be made with "due regard for the needs of the Coast Guard," which must continue to carry out its regular functions. Such duties as providing port security, icebreaking services, and navigational aid remained under the direct control and supervision of the commandant, the local naval district commander exercising only "general military control" of these activities in his area.[4-3] Important to the development of racial policy was the fact that the Coast Guard also retained administrative control of the recruitment, training, and assignment of personnel. Like the Marine Corps, it also had a staff agency for manpower planning, the Commandant's Advisory Board, and one for administration, the Personnel Division, independent of the Navy's bureaus.[4-4] In theory, the Coast Guard's manpower policy, at least in regard to those segments of the service that operated directly under Navy control, had to be compatible with the racial directives of the Navy's Bureau of Naval Personnel. In practice, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, like his colleague in the Marine Corps, was left free to develop his own racial policy in accordance with the general directives of the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations.

[Footnote 4-3: Ltr, SecNav to CominCh-CNO, 30 Mar 42, sub: Administration of Coast Guard When Operating Under Navy Department, quoted in Furer, Administration of the Navy Department in World War II, pp. 608-10.]

[Footnote 4-4: For a survey of the organization and functions of the U.S. Coast Guard Personnel Division, see USCG Historical Section, Personnel, The Coast Guard at War, 25:16-27.]

The First Black Marines

These legal distinctions had no bearing on the Marine Corps' prewar racial policy, which was designed to continue its tradition of excluding Negroes. The views of the commandant, Maj. Gen. Thomas Holcomb, on the subject of race were well known in the Navy. Negroes did not have the "right" to demand a place in the corps, General Holcomb told the Navy's General Board when that body was considering the expansion of the corps in April 1941. "If it were a question of having a Marine Corps of 5,000 whites or 250,000 Negroes, I would rather have the whites."[4-5] He was more circumspect but no more reasonable when he explained the racial exclusion publicly. Black enlistment was impractical, he told one civil rights group, because the Marine Corps was too small to form racially separate units.[4-6] And, if some Negroes persisted in trying to volunteer after Pearl Harbor, there was another deterrent, described by at least one senior recruiter: the medical examiner was cautioned to disqualify the black applicant during the enlistment physical.[4-7]

[Footnote 4-5: Quoted in Navy General Board, "Plan for the Expansion of the USMC," 18 Apr 41 (No. 139), Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives.]

[Footnote 4-6: Ltr, CMC to Harold E. Thompson, Northern Phila. Voters League, 6 Aug 40, AQ-17, Central Files, Headquarters, USMC (hereafter MC files).]

[Footnote 4-7: Memo, Off in Charge, Eastern Recruiting Div, for CMC, 16 Jan 42, sub: Colored Applicants for Enlistment in the Marine Corps, WP 11991, MC files.]

Such evasions could no longer be practiced after President (p. 101) Roosevelt decided to admit Negroes to the general service of the naval establishment. According to Secretary Knox the President wanted the Navy to handle the matter "in a way that would not inject into the whole personnel of the Navy the race question."[4-8] Under pressure to make some move, General Holcomb proposed the enlistment of 1,000 Negroes in the volunteer Marine Corps Reserve for duty in the general service in a segregated composite defense battalion. The battalion would consist primarily of seacoast and antiaircraft artillery, a rifle company with a light tank platoon, and other weapons units and components necessary to make it a self-sustaining unit.[4-9] To inject the subject of race "to a less degree than any other known scheme," the commandant planned to train the unit in an isolated camp and assign it to a remote station.[4-10] The General Board accepted this proposal, explaining to Secretary Knox that Negroes could not be used in the Marine Corps' amphibious units because the inevitable replacement and redistribution of men in combat would "prevent the maintenance of necessary segregation." The board also mentioned that experienced noncommissioned officers were at a premium and that diverting them to train a black unit would be militarily inefficient.[4-11]

[Footnote 4-8: Memo, SecNav for Adm W. R. Sexton, 14 Feb 42, P14-4, Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives. The quotation is from the Knox Memo and is not necessarily in the President's exact words.]

[Footnote 4-9: In devising plans for the composite battalion the Director of Plans and Policies rejected a proposal to organize a black raider battalion. The author of the proposal had explained that Negroes would make ideal night raiders "as no camouflage of faces and hands would be necessary." Memo, Col Thomas Gale for Exec Off, Div of Plans and Policies, 19 Feb 42, AO-250, MC files.]

[Footnote 4-10: Memo, CMC for Chmn of Gen Bd, 27 Feb 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of the Colored Race in Other Than Messman Branch, AO-172, MC files.]

[Footnote 4-11: Memo, Chmn of Gen Bd for SecNav, 20 Mar 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of the Colored Race in Other Than Messman Branch (G.B. No. 421), Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives.]

Although the enlistment of black marines began on 1 June 1942, the corps placed the reservists on inactive status until a training-size unit could be enlisted and segregated facilities built at Montford Point on the vast training reservation at Marine Barracks, New River (later renamed Camp Lejeune), North Carolina.[4-12] On 26 August the first contingent of Negroes began recruit training as the 51st Composite Defense Battalion at Montford Point under the command of Col. Samuel A. Woods, Jr. The corps had wanted to avoid having to train men as typists, truck drivers, and the like—specialist skills needed in the black composite unit. Instead, the commandant established black quotas for three of the four recruiting divisions, specifying that more than half the recruits qualify in the needed skills.[4-13]

[Footnote 4-12: Memo, CMC for District Cmdrs, All Reserve Districts Except 10th, 14th, 15th, and 16th, 25 May 42, sub: Enlistment of Colored Personnel in the Marine Corps, Historical and Museum Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps (hereafter Hist Div, HQMC). For further discussion of the training of black marines and other matters pertaining to Negroes in the Marine Corps, see Shaw and Donnelly, Blacks in the Marine Corps. This volume by the corps' chief historian and the former chief of its history division's reference branch is the official account.]

[Footnote 4-13: Memo, CMC for Off in Charge, Eastern, Central, and Southern Recruiting Divs, 15 May 42, sub: Enlistment of Colored Personnel in the Marine Corps, AP-54 (1535), MC files. The country was divided into four recruiting divisions, but black enlistment was not opened in the west coast division on the theory that there would be few volunteers and sending them to North Carolina would be unjustifiably expensive. Only white marines were trained in California. This circumstance brought complaints from civil rights groups. See, for example, Telg, Walter White to SecNav, 14 Jul 42, AP-361, MC files.]



The enlistment process proved difficult. The commandant reported (p. 102) that despite predictions of black educators to the contrary the corps had netted only sixty-three black recruits capable of passing the entrance examinations during the first three weeks of recruitment.[4-14] As late as 29 October the Director of Plans and Policies was reporting that only 647 of the scheduled 1,200 men (the final strength figure decided upon for the all-black unit) had been enlisted. He blamed the occupational qualifications for the delay, adding that it was doubtful "if even white recruits" could be procured under such strictures. The commandant approved his plan for enlisting Negroes without specific qualifications and instituting a modified form of specialist training. Black marines would not be sent to specialist schools "unless there is a colored school available," but instead Marine instructors would be sent to teach in the black camp.[4-15] In the end many of these first black specialists received their training in nearby Army installations.

[Footnote 4-14: Memo, CMC for SecNav, 23 Jun 42, AP-54 (1535-110), MC files.]

[Footnote 4-15: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 29 Oct 42, sub: Enlistment of Colored Personnel in the Marine Corps Reserve, AO-320, MC files.]

Segregation was the common practice in all the services in 1942, (p. 103) as indeed it was throughout much of American society. If this practice appeared somehow more restrictive in the Marine Corps than it did in the other services, it was because of the corps' size and traditions. The illusion of equal treatment and opportunity could be kept alive in the massive Army and Navy with their myriad units and military occupations; it was much more difficult to preserve in the small and specialized Marine Corps. Given segregation, the Marine Corps was obliged to put its few black marines in its few black units, whose small size limited the variety of occupations and training opportunities.

Yet the size of the corps would undergo considerable change, and on balance it was the Marine Corps' tradition of an all-white service, not its restrictive size, that proved to be the most significant factor influencing racial policy. Again unlike the Army and Navy, the Marine Corps lacked the practical experience with black recruits that might have countered many of the alarums and prejudices concerning Negroes that circulated within the corps during the war. The importance of this experience factor comes out in the reminiscences of a senior official in the Division of Plans and Policies who looked back on his 1942 experiences:

It just scared us to death when the colored were put on it. I went over to Selective Service and saw Gen. Hershey, and he turned me over to a lieutenant colonel [Campbell C. Johnson]—that was in April—and he was one grand person. I told him, "Eleanor [Mrs. Roosevelt] says we gotta take in Negroes, and we are just scared to death, we've never had any in, we don't know how to handle them, we are afraid of them." He said, "I'll do my best to help you get good ones. I'll get the word around that if you want to die young, join the Marines. So anybody that joins is got to be pretty good!" And it was the truth. We got some awfully good Negroes.[4-16]

[Footnote 4-16: USMC Oral History Interview, General Ray A. Robinson (USMC Ret.), 18-19 Mar 68, p. 136, Hist Div, HQMC.]

Unfortunately for the peace of mind of the Marine Corps' personnel planner, the conception of a carefully limited and isolated black contingent was quickly overtaken by events. The President's decision to abolish volunteer enlistments for the armed forces in December 1942 and the subsequent establishment of a black quota for each component of the naval establishment meant that in the next year some 15,400 more Negroes, 10 percent of all Marine Corps inductees, would be added to the corps.[4-17] As it turned out the monthly draft calls were never completely filled, and by December 1943 only 9,916 of the scheduled black inductions had been completed, but by the time the corps stopped drafting men in 1946 it had received over 16,000 Negroes through the Selective Service. Including the 3,129 black volunteers, the number of Negroes in the Marine Corps during World War II totaled 19,168, approximately 4 percent of the corps' enlisted men.

[Footnote 4-17: Memo, CMC for Chief, NavPers, 1 Apr 43, sub: Negro Registrants To Be Inducted Into the Marine Corps, AO-320-2350-60, MC files.]

The immediate problem of what to do with this sudden influx of Negroes was complicated by the fact that many of the draftees, the product of vastly inferior schooling, were incompetent. Where black volunteers had to pass the corps' rigid entrance requirements, draftees had (p. 104) only to meet the lowest selective service standards. An exact breakdown of black Marine Corps draftees by General Classification Test category is unavailable for the war period. A breakdown of some 15,000 black enlisted men, however, was compiled ten weeks after V-J day and included many of those drafted during the war. Category I represents the most gifted men:[4-18]

Category: I II III IV V Percentage: 0.11 5.14 24.08 59.63 11.04

[Footnote 4-18: Memo, Dir, Pers, for Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 21 Jul 48, sub: GCT Percentile Equivalents for Colored Enlisted Marines in November 1945 and in March 1948, sub file: Negro Marines—Test and Testing, Ref Br, Hist Div, HQMC.]

If these figures are used as a base, slightly more than 70 percent of all black enlisted men, more than 11,000, scored in the two lowest categories, a meaningless racial statistic in terms of actual numbers because the smaller percentage of the much larger group of white draftees in these categories gave the corps more whites than blacks in groups IV and V. Yet the statistic was important because low-scoring Negroes, unlike the low-scoring whites who could be scattered throughout the corps' units, had to be concentrated in a small number of segregated units to the detriment of those units. Conversely, the corps had thousands of Negroes with the mental aptitude to serve in regular combat units and a small but significant number capable of becoming officers. Yet these men were denied the opportunity to serve in combat or as officers because the segregation policy dictated that Negroes could not be assigned to a regular combat unit unless all the billets in that unit as well as all replacements were black—a practical impossibility during World War II.

Segregation, not the draft, forced the Marine Corps to devise new jobs and units to absorb the black inductees. A plan circulated in the Division of Plans and Policies called for more defense battalions, a branch for messmen, and the assignment of large black units to local bases to serve as chauffeurs, messengers, clerks, and janitors. Referring to the janitor assignment, one division official admitted that "I don't think we can get away with this type duty."[4-19] In the end the Negroes were not used as chauffeurs, messengers, clerks, and janitors. Instead the corps placed a "maximum practical number" in defense battalions. The number of these units, however, was limited, as Maj. Gen. Harry Schmidt, the acting commandant, explained in March 1943, by the number of black noncommissioned officers available. Black noncommissioned officers were necessary, he continued, because in the Army's experience "in nearly all cases to intermingle colored and white enlisted personnel in the same organization" led to "trouble and disorder."[4-20] Demonstrating his own and the Marine Corps' lack of experience with black troops, the acting commandant went on to provide his commanders with some rather dubious advice based on what he perceived as the Army's experience: black units should be commanded by men "who thoroughly knew their [Negroes'] individual and racial (p. 105) characteristics and temperaments," and Negroes should be assigned to work they preferred.

[Footnote 4-19: Unsigned Memo for Dir, Plans and Policies Div, 26 Dec 42, sub: Colored Personnel, with attached handwritten note, AO-320, MC files.]

[Footnote 4-20: Ltr, Actg CMC to Major Cmdrs, 20 Mar 43, sub: Colored Personnel, AP-361, MC files.]



The points emphasized in General Schmidt's letter to Marine commanders—a rigid insistence on racial separation and a willingness to work for equal treatment of black troops—along with an acknowledgement of the Marine Corps' lack of experience with racial problems were reflected in Commandant Holcomb's basic instruction on the subject of Negroes two months later: "All Marines are entitled to the same rights and privileges under Navy Regulations," and black marines could be expected "to conduct themselves with propriety and become a credit to the Marine Corps." General Holcomb was aware of the adverse effect of white noncommissioned officers on black morale, and he wanted them removed from black units as soon as possible. Since the employment of black marines was in itself a "new departure," he wanted to be informed periodically on how Negroes adapted to Marine Corps life, what their off-duty experience was with recreational facilities, and what their attitude was toward other marines.[4-21]

[Footnote 4-21: Ltr of Instruction No. 421, CMC to All CO's, 14 May 43, sub: Colored Personnel, MC files.]



These were generally progressive sentiments, evidence of the commandant's desire to provide for the peaceful assimilation and advancement of Negroes in the corps. Unfortunately for his reputation among the civil rights advocates, General Holcomb seemed overly concerned with certain social implications of rank and color. (p. 106) Undeterred by a lack of personal experience with interracial command, he was led in the name of racial harmony to an unpopular conclusion. "It is essential," he told his commanders, "that in no case shall there be colored noncommissioned officers senior to white men in the same unit, and desirable that few, if any be of the same rank."[4-22] He was particularly concerned with the period when white instructors and noncommissioned officers were being phased out of black units. He wanted Negroes up for promotion to corporal transferred, before promotion, out of any unit that contained white corporals.

[Footnote 4-22: Ibid. The subject of widespread public complaint when its existence became known after the war, the instruction was rescinded. See Memo, J. A. Stuart, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 14 Feb 46, sub: Ltr of Inst #421 Revocation of, AO-1, copy in Ref Br, Hist Div, HQMC.]



The Division of Plans and Policies tried to follow these strictures as it set about organizing the new black units. Job preference had already figured in the organization of the new Messman's Branch established in January 1943. At that time Secretary Knox had approved the reconstitution of the corps' all-white Mess Branch as the Commissary Branch and the organization of an all-black Messman's Branch along the lines of the Navy's Steward's Branch.[4-23] In (p. 107) authorizing the new branch, which was quickly redesignated the Steward's Branch to conform to the Navy model, Secretary Knox specified that the members must volunteer for such duty. Yet the corps, under pressure to produce large numbers of stewards in the early months of the war, showed so little faith in the volunteer system that Marine recruiters were urged to induce half of all black recruits to sign on as stewards.[4-24] Original plans called for the assignment of one steward for every six officers, but the lack of volunteers and the needs of the corps quickly caused this estimate to be scaled down.[4-25] By 5 July 1944 the Steward's Branch numbered (p. 108) 1,442 men, roughly 14 percent of the total black strength of the Marine Corps.[4-26] It remained approximately this size for the rest of the war.

[Footnote 4-23: Memo, CMC for SecNav, 30 Dec 42, sub: Change of Present Mess Branch in the Marine Corps to Commissary Branch and Establishment of a Messman's Branch and Ranks Therein, with SecNav approval indicated, AO-363-311. See also Memo, CMC for Chief, NavPers, 30 Dec 42, sub: Request for Allotment to MC..., A-363; Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 23 Nov 42, sub: Organization of Mess Branch (Colored), AO-283. All in MC files.]

[Footnote 4-24: Memo, Dir of Recruiting for Off in Charge, Eastern Recruiting Div et al., 25 Feb 42, sub: Messman Branch, AP-361-1390; Memo, CMC for SecNav, 3 Apr 43, sub: Change in Designation..., AO-340-1930. Both in MC files.]

[Footnote 4-25: Memo, Dir, Plans and Policies, for CMC, 18 May 43, sub: Assignment of Steward's Branch Personnel, AO-371, MC files.]

[Footnote 4-26: Memo, H. E. Dunkelberger, M-1 Sec, Div of Plans and Policies, for Asst CMC, 5 Jul 44, sub: Steward's Branch Personnel, AO-660, MC files.]

The admonition to employ black marines to the maximum extent practical in defense battalions was based on the mobilization planners' belief that each of these battalions, with its varied artillery, infantry, and armor units, would provide close to a thousand black marines with varied assignments in a self-contained, segregated unit. But the realities of the Pacific war and the draft quickly rendered these plans obsolete. As the United States gained the ascendancy, the need for defense battalions rapidly declined, just as the need for special logistical units to move supplies in the forward areas increased. The corps had originally depended on its replacement battalions to move the mountains of supply involved in amphibious assaults, but the constant flow of replacements to battlefield units and the need for men with special logistical skill had led in the middle of the war to the organization of pioneer battalions. To supplement the work of these shore party units and to absorb the rapidly growing number of black draftees, the Division of Plans and Policies eventually created fifty-one separate depot companies and twelve separate ammunition companies manned by Negroes. The majority of these new units served in base and service depots, handling ammunition and hauling supplies, but a significant number of them also served as part of the shore parties attached to the divisional assault units. These units often worked under enemy fire and on occasion joined in the battle as they moved supplies, evacuated the wounded, and secured the operation's supply dumps.[4-27] Nearly 8,000 men, about 40 percent of the corps' black enlistment, served in this sometimes hazardous combat support duty. The experience of these depot and ammunition companies provided the Marine Corps with an interesting irony. In contrast to Negroes in the other services, black marines trained for combat were never so used. Those trained for the humdrum labor tasks, however, found themselves in the thick of the fighting on Saipan, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, and elsewhere, suffering combat casualties and winning combat citations for their units.

[Footnote 4-27: Shaw and Donnelly, Blacks in the Marine Corps, pp. 29-46. See also, HQMC Div of Public Information, "The Negro Marine, 1942-1945," Ref Br, Hist Div, HQMC.]

The increased allotment of black troops entering the corps and the commandant's call for replacing all white noncommissioned officers with blacks as quickly as they could be sufficiently trained caused problems for the black combat units. The 51st Defense Battalion in particular suffered many vicissitudes in its training and deployment. The 51st was the first black unit in the Marine Corps, a doubtful advantage considering the frequent reorganization and rapid troop turnover that proved its lot. At first the reception and training of all black inductees fell to the battalion, but in March 1943 a separate Headquarters Company, Recruit Depot Battalion, was organized at Montford Point.[4-28] Its cadre was drawn from the 51st, as (p. 109) were the noncommissioned officers and key personnel of the newly organized ammunition and depot companies and the black security detachments organized at Montford Point and assigned to the Naval Ammunition Depot, McAlester, Oklahoma, and the Philadelphia Depot of Supplies.

[Footnote 4-28: Memo, CO, 51st Def Bn, for Dir, Plans and Policies, 29 Jan 43, sub: Colored Personnel, Ref Br, Hist Div, HQMC.]

In effect, the 51st served as a specialist training school for the black combat units. When the second black defense battalion, the 52d, was organized in December 1943 its cadre, too, was drawn from the 51st. By the time the 51st was actually deployed, it had been reorganized several times and many of its best men had been siphoned off as leaders for new units. To compound these losses of experienced men, the battalion was constantly receiving large influxes of inexperienced and educationally deficient draftees and sometimes there was infighting among its officers.[4-29]

[Footnote 4-29: For charges and countercharges on the part of the 51st's commanders, see Hq, 51st Defense Bn, "Record of Proceedings of an Investigation," 27 Jun 44; Memo, Lt Col Floyd A. Stephenson for CMC, 30 May 44, sub: Fifty-First Defense Battalion, Fleet Marine Force, with indorsements and attachments; Memo, CO, 51st Def Bn, for CMC, 20 Jul 44, sub: Combat Efficiency, Fifty-First Defense Battalion. All in Ref Br, Hist Div, HQMC.]

Training for black units only emphasized the rigid segregation enforced in the Marine Corps. After their segregated eight-week recruit training, the men were formed into companies at Montford Point; those assigned to the defense battalions were sent for specialist training in the weapons and equipment employed in such units, including radar, motor transport, communications, and artillery fire direction. Each of the ammunition companies sent sixty of its men to special ammunition and camouflage schools where they would be promoted to corporal when they completed the course. In contrast to the depot companies and elements of the defense battalions, the ammunition units would have white staff sergeants as ordnance specialists throughout the war. This exception to the rule of black noncommissioned officers for black units was later justified on the grounds that such units required experienced supervisors to emphasize and enforce safety regulations.[4-30] On the whole specialist training was segregated; whenever possible even the white instructors were rapidly replaced by blacks.

[Footnote 4-30: Shaw and Donnelly, Blacks in the Marine Corps, p. 31.]

Before being sent overseas, black units underwent segregated field training, although the length of this training varied considerably according to the type of unit. Depot companies, for example, were labor units pure and simple, organized to perform simple tasks, and many of them were sent to the Pacific less than two weeks after activation. In contrast, the 51st Defense Battalion spent two months in hard field training, scarcely enough considering the number of raw recruits, totally unfamiliar with gunnery, that were being fed regularly into what was essentially an artillery battalion.



The experience of the two defense battalions demonstrates that racial consideration governed their eventual deployment just as it had decided their organization. With no further strategic need for defense battalions, the Marine Corps began to dismantle them in 1944, just as the two black units became operational and were about to be sent to the Central and South Pacific. The eighteen white defense (p. 110) battalions were subsequently reorganized as antiaircraft artillery battalions for use with amphibious groups in the forward areas. While the two black units were similarly reorganized, only they and one of the white units retained the title of defense battalion. Their deployment was also different. The policy of self-contained, segregated service was, in the case of a large combat unit, best followed in the rear areas, and the two black battalions were assigned to routine garrison duties in the backwaters of the theater, the 51st at Eniwetok in the Marshalls, the 52d at Guam. The latter unit saw nearly half its combat-trained men detailed to work as stevedores. It was not surprising that the morale in both units suffered.[4-31]

[Footnote 4-31: For a discussion of black morale in the combat-trained units, see USMC Oral History Interview, Obie Hall, 16 Aug 72, Ref Br, and John H. Griffin, "My Life in the Marine Corps," Personal Papers Collection, Museums Br. Both in Hist Div, HQMC.]

Even more explicitly racial was the warning of a senior combat commander to the effect that the deployment of black depot units to the Polynesian areas of the Pacific should be avoided. The Polynesians, he explained, were delightful people, and their "primitively romantic" women shared their intimate favors with one and all. Mixture with the white race had produced "a very high-class half-caste," mixture with the Chinese a "very desirable type," but the union of black and "Melanesian types ... produces a very undesirable citizen." The (p. 111) Marine Corps, Maj. Gen. Charles F. B. Price continued, had a special moral obligation and a selfish interest in protecting the population of American Samoa, especially, from intimacy with Negroes; he strongly urged therefore that any black units deployed to the Pacific should be sent to Micronesia where they "can do no racial harm."[4-32]

[Footnote 4-32: Ltr, Maj Gen Charles F. B. Price to Brig Gen Keller E. Rockey, 24 Apr 43; 26132, Ref Br, Hist Div, HQMC.]

General Price must have been entertaining second thoughts, since two depot companies were already en route to Samoa at his request. Nevertheless, because of the "importance" of his reservations the matter was brought to the attention of the Director of Plans and Policies.[4-33] As a result, the assignment of the 7th and 8th Depot Companies to Samoa proved short-lived. Arriving on 13 October 1943, they were redeployed to the Ellice Islands in the Micronesia group the next day.

[Footnote 4-33: Brig Gen Rockey for S-C files, 4 Jun 43, Memo, G. F. Good, Div of Plans and Policies, to Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 3 Sep 43. Both attached to Price Ltr, see n. 32 above.]

Thanks to the operations of the ammunition and depot companies, a large number of black marines, serving in small, efficient labor units, often exposed to enemy fire, made a valuable contribution. That so many black marines participated, at least from time to time, in the fighting may explain in part the fact that relatively few racial incidents took place in the corps during the war. But if many Negroes served in forward areas, they were all nevertheless severely restricted in opportunity. Black marines were excluded from the corps' celebrated combat divisions and its air arm. They were also excluded from the Women's Reserve, and not until the last months of the war did the corps accept its first black officer candidates. Marine spokesmen justified the latter exclusion on the grounds that the corps lacked facilities—that is, segregated facilities—for training black officers.[4-34]

[Footnote 4-34: Ltr, Phillips D. Carleton, Asst to Dir, MC Reserve, to Welford Wilson, U.S. Employment Service, 27 Mar 43, AF-464, MC files. For more on black officers in the Marine Corps, see Chapter 9.]

These exclusions did not escape the attention of the civil rights spokesmen who took their demands to Secretary Knox and the White House.[4-35] It was to little avail. With the exception of the officer candidates in 1945, the separation of the races remained absolute, and Negroes continued to be excluded from the main combat units of the Marine Corps.

[Footnote 4-35: See, for example, Ltr, Mary Findley Allen, Interracial Cmte of Federation of Churches, to Mrs. Roosevelt (ca. 9 Mar 43); Memo, SecNav for Rear Adm Jacobs, 22 Mar 43, P-25; Memo, R. C. Kilmartin, Jr., Div of Plans and Policies, for Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 25 Sep 43, AO-434. All in Hist Div, HQMC.]

Personal prejudices aside, the desire for social harmony and the fear of the unknown go far toward explaining the Marine Corps' wartime racial policy. A small, specialized, and racially exclusive organization, the Marine Corps reacted to the directives of the Secretary of the Navy and the necessities of wartime operation with a rigid segregation policy, its black troops restricted to about 4 percent of its enlisted strength. A large part of this black strength was assigned to labor units where Negroes performed valuable and sometimes dangerous service in the Pacific war. Complaints from civil rights advocates abounded, but neither protests nor the cost to military efficiency of duplicating training facilities were of (p. 112) sufficient moment to overcome the sentiment against significant racial change, which was kept to a minimum. Judged strictly in terms of keeping racial harmony, the corps policy must be considered a success. Ironically this very success prevented any modification of that policy during the war.



New Roles for Black Coast Guardsmen

The Coast Guard's pre-World War II experience with Negroes differed from that of the other branches of the naval establishment. Unlike the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard could boast a tradition of black enlistment stretching far back into the previous century. Although it shared this tradition with the Navy, the Coast Guard, unlike the Navy, had always severely restricted Negroes both in terms of numbers enlisted and jobs assigned. A small group of Negroes manned a lifesaving station at Pea Island on North Carolina's outer banks. Negroes also served as crewmen at several lighthouses and on tenders in the Mississippi River basin; all were survivors of the transfer of the Lighthouse Service to the Coast Guard in 1939. These guardsmen were almost always segregated, although a few served in integrated crews or even commanded large Coast Guard vessels and small harbor (p. 113) craft.[4-36] They also served in the separate Steward's Branch, although it might be argued that the small size of most Coast Guard vessels integrated in fact men who were segregated in theory.