The Project Gutenberg EBook of Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965, by Morris J. MacGregor Jr. This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 Author: Morris J. MacGregor Jr. Release Date: February 15, 2007 [EBook #20587] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INTEGRATION ARMED FORCES *** Produced by Suzanne Shell, Christine P. Travers and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, author's spelling has been retained. --Missing page numbers correspond to illustration or blank pages.] INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES 1940-1965 _DEFENSE STUDIES SERIES_ INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES 1940-1965 _by_ _Morris J. MacGregor, Jr._ _Defense Historical Studies Committee_ (as of 6 April 1979) Alfred Goldberg Office of the Secretary of Defense Robert J. Watson Historical Division, Joint Chiefs of Staff Brig. Gen. James L. Collins, Jr. Chief of Military History Maj. Gen. John W. Huston Chief of Air Force History Maurice Matloff Center of Military History Stanley L. Falk Office of Air Force History Rear Adm. John D. H. Kane, Jr. Director of Naval History Brig. Gen. (Ret.) Edwin H. Simmons Director of Marine Corps History and Museums Dean C. Allard Naval Historical Center Henry J. Shaw, Jr. Marine Corps Historical Center Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data MacGregor, Morris J Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 (Defense studies series) Includes bibliographical references and index. Supt. of Docs. no.: D 114.2:In 8/940-65 1. Afro-American soldiers. 2. United States--Race Relations. I. Title. II. Series. UB418.A47M33 335.3'3 80-607077 _Department of the Army_ _Historical Advisory Committee_ (as of 6 April 1979) Otis A. Singletary University of Kentucky Maj. Gen. Robert C. Hixon U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command Brig. Gen. Robert Arter U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Sara D. Jackson National Historical Publications and Records Commission Harry L. Coles Ohio State University Maj. Gen. Enrique Mendez, Jr. Deputy Surgeon General, USA Robert H. Ferrell Indiana University James O'Neill Deputy Archivist of the United States Cyrus H. Fraker The Adjutant General Center Benjamin Quarles Morgan State College William H. Goetzmann University of Texas Brig. Gen. Alfred L. Sanderson Army War College Col. Thomas E. Griess U.S. Military Academy Russell F. Weigley Temple University Foreword The integration of the armed forces was a momentous event in our military and national history; it represented a milestone in the development of the armed forces and the fulfillment of the democratic ideal. The existence of integrated rather than segregated armed forces is an important factor in our military establishment today. The experiences in World War II and the postwar pressures generated by the civil rights movement compelled all the services--Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps--to reexamine their traditional practices of segregation. While there were differences in the ways that the services moved toward integration, all were subject to the same demands, fears, and prejudices and had the same need to use their resources in a more rational and economical way. All of them reached the same conclusion: traditional attitudes toward minorities must give way to democratic concepts of civil rights. If the integration of the armed services now seems to have been inevitable in a democratic society, it nevertheless faced opposition that had to be overcome and problems that had to be solved through the combined efforts of political and civil rights leaders and civil and military officials. In many ways the military services were at the cutting edge in the struggle for racial equality. This volume sets forth the successive measures they and the Office of the Secretary of Defense took to meet the challenges of a new era in a critically important area of human relationships, during a period of transition that saw the advance of blacks in the social and economic order as well as in the military. It is fitting that this story should be told in the first volume of a new Defense Studies Series. The Defense Historical Studies Program was authorized by the then Deputy Secretary of Defense, Cyrus Vance, in April 1965. It is conducted under the auspices of the Defense Historical Studies Group, an _ad hoc_ body chaired by the Historian of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and consisting of the senior officials in the historical offices of the services and of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Volumes produced under its sponsorship will be interservice histories, covering matters of mutual interest to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The preparation of each volume is entrusted to one of the service historical sections, in this case the Army's Center of Military History. Although the book was written by an Army historian, he was generously given access to the pertinent records of the other services and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and this initial volume in the Defense Studies Series covers the experiences of all components of the Department of Defense in achieving integration. Washington, D.C. JAMES L. COLLINS, Jr. 14 March 1980 Brigadier General, USA Chief of Military History The Author Morris J. MacGregor, Jr., received the A.B. and M.A. degrees in history from the Catholic University of America. He continued his graduate studies at the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Paris on a Fulbright grant. Before joining the staff of the U.S. Army Center of Military History in 1968 he served for ten years in the Historical Division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He has written several studies for military publications including "Armed Forces Integration--Forced or Free?" in _The Military and Society: Proceedings of the Fifth Military Symposium of the U.S. Air Force Academy_. He is the coeditor with Bernard C. Nalty of the thirteen-volume _Blacks in the United States Armed Forces: Basic Documents_ and with Ronald Spector of _Voices of History: Interpretations in American Military History_. He is currently working on a sequel to _Integration of the Armed Forces_ which will also appear in the Defense Studies Series. Preface (p. ix) This book describes the fall of the legal, administrative, and social barriers to the black American's full participation in the military service of his country. It follows the changing status of the black serviceman from the eve of World War II, when he was excluded from many military activities and rigidly segregated in the rest, to that period a quarter of a century later when the Department of Defense extended its protection of his rights and privileges even to the civilian community. To round out the story of open housing for members of the military, I briefly overstep the closing date given in the title. The work is essentially an administrative history that attempts to measure the influence of several forces, most notably the civil rights movement, the tradition of segregated service, and the changing concept of military efficiency, on the development of racial policies in the armed forces. It is not a history of all minorities in the services. Nor is it an account of how the black American responded to discrimination. A study of racial attitudes, both black and white, in the military services would be a valuable addition to human knowledge, but practically impossible of accomplishment in the absence of sufficient autobiographical accounts, oral history interviews, and detailed sociological measurements. How did the serviceman view his condition, how did he convey his desire for redress, and what was his reaction to social change? Even now the answers to these questions are blurred by time and distorted by emotions engendered by the civil rights revolution. Few citizens, black or white, who witnessed it can claim immunity to the influence of that paramount social phenomenon of our times. At times I do generalize on the attitudes of both black and white servicemen and the black and white communities at large as well. But I have permitted myself to do so only when these attitudes were clearly pertinent to changes in the services' racial policies and only when the written record supported, or at least did not contradict, the memory of those participants who had been interviewed. In any case this study is largely history written from the top down and is based primarily on the written records left by the administrations of five presidents and by civil rights leaders, service officials, and the press. Many of the attitudes and expressions voiced by the participants in the story are now out of fashion. The reader must be constantly on guard against viewing the beliefs and statements of many civilian and military officials out of context of the times in which they were expressed. Neither bigotry nor stupidity was the monopoly of some of the people quoted; their statements are important for what they tell us about certain attitudes of our society rather than for what they reveal about any individual. If the methods or attitudes of some (p. x) of the black spokesmen appear excessively tame to those who have lived through the 1960's, they too should be gauged in the context of the times. If their statements and actions shunned what now seems the more desirable, albeit radical, course, it should be given them that the style they adopted appeared in those days to be the most promising for racial progress. The words _black_ and _Negro_ have been used interchangeably in the book, with Negro generally as a noun and black as an adjective. Aware of differing preferences in the black community for usage of these words, the author was interested in comments from early readers of the manuscript. Some of the participants in the story strongly objected to one word or the other. "Do me one favor in return for my help," Lt. Comdr. Dennis D. Nelson said, "never call me a black." Rear Adm. Gerald E. Thomas, on the other hand, suggested that the use of the term Negro might repel readers with much to learn about their recent past. Still others thought that the historian should respect the usage of the various periods covered in the story, a solution that would have left the volume with the term _colored_ for most of the earlier chapters and Negro for much of the rest. With rare exception, the term black does not appear in twentieth century military records before the late 1960's. Fashions in words change, and it is only for the time being perhaps that black and Negro symbolize different attitudes. The author has used the words as synonyms and trusts that the reader will accept them as such. Professor John Hope Franklin, Mrs. Sara Jackson of the National Archives, and the historians and officials that constituted the review panel went along with this approach. The second question of usage concerns the words _integration_ and _desegregation_. In recent years many historians have come to distinguish between these like-sounding words. Desegregation they see as a direct action against segregation; that is, it signifies the act of removing legal barriers to the equal treatment of black citizens as guaranteed by the Constitution. The movement toward desegregation, breaking down the nation's Jim Crow system, became increasingly popular in the decade after World War II. Integration, on the other hand, Professor Oscar Handlin maintains, implies several things not yet necessarily accepted in all areas of American society. In one sense it refers to the "leveling of all barriers to association other than those based on ability, taste, and personal preference";[1] in other words, providing equal opportunity. But in another sense integration calls for the random distribution of a minority throughout society. Here, according to Handlin, the emphasis is on racial balance in areas of occupation, education, residency, and the like. [Footnote 1: Oscar Handlin, "The Goals of Integration," _Daedalus 95_ (Winter 1966): 270.] From the beginning the military establishment rightly understood that the breakup of the all-black unit would in a closed society necessarily mean more than mere desegregation. It constantly used the terms integration and equal treatment and opportunity to describe its racial goals. Rarely, if ever, does one find the word desegregation in military files that include much correspondence from the various (p. xi) civil rights organizations. That the military made the right choice, this study seems to demonstrate, for the racial goals of the Defense Department, as they slowly took form over a quarter of a century, fulfilled both of Professor Handlin's definitions of integration. The mid-1960's saw the end of a long and important era in the racial history of the armed forces. Although the services continued to encounter racial problems, these problems differed radically in several essentials from those of the integration period considered in this volume. Yet there is a continuity to the story of race relations, and one can hope that the story of how an earlier generation struggled so that black men and women might serve their country in freedom inspires those in the services who continue to fight discrimination. This study benefited greatly from the assistance of a large number of persons during its long years of preparation. Stetson Conn, chief historian of the Army, proposed the book as an interservice project. His successor, Maurice Matloff, forced to deal with the complexities of an interservice project, successfully guided the manuscript through to publication. The work was carried out under the general supervision of Robert R. Smith, chief of the General History Branch. He and Robert W. Coakley, deputy chief historian of the Army, were the primary reviewers of the manuscript, and its final form owes much to their advice and attention. The author also profited greatly from the advice of the official review panel, which, under the chairmanship of Alfred Goldberg, historian, Office of the Secretary of Defense, included Martin Blumenson; General J. Lawton Collins (USA Ret.); Lt. Gen. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. (USAF Ret.); Roy K. Davenport, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army; Stanley L. Falk, chief historian of the Air Force; Vice Adm. E. B. Hooper, Chief of Naval History; Professor Benjamin Quarles; Paul J. Scheips, historian, Center of Military History; Henry I. Shaw, chief historian of the U.S. Marine Corps; Loretto C. Stevens, senior editor of the Center of Military History; Robert J. Watson, chief historian of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Adam Yarmolinsky, former assistant to the Secretary of Defense. Many of the participants in this story generously shared their knowledge with me and kindly reviewed my efforts. My footnotes acknowledge my debt to them. Nevertheless, two are singled out here for special mention. James C. Evans, former counselor to the Secretary of Defense for racial affairs, has been an endless source of information on race relations in the military. If I sometimes disagreed with his interpretations and assessments, I never doubted his total dedication to the cause of the black serviceman. I owe a similar debt to Lt. Comdr. Dennis D. Nelson (USN Ret.) for sharing his intimate understanding of race relations in the Navy. A resourceful man with a sure social touch, he must have been one hell of a sailor. I want to note the special contribution of several historians. Martin Blumenson was first assigned to this project, and before leaving the Center of Military History he assembled research material that proved most helpful. My former colleague John Bernard Corr prepared a study on the National Guard upon which my account of the guard is based. In addition, he patiently reviewed many pages of the draft (p. xii) manuscript. His keen insights and sensitive understanding were invaluable to me. Professors Jack D. Foner and Marie Carolyn Klinkhammer provided particularly helpful suggestions in conjunction with their reviews of the manuscript. Samuel B. Warner, who before his untimely death was a historian in the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as a colleague of Lee Nichols on some of that reporter's civil rights investigations, also contributed generously of his talents and lent his support in the early days of my work. Finally, I am grateful for the advice of my colleague Ronald H. Spector at several key points in the preparation of this history. I have received much help from archivists and librarians, especially the resourceful William H. Cunliffe and Lois Aldridge (now retired) of the National Archives and Dean C. Allard of the Naval Historical Center. Although the fruits of their scholarship appear often in my footnotes, three fellow researchers in the field deserve special mention: Maj. Alan M. Osur and Lt. Col. Alan L. Gropman of the U.S. Air Force and Ralph W. Donnelly, former member of the U.S. Marine Corps Historical Center. I have benefited from our exchange of ideas and have had the advantage of their reviews of the manuscript. I am especially grateful for the generous assistance of my editors, Loretto C. Stevens and Barbara H. Gilbert. They have been both friends and teachers. In the same vein, I wish to thank John Elsberg for his editorial counsel. I also appreciate the help given by William G. Bell in the selection of the illustrations, including the loan of two rare items from his personal collection, and Arthur S. Hardyman for preparing the pictures for publication. I would like to thank Mary Lee Treadway and Wyvetra B. Yeldell for preparing the manuscript for panel review and Terrence J. Gough for his helpful pre-publication review. Finally, while no friend or relative was spared in the long years I worked on this book, three colleagues especially bore with me through days of doubts and frustrations and shared my small triumphs: Alfred M. Beck, Ernest F. Fisher, Jr., and Paul J. Scheips. I also want particularly to thank Col. James W. Dunn. I only hope that some of their good sense and sunny optimism show through these pages. Washington, D.C. MORRIS J. MACGREGOR, Jr. 14 March 1980 Contents (p. xiii) _Chapter_ _Page_ 1. INTRODUCTION............................................. 3 _The Armed forces Before 1940_............................ 3 _Civil Rights and the Law in 1940_........................ 8 _To Segregate Is To Discriminate_........................ 13 2. WORLD WAR II: THE ARMY.................................. 17 _A War Policy: Reaffirming Segregation_.................. 17 _Segregation and Efficiency_............................. 23 _The Need for Change_.................................... 34 _Internal Reform: Amending Racial Practices_............. 39 _Two Exceptions_......................................... 46 3. WORLD WAR II: THE NAVY.................................. 58 _Development of a Wartime Policy_........................ 59 _A Segregated Navy_...................................... 67 _Progressive Experiments_................................ 75 _Forrestal Takes the Helm_............................... 84 4. WORLD WAR II: THE MARINE CORPS AND THE COAST GUARD...... 99 _The First Black Marines_............................... 100 _New Roles for Black Coast Guardsmen_................... 112 5. A POSTWAR SEARCH....................................... 123 _Black Demands_......................................... 123 _The Army's Grand Review_............................... 130 _The Navy's Informal Inspection_........................ 143 6. NEW DIRECTIONS......................................... 152 _The Gillem Board Report_............................... 153 _Integration of the General Service_.................... 166 _The Marine Corps_...................................... 170 7. A PROBLEM OF QUOTAS.................................... 176 _The Quota in Practice_................................. 182 _Broader Opportunities_................................. 189 _Assignments_........................................... 194 _A New Approach_........................................ 198 _The Quota System: An Assessment_....................... 202 8. SEGREGATION'S CONSEQUENCES............................. 206 _Discipline and Morale Among Black Troops_.............. 206 _Improving the Status of the Segregated Soldier_........ 215 _Discrimination and the Postwar Army_................... 223 (p. xiv) _Segregation in Theory and Practice_.................... 226 _Segregation: An Assessment_............................ 231 9. THE POSTWAR NAVY....................................... 234 _The Steward's Branch_.................................. 238 _Black Officers_........................................ 243 _Public Image and the Problem of Numbers_............... 248 10. THE POSTWAR MARINE CORPS.............................. 253 _Racial Quotas and Assignments_......................... 253 _Recruitment_........................................... 257 _Segregation and Efficiency_............................ 261 _Toward Integration_.................................... 266 11. THE POSTWAR AIR FORCE................................. 270 _Segregation and Efficiency_............................ 271 _Impulse for Change_.................................... 280 12. THE PRESIDENT INTERVENES.............................. 291 _The Truman Administration and Civil Rights_............ 292 _Civil Rights and the Department of Defense_............ 297 _Executive Order 9981_.................................. 309 13. SERVICE INTERESTS VERSUS PRESIDENTIAL INTENT.......... 315 _Public Reaction to Executive Order 9981_............... 315 _The Army: Segregation on the Defensive_................ 318 _A Different Approach_.................................. 326 _The Navy: Business as Usual_........................... 331 _Adjustments in the Marine Corps_....................... 334 _The Air Force Plans for Limited Integration_........... 338 14. THE FAHY COMMITTEE VERSUS THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE... 343 _The Committee's Recommendations_....................... 348 _A Summer of Discontent_................................ 362 _Assignments_........................................... 368 _Quotas_................................................ 371 _An Assessment_......................................... 375 15. THE ROLE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, 1949-1951....... 379 _Overseas Restrictions_................................. 385 _Congressional Concerns_................................ 389 16. INTEGRATION IN THE AIR FORCE AND THE NAVY............. 397 _The Air Force, 1949-1951_.............................. 397 _The Navy and Executive Order 9981_..................... 412 17. THE ARMY INTEGRATES................................... 428 _Race and Efficiency: 1950_............................. 428 _Training_.............................................. 434 _Performance of Segregated Units_....................... 436 _Final Arguments_....................................... 440 _Integration of the Eighth Army_........................ 442 _Integration of the European and Continental Commands_.. 448 (p. xv) 18. INTEGRATION OF THE MARINE CORPS....................... 460 _Impetus for Change_.................................... 461 _Assignments_........................................... 466 19. A NEW ERA BEGINS...................................... 473 _The Civil Rights Revolution_........................... 474 _Limitations on Executive Order 9981_................... 479 _Integration of Navy Shipyards_......................... 483 _Dependent Children and Integrated Schools_............. 487 20. LIMITED RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION.................... 501 _The Kennedy Administration and Civil Rights_........... 504 _The Department of Defense, 1961-1963_.................. 510 _Discrimination Off the Military Reservation_........... 511 _Reserves and Regulars: A Comparison_................... 517 21. EQUAL TREATMENT AND OPPORTUNITY REDEFINED............. 530 _The Secretary Makes a Decision_........................ 530 _The Gesell Committee_.................................. 535 _Reaction to a New Commitment_.......................... 545 _The Gesell Committee: Final Report_.................... 552 22. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE MILITARY COMMUNITY........... 556 _Creating a Civil Rights Apparatus_..................... 558 _Fighting Discrimination Within the Services_........... 566 23. FROM VOLUNTARY COMPLIANCE TO SANCTIONS................ 581 _Development of Voluntary Action Programs_.............. 581 _Civil Rights, 1964-1966_............................... 586 _The Civil Rights Act and Voluntary Compliance_......... 590 _The Limits of Voluntary Compliance_.................... 593 24. CONCLUSION............................................ 609 _Why the Services Integrated_........................... 609 _How the Services Integrated, 1946-1954_................ 614 _Equal Treatment and Opportunity_....................... 619 NOTE ON SOURCES........................................... 625 INDEX..................................................... 635 Illustrations Crewmen of the USS _Miami_ During the Civil War............. 4 Buffalo Soldiers............................................ 5 Integration in the Army of 1888............................. 9 Gunner's Gang on the USS _Maine_........................... 10 (p. xvi) General John J. (Black Jack) Pershing Inspects Troops...... 11 Heroes of the 369th Infantry, February 1919................ 13 Judge William H. Hastie.................................... 20 General George C. Marshall and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson............................................... 21 Engineer Construction Troops in Liberia, July 1942......... 26 Labor Battalion Troops in the Aleutian Islands, May 1943... 27 Sergeant Addressing the Line............................... 28 Pilots of the 332d Fighter Group........................... 29 Service Club, Fort Huachuca................................ 35 93d Division Troops in Bougainville, April 1944............ 44 Gun Crew of Battery B, 598th Field Artillery, September 1944........................................... 47 Tankers of the 761st Medium Tank Battalion Prepare for Action................................................... 48 WAAC Replacements.......................................... 50 Volunteers for Combat in Training.......................... 53 Road Repairmen............................................. 56 Mess Attendant, First Class, Dorie Miller Addressing Recruits at Camp Smalls.................................. 60 Admiral Ernest J. King and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox..................................................... 61 Crew Members of USS _Argonaut_, Pearl Harbor, 1942......... 62 Messmen Volunteer as Gunners, July 1942.................... 65 Electrician Mates String Power Lines....................... 68 Laborers at Naval Ammunition Depot......................... 73 Seabees in the South Pacific............................... 74 Lt. Comdr. Christopher S. Sargent.......................... 76 USS _Mason_................................................ 78 First Black Officers in the Navy........................... 81 Lt. (jg.) Harriet Ida Pickens and Ens. Frances Wills....... 88 Sailors in the General Service............................. 89 Security Watch in the Marianas............................. 90 Specialists Repair Aircraft................................ 93 The 22d Special Construction Battalion Celebrates V-J Day.. 97 Marines of the 51st Defense Battalion, Montford Point, 1942............................................. 102 Shore Party in Training, Camp Lejeune, 1942............... 105 D-day on Peleliu.......................................... 106 Medical Attendants at Rest, Peleliu, October 1944......... 107 Gun Crew of the 52d Defense Battalion..................... 110 Crewmen of USCG Lifeboat Station, Pea Island, North Carolina................................................ 112 Coast Guard Recruits at Manhattan Beach Training Station, New York....................................... 113 Stewards at Battle Station on the Cutter _Campbell_....... 117 Shore Leave in Scotland................................... 118 Lt. Comdr. Carlton Skinner and Crew of the USS _Sea Cloud_............................................. 120 Ens. Joseph J. Jenkins and Lt. (jg.) Clarence Samuels..... 121 President Harry S. Truman Addressing the NAACP Convention.............................................. 127 Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy................. 130 Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War Truman K. Gibson.... 131 (p. xvii) Company I, 370th Infantry, 92d Division, Advances Through Cascina, Italy.................................. 134 92d Division Engineers Prepare a Ford for Arno River Traffic................................................. 136 Lester Granger Interviewing Sailors....................... 146 Granger With Crewmen of a Naval Yard Craft................ 147 Lt. Gen. Alvan C. Gillem, U.S. Army....................... 154 Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson...................... 162 Admiral Louis E. Denfeld, U.S. Navy....................... 167 General Gerald C. Thomas, U.S. Marine Corps............... 172 Lt. Gen. Willard S. Paul.................................. 178 Adviser to the Secretary of War Marcus Ray................ 184 Lt. Gen. Robert L. Eichelberger Inspects 24th Infantry Troops.................................................. 191 Army Specialists Report for Airborne Training............. 200 Bridge Players, Seaview Service Club, Tokyo, Japan, 1948............................................. 203 24th Infantry Band, Gifu, Japan, 1947..................... 214 Lt. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner Inspects the 529th Military Police Company................................. 216 Reporting to Kitzingen.................................... 218 Inspection by the Chief of Staff.......................... 228 Brig. Gen. Benjamin O. Davis, Sr.......................... 230 Shore Leave in Korea...................................... 236 Mess Attendants, USS _Bushnell_, 1918..................... 239 Mess Attendants, USS _Wisconsin_, 1953.................... 240 Lt. Comdr. Dennis D. Nelson II............................ 244 Naval Unit Passes in Review, Naval Advanced Base, Bremerhaven, Germany.................................... 249 Submariner................................................ 251 Marine Artillery Team..................................... 254 2d Lt. and Mrs. Frederick C. Branch....................... 267 Training Exercises........................................ 269 Damage Inspection......................................... 272 Col. Noel F. Parrish...................................... 274 Officers' Softball Team................................... 276 Checking Ammunition....................................... 278 Squadron F, 318th AAF Battalion, in Review................ 281 Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., Commander, 477th Composite Group, 1945............................................. 285 Lt. Gen. Idwal H. Edwards................................. 287 Col. Jack F. Marr......................................... 288 Walter F. White........................................... 295 Truman's Civil Rights Campaign............................ 297 A. Philip Randolph........................................ 300 National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 April 1948.................................................... 306 MP's Hitch a Ride......................................... 320 Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall Reviews Military Police Battalion............................... 323 Spring Formal Dance, Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, 1952.......................................... 327 Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal................... 330 General Clifton B. Cates.................................. 335 (p. xviii) 1st Marine Division Drill Team on Exhibition.............. 337 Secretary of the Air Force W. Stuart Symington............ 340 Secretary of Defense Louis C. Johnson..................... 347 Fahy Committee With President Truman and Armed Services Secretaries............................................. 349 E. W. Kenworthy........................................... 353 Charles Fahy.............................................. 354 Roy K. Davenport.......................................... 355 Press Notice.............................................. 361 Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray......................... 370 Chief of Staff of the Army J. Lawton Collins.............. 371 "No Longer a Dream"....................................... 377 Navy Corpsman in Korea.................................... 382 25th Division Troops in Japan............................. 388 Assistant Secretary of Defense Anna M. Rosenberg.......... 391 Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Eugene M. Zuckert.... 402 Music Makers.............................................. 408 Maintenance Crew, 462d Strategic Fighter Squadron......... 410 Jet Mechanics............................................. 411 Christmas in Korea, 1950.................................. 417 Rearming at Sea........................................... 418 Broadening Skills......................................... 419 Integrated Stewards Class Graduates, Great Lakes, 1953.... 423 WAVE Recruits, Naval Training Center, Bainbridge, Maryland, 1953.......................................... 425 Rear Adm. Samuel L. Gravely, Jr........................... 426 Moving Up................................................. 431 Men of Battery A, 159th Field Artillery Battalion......... 433 Survivors of an Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon, 24th Infantry.................................. 438 General Matthew B. Ridgway, Far East Commander............ 444 Machine Gunners of Company L, 14th Infantry, Hill 931, Korea................................................... 446 Color Guard, 160th Infantry, Korea, 1952.................. 448 Visit With the Commander.................................. 454 Brothers Under the Skin................................... 455 Marines on the Kansas Line, Korea......................... 465 Marine Reinforcements..................................... 466 Training Exercises on Iwo Jima, March 1954................ 469 Marines From Camp Lejeune................................. 470 Lt. Col. Frank E. Petersen, Jr............................ 471 Sergeant Major Edgar R. Huff.............................. 472 Clarence Mitchell......................................... 475 Congressman Adam Clayton Powell........................... 484 Secretary of the Navy Robert B. Anderson.................. 486 Reading Class in the Military Dependents School, Yokohama. 495 Civil Rights Leaders at the White House................... 503 President John F. Kennedy and President Jorge Allessandri. 509 (p. xix) Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara................... 516 Adam Yarmolinsky.......................................... 532 James C. Evans............................................ 533 The Gesell Committee Meets With the President............. 541 Alfred B. Fitt............................................ 547 Arriving in Vietnam....................................... 560 Digging In................................................ 562 Listening to the Squad Leader............................. 567 Supplying the Seventh Fleet............................... 576 USAF Ground Crew, Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Vietnam.......... 580 Fighter Pilots on the Line................................ 583 Medical Examination....................................... 589 Auto Pilot Shop........................................... 594 Submarine Tender Duty..................................... 600 First Aid................................................. 606 Vietnam Patrol............................................ 611 Marine Engineers in Vietnam............................... 613 Loading a Rocket Launcher................................. 615 American Sailors Help Evacuate a Vietnamese Child......... 618 Booby Trap Victim from Company B, 47th Infantry........... 619 Camaraderie............................................... 622 All illustrations are from the files of the Department of Defense and the National Archives and Records Service with the exception of the pictures on pages 6 and 10, courtesy of William G. Bell; on page 20, by Fabian Bachrach, courtesy of Judge William H. Hastie; on page 120, courtesy of Carlton Skinner; on page 297, courtesy of the Washington _Star_, on page 361, courtesy of the _Afro-American_ Newspapers; on page 377, courtesy of the Sengstacke Newspapers; and on page 475, courtesy of the Washington Bureau of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Tables _No._ 1. Classification of All Men Tested From March 1941 Through December 1942........................................... 25 2. AGCT Percentages in Selected World War II Divisions.... 138 3. Percentage of Black Enlisted Men and Women............. 395 4. Disposition of Black Personnel at Eight Air Force Bases, 1949............................................ 403 5. Racial Composition of Air Force Units.................. 404 6. Black Strength in the Air Force........................ 405 7. Racial Composition of the Training Command, December 1949.......................................... 406 8. Black Manpower, U.S. Navy.............................. 416 (p. xx) 9. Worldwide Distribution of Enlisted Personnel by Race, October 1952........................................... 458 10. Distribution of Black Enlisted Personnel by Branch and Rank, 31 October 1952............................. 458 11. Black Marines, 1949-1955.............................. 463 12. Defense Installations With Segregated Public Schools.. 491 13. Black Strength in the Armed Forces for Selected Years. 522 14. Estimated Percentage Distribution of Draft-Age Males in U.S. Population by AFQT Groups............... 523 15. Rate of Men Disqualified for Service in 1962.......... 523 16. Rejection Rates for Failure To Pass Armed Forces Mental Test, 1962..................................... 524 17. Nonwhite Inductions and First Enlistments, Fiscal Years 1953-1962....................................... 525 18. Distribution of Enlisted Personnel in Each Major Occupation, 1956...................................... 525 19. Occupational Group Distribution by Race, All DOD, 1962.................................................. 525 20. Occupational Group Distribution of Enlisted Personnel by Length of Service, and Race.............. 526 21. Percentage Distribution of Navy Enlisted Personnel by Race, AFQT Groups and Occupational Areas, and Length of Service, 1962............................... 526 22. Percentage Distribution of Blacks and Whites by Pay Grade, All DOD, 1962.................................. 527 23. Percentage Distribution of Navy Enlisted Personnel by Race, AFQT Groups, Pay Grade, and Length of Service, 1962......................................... 528 24. Black Percentages, 1962-1968.......................... 568 25. Rates for First Reenlistments, 1964-1967.............. 569 26. Black Attendance at the Military Academies, July 1968. 569 27. Army and Air Force Commissions Granted at Predominately Black Schools........................... 570 28. Percentage of Negroes in Certain Military Ranks, 1964-1966............................................. 571 29. Distribution of Servicemen in Occupational Groups by Race, 1967......................................... 573 INTEGRATION OF THE ARMED FORCES (p. 001) 1940-1965 CHAPTER 1 (p. 003) Introduction In the quarter century that followed American entry into World War II, the nation's armed forces moved from the reluctant inclusion of a few segregated Negroes to their routine acceptance in a racially integrated military establishment. Nor was this change confined to military installations. By the time it was over, the armed forces had redefined their traditional obligation for the welfare of their members to include a promise of equal treatment for black servicemen wherever they might be. In the name of equality of treatment and opportunity, the Department of Defense began to challenge racial injustices deeply rooted in American society. For all its sweeping implications, equality in the armed forces obviously had its pragmatic aspects. In one sense it was a practical answer to pressing political problems that had plagued several national administrations. In another, it was the services' expression of those liberalizing tendencies that were permeating American society during the era of civil rights activism. But to a considerable extent the policy of racial equality that evolved in this quarter century was also a response to the need for military efficiency. So easy did it become to demonstrate the connection between inefficiency and discrimination that, even when other reasons existed, military efficiency was the one most often evoked by defense officials to justify a change in racial policy. _The Armed Forces Before 1940_ Progress toward equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces was an uneven process, the result of sporadic and sometimes conflicting pressures derived from such constants in American society as prejudice and idealism and spurred by a chronic shortage of military manpower. In his pioneering study of race relations, Gunnar Myrdal observes that ideals have always played a dominant role in the social dynamics of America.[1-1] By extension, the ideals that helped involve the nation in many of its wars also helped produce important changes in the treatment of Negroes by the armed forces. The democratic spirit embodied in the Declaration of Independence, for example, opened the Continental Army to many Negroes, holding out to them the promise of eventual freedom.[1-2] [Footnote 1-1: Gunnar Myrdal, _The American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy_, rev. ed. (New York: Harper Row, 1962), p. lxi.] [Footnote 1-2: Benjamin Quarles, _The Negro in the American Revolution_ (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), pp. 182-85. The following brief summary of the Negro in the pre-World War II Army is based in part on the Quarles book and Roland C. McConnell, _Negro Troops of Antebellum Louisiana: A History of the Battalion of Free Men of Color_ (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968); Dudley T. Cornish, _Sable Arm: Negro Troops in the Union Army, 1861-1865_ (New York: Norton, 1966); William H. Leckie, _The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of the Negro Cavalry in the West_ (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969); William Bruce White, "The Military and the Melting Pot: The American Army and Minority Groups, 1865-1924" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1968); Marvin E. Fletcher, _The Black Soldier and Officer in the United States Army, 1891-1917_ (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974); Arthur E. Barbeau and Florette Henri, _Unknown Soldiers: Black American Troops in World War I_ (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1974). For a general survey of black soldiers in America's wars, see Jack Foner, _Blacks and the Military in American History: A New Perspective_ (New York: Praeger, 1974).] Yet the fact that the British themselves were taking large numbers (p. 004) of Negroes into their ranks proved more important than revolutionary idealism in creating a place for Negroes in the American forces. Above all, the participation of both slaves and freedmen in the Continental Army and the Navy was a pragmatic response to a pressing need for fighting men and laborers. Despite the fear of slave insurrection shared by many colonists, some 5,000 Negroes, the majority from New England, served with the American forces in the Revolution, often in integrated units, some as artillerymen and musicians, the majority as infantrymen or as unarmed pioneers detailed to repair roads and bridges. Again, General Jackson's need for manpower at New Orleans explains the presence of the Louisiana Free Men of Color in the last great battle of the War of 1812. In the Civil War the practical needs of the Union Army overcame the Lincoln administration's fear of alienating the border states. When the call for volunteers failed to produce the necessary men, Negroes were recruited, generally as laborers at first but later for combat. In all, 186,000 Negroes served in the Union Army. In addition to those in the sixteen segregated combat regiments and the labor units, thousands also served unofficially as laborers, teamsters, and cooks. Some 30,000 Negroes served in the Navy, about 25 percent of its total Civil War strength. The influence of the idealism fostered by the abolitionist crusade should not be overlooked. It made itself felt during the early months of the war in the demands of Radical Republicans and some Union generals for black enrollment, and it brought about the postwar establishment of black units in the Regular Army. In 1866 Congress authorized the creation of permanent, all-black units, which in 1869 were designated the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry. [Illustration: CREWMEN OF THE USS MIAMI DURING THE CIVIL WAR] Military needs and idealistic impulses were not enough to guarantee uninterrupted racial progress; in fact, the status of black servicemen tended to reflect the changing patterns in American race relations. During most of the nineteenth century, for example, Negroes served in an integrated U.S. Navy, in the latter half of the century averaging between 20 and 30 percent of the enlisted strength.[1-3] But the employment of Negroes in the Navy was abruptly curtailed after 1900. Paralleling the rise of Jim Crow and legalized segregation (p. 005) in much of America was the cutback in the number of black sailors, who by 1909 were mostly in the galley and the engine room. In contrast to their high percentage of the ranks in the Civil War and Spanish-American War, only 6,750 black sailors, including twenty-four women reservists (yeomanettes), served in World War I; they constituted 1.2 percent of the Navy's total enlistment.[1-4] Their service was limited chiefly to mess duty and coal passing, the latter becoming increasingly rare as the fleet changed from coal to oil. [Footnote 1-3: Estimates vary; exact racial statistics concerning the nineteenth century Navy are difficult to locate. See Enlistment of Men of Colored Race, 23 Jan 42, a note appended to Hearings Before the General Board of the Navy, 1942, Operational Archives, Department of the Navy (hereafter OpNavArchives). The following brief summary of the Negro in the pre-World War II Navy is based in part on Foner's _Blacks and the Military in American History_ as well as Harold D. Langley, "The Negro in the Navy and Merchant Service, 1798-1860," _Journal of Negro History_ 52 (October 1967):273-86; Langley's _Social Reform in the United States Navy 1798-1862_, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1967) Peter Karsten, _The Naval Aristocracy: The Golden Age of Annapolis and the Emergence of Modern American Navalism_ (New York: The Free Press, 1972); Frederick S. Harrod, _Manning the New Navy: The Development of a Modern Naval Enlisted Force, 1899-1940_ (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1978).] [Footnote 1-4: Ltr, Rear Adm C. W. Nimitz, Actg Chief, Bureau of Navigation, to Rep. Hamilton Fish, 17 Jun 37, A9-10, General Records of the Department of the Navy (hereafter GenRecsNav).] [Illustration: BUFFALO SOLDIERS. (_Frederick Remington's 1888 sketch._)] When postwar enlistment was resumed in 1923, the Navy recruited Filipino stewards instead of Negroes, although a decade later it reopened the branch to black enlistment. Negroes quickly took advantage of this limited opportunity, their numbers rising from 441 in 1932 to 4,007 in June 1940, when they constituted 2.3 percent of the Navy's 170,000 total.[1-5] Curiously enough, because black (p. 006) reenlistment in combat or technical specialties had never been barred, a few black gunner's mates, torpedomen, machinist mates, and the like continued to serve in the 1930's. [Footnote 1-5: Memo, H. A. Badt, Bureau of Navigation, for Officer in Charge, Public Relations, 24 Jul 40, sub: Negroes in U.S. Navy, Nav-641, Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel (hereafter BuPersRecs).] Although the Army's racial policy differed from the Navy's, the resulting limited, separate service for Negroes proved similar. The laws of 1866 and 1869 that guaranteed the existence of four black Regular Army regiments also institutionalized segregation, granting federal recognition to a system racially separate and theoretically equal in treatment and opportunity a generation before the Supreme Court sanctioned such a distinction in _Plessy_ v. _Ferguson_.[1-6] So important to many in the black community was this guaranteed existence of the four regiments that had served with distinction against the frontier Indians that few complained about segregation. In fact, as historian Jack Foner has pointed out, black leaders sometimes interpreted demands for integration as attempts to eliminate black soldiers altogether.[1-7] [Footnote 1-6: 163 U.S. 537 (1896). In this 1896 case concerning segregated seating on a Louisiana railroad, the Supreme Court ruled that so long as equality of accommodation existed, segregation could not in itself be considered discriminatory and therefore did not violate the equal rights provision of the Fourteenth Amendment. This "separate but equal" doctrine would prevail in American law for more than half a century.] [Footnote 1-7: Foner, _Blacks and the Military in American History_, p. 66.] The Spanish-American War marked a break with the post-Civil War tradition of limited recruitment. Besides the 3,339 black regulars, approximately 10,000 black volunteers served in the Army during (p. 007) the conflict. World War I was another exception, for Negroes made up nearly 11 percent of the Army's total strength, some 404,000 officers and men.[1-8] The acceptance of Negroes during wartime stemmed from the Army's pressing need for additional manpower. Yet it was no means certain in the early months of World War I that this need for men would prevail over the reluctance of many leaders to arm large groups of Negroes. Still remembered were the 1906 Brownsville affair, in which men of the 25th Infantry had fired on Texan civilians, and the August 1917 riot involving members of the 24th Infantry at Houston, Texas.[1-9] Ironically, those idealistic impulses that had operated in earlier wars were operating again in this most Jim Crow of administrations.[1-10] Woodrow Wilson's promise to make the world safe for democracy was forcing his administration to admit Negroes to the Army. Although it carefully maintained racially separate draft calls, the National Army conscripted some 368,000 Negroes, 13.08 percent of all those drafted in World War I.[1-11] [Footnote 1-8: Ulysses Lee, _The Employment of Negro Troops_, United States Army in World War II (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966), p. 5. See also Army War College Historical Section, "The Colored Soldier in the U.S. Army," May 1942, p. 22, copy in CMH.] [Footnote 1-9: For a modern analysis of the two incidents and the effect of Jim Crow on black units before World War I, see John D. Weaver, _The Brownsville Raid_ (New York: W. W. Norton Co., 1970); Robert V. Haynes, _A Night of Violence: The Houston Riot of 1917_ (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1976).] [Footnote 1-10: On the racial attitudes of the Wilson administration, see Nancy J. Weiss, "The Negro and the New Freedom: Fighting Wilsonian Segregation," _Political Science Quarterly_ 84 (March 1969):61-79.] [Footnote 1-11: _Special Report of the Provost Marshal General on Operations of the Selective Service System to December 1918_ (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1919), p. 193.] Black assignments reflected the opinion, expressed repeatedly in Army staff studies throughout the war, that when properly led by whites, blacks could perform reasonably well in segregated units. Once again Negroes were called on to perform a number of vital though unskilled jobs, such as construction work, most notably in sixteen specially formed pioneer infantry regiments. But they also served as frontline combat troops in the all-black 92d and 93d Infantry Divisions, the latter serving with distinction among the French forces. Established by law and tradition and reinforced by the Army staff's conviction that black troops had not performed well in combat, segregation survived to flourish in the postwar era.[1-12] The familiar practice of maintaining a few black units was resumed in the Regular Army, with the added restriction that Negroes were totally excluded from the Air Corps. The postwar manpower retrenchments common to all Regular Army units further reduced the size of the remaining black units. By June 1940 the number of Negroes on active duty stood at approximately 4,000 men, 1.5 percent of the Army's total, about the same proportion as Negroes in the Navy.[1-13] [Footnote 1-12: The development of post-World War I policy is discussed in considerable detail in Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, Chapters I and II. See also U.S. Army War College Miscellaneous File 127-1 through 127-23 and 127-27, U.S. Army Military History Research Collection, Carlisle Barracks (hereafter AMHRC).] [Footnote 1-13: The 1940 strength figure is extrapolated from Misc Div, AGO, Returns Sec, 9 Oct 39-30 Nov 41. The figures do not include some 3,000 Negroes in National Guard units under state control.] _Civil Rights and the Law in 1940_ (p. 008) The same constants in American society that helped decide the status of black servicemen in the nineteenth century remained influential between the world wars, but with a significant change.[1-14] Where once the advancing fortunes of Negroes in the services depended almost exclusively on the good will of white progressives, their welfare now became the concern of a new generation of black leaders and emerging civil rights organizations. Skilled journalists in the black press and counselors and lobbyists presenting such groups as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Urban League, and the National Negro Congress took the lead in the fight for racial justice in the United States. They represented a black community that for the most part lacked the cohesion, political awareness, and economic strength which would characterize it in the decades to come. Nevertheless, Negroes had already become a recognizable political force in some parts of the country. Both the New Deal politicians and their opponents openly courted the black vote in the 1940 presidential election. [Footnote 1-14: This discussion of civil rights in the pre-World War II period draws not only on Lee's _Employment of Negro Troops_, but also on Lee Finkle, _Forum for Protest: The Black Press During World War II_ (Cranbury: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1975); Harvard Sitkoff, "Racial Militancy and Interracial Violence in the Second World War," _Journal of American History_ 58 (December 1971):661-81; Reinhold Schumann, "The Role of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the Integration of the Armed Forces According to the NAACP Collection in the Library of Congress" (1971), in CMH; Richard M. Dalfiume, _Desegregation of the United States Armed Forces: Fighting on Two Fronts, 1939-1953_ (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1969).] These politicians realized that the United States was beginning to outgrow its old racial relationships over which Jim Crow had reigned, either by law or custom, for more than fifty years. In large areas of the country where lynchings and beatings were commonplace, white supremacy had existed as a literal fact of life and death.[1-15] More insidious than the Jim Crow laws were the economic deprivation and dearth of educational opportunity associated with racial discrimination. Traditionally the last hired, first fired, Negroes suffered all the handicaps that came from unemployment and poor jobs, a condition further aggravated by the Great Depression. The "separate but equal" educational system dictated by law and the realities of black life in both urban and rural areas, north and south, had proved anything but equal and thus closed to Negroes a traditional avenue to advancement in American society. [Footnote 1-15: The Jim Crow era is especially well described in Rayford W. Logan's _The Negro in American Life and Thought: The Nadir, 1877-1901_ (New York: Dial, 1954) and C. Vann Woodward's _The Strange Career of Jim Crow_, 3d ed. rev. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974)] In these circumstances, the economic and humanitarian programs of the New Deal had a special appeal for black America. Encouraged by these programs and heartened by Eleanor Roosevelt's public support of civil rights, black voters defected from their traditional allegiance to the Republican Party in overwhelming numbers. But the civil rights leaders were already aware, if the average black citizen was not, that despite having made some considerable improvements Franklin Roosevelt never, in one biographer's words, "sufficiently challenged Southern (p. 009) traditions of white supremacy to create problems for himself."[1-16] Negroes, in short, might benefit materially from the New Deal, but they would have to look elsewhere for advancement of their civil rights. [Footnote 1-16: Frank Freidel, _F.D.R. and the South_ (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965), pp. 71-102. See also Bayard Rustin, _Strategies for Freedom: The Changing Patterns of Black Protest_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), p. 16.] Men like Walter F. White of the NAACP and the National Urban League's T. Arnold Hill sought to use World War II to expand opportunities for the black American. From the start they tried to translate the idealistic sentiment for democracy stimulated by the war and expressed in the Atlantic Charter into widespread support for civil rights in the United States. At the same time, in sharp contrast to many of their World War I predecessors, they placed a price on black support for the war effort: no longer could the White House expect this sizable minority to submit to injustice and yet close ranks with other Americans to defeat a common enemy. It was readily apparent to the Negro, if not to his white supporter or his enemy, that winning equality at home was just as important as advancing the cause of freedom abroad. As George S. Schuyler, a widely quoted black columnist, put it: "If nothing more comes out of this emergency than the widespread understanding among white leaders that the Negro's loyalty is conditional, we shall not have suffered in vain."[1-17] The NAACP spelled out the challenge even more clearly in its monthly publication, _The Crisis_, which declared itself "sorry for brutality, blood, and death among the peoples of Europe, just as we were sorry for China and Ethiopia. But the hysterical cries of the preachers of democracy for Europe leave us cold. We want democracy in Alabama, Arkansas, in Mississippi and Michigan, in the District of Columbia--in the _Senate of the United States_."[1-18] [Footnote 1-17: Pittsburgh _Courier_, December 21, 1940.] [Footnote 1-18: _The Crisis_ 47 (July 1940):209.] This sentiment crystallized in the black press's Double V campaign, a call for simultaneous victories over Jim Crow at home and fascism abroad. Nor was the Double V campaign limited to a small group of civil rights spokesmen; rather, it reflected a new mood that, as Myrdal pointed out, was permeating all classes of black society.[1-19] The quickening of the black masses in the cause of equal treatment and opportunity in the pre-World War II period and the willingness of Negroes to adopt a more militant course to achieve this end might well mark the beginning of the modern civil rights movement. [Footnote 1-19: Myrdal, _American Dilemma_, p. 744.] [Illustration: INTEGRATION IN THE ARMY OF 1888. _The Army Band at Fort Duchesne, Utah, composed of soldiers from the black 9th Cavalry and the white 21st Infantry._] Historian Lee Finkle has suggested that the militancy advocated by most of the civil rights leaders in the World War II era was merely a rhetorical device; that for the most part they sought to avoid violence over segregation, concentrating as before on traditional methods of protest.[1-20] This reliance on traditional methods was apparent when the leaders tried to focus the new sentiment among Negroes on two war-related goals: equality of treatment in the armed forces and equality of job opportunity in the expanding defense industries. In 1938 the Pittsburgh _Courier_, the largest and one (p. 010) of the most influential of the nation's black papers, called upon the President to open the services to Negroes and organized the Committee for Negro Participation in the National Defense Program. These moves led to an extensive lobbying effort that in time spread to many other newspapers and local civil rights groups. The black press and its satellites also attracted the support of several national organizations that were promoting preparedness for war, and these groups, in turn, began to demand equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces.[1-21] [Footnote 1-20: Lee Finkle, "The Conservative Aims of Militant Rhetoric: Black Protest During World War II," _Journal of American History_ 60 (December 1973):693.] [Footnote 1-21: Some impression of the extent of this campaign and its effect on the War Department can be gained from the volume of correspondence produced by the Pittsburgh _Courier_ campaign and filed in AG 322.99 (2-23-38)(1).] The government began to respond to these pressures before the United States entered World War II. At the urging of the White House the Army announced plans for the mobilization of Negroes, and Congress amended several mobilization measures to define and increase the military training opportunities for Negroes.[1-22] The most important of these legislative amendments in terms of influence on future race relations in the United States were made to the Selective Service Act of 1940. The matter of race played only a small part in the debate on this highly controversial legislation, but during congressional hearings on the bill black spokesmen testified on discrimination against Negroes in the services.[1-23] These witnesses concluded that if the draft law did not provide specific guarantees against it, discrimination would prevail. [Footnote 1-22: The Army's plans and amendments are treated in great detail in Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_.] [Footnote 1-23: Hearings Before the Committee on Military Affairs. House of Representatives, 76th Cong., 3d sess., on H.R. 10132, _Selective Compulsory Military Training and Service_, pp. 585-90.] [Illustration: GUNNER'S GANG ON THE USS MAINE.] A majority in both houses of Congress seemed to agree. During (p. 011) floor debate on the Selective Service Act, Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York proposed an amendment to guarantee to Negroes and other racial minorities the privilege of voluntary enlistment in the armed forces. He sought in this fashion to correct evils described some ten days earlier by Rayford W. Logan, chairman of the Committee for Negro Participation in the National Defense, in testimony before the House Committee on Military Affairs. The Wagner proposal triggered critical comments and questions. Senators John H. Overton and Allen J. Ellender of Louisiana viewed the Wagner amendment as a step toward "mixed" units. Overton, Ellender, and Senator Lister Hill of Alabama proposed that the matter should be "left to the Army." Hill also attacked the amendment because it would allow the enlistment of Japanese-Americans, some of whom he claimed were not loyal to the United States.[1-24] [Footnote 1-24: _Congressional Record_, 76th Cong., 3d sess., vol. 86, p. 10890.] [Illustration: GENERAL PERSHING, AEF COMMANDER, INSPECTS TROOPS _of the 802d (Colored) Pioneer Regiment in France, 1918_.] No filibuster was attempted, and the Wagner amendment passed the Senate easily, 53 to 21. It provided that any person between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five regardless of race or color shall be afforded an opportunity voluntarily to enlist and be inducted into the land and naval forces (including aviation units) of the United States for the training and service prescribed in subsection (b), if he is acceptable to the land or naval forces for such training and service.[1-25] [Footnote 1-25: 54 _U.S. Stat._ 885(1940).] The Wagner amendment was aimed at _volunteers_ for military service. Congressman Hamilton Fish, also of New York, later introduced a similar measure in the House aimed at _draftees_. The Fish (p. 012) amendment passed the House by a margin of 121 to 99 and emerged intact from the House-Senate conference. The law finally read that in the selection and training of men and execution of the law "there shall be no discrimination against any person on account of race or color."[1-26] [Footnote 1-26: Ibid. Fish commanded black troops in World War I. Captain of Company K, Fifteenth New York National Guard (Colored), which subsequently became the 369th Infantry, Fish served in the much decorated 93d Division in the French sector of the Western Front.] [Illustration: HEROES OF THE 369TH INFANTRY. _Winners of the Croix de Guerre arrive in New York Harbor, February 1919._] The Fish amendment had little immediate impact upon the services' racial patterns. As long as official policy permitted separate draft calls for blacks and whites and the officially held definition of discrimination neatly excluded segregation--and both went unchallenged in the courts--segregation would remain entrenched in the armed forces. Indeed, the rigidly segregated services, their ranks swollen by the draft, were a particular frustration to the civil rights forces because they were introducing some black citizens to racial discrimination more pervasive than any they had ever endured in civilian life. Moreover, as the services continued to open bases throughout the country, they actually spread federally sponsored segregation into areas where it had never before existed with the force of law. In the long run, however, the 1940 draft law and subsequent draft legislation had a strong influence on the armed forces' racial policies. They created a climate in which progress could be made toward integration within the services. Although not apparent in 1940, the pressure of a draft-induced flood of black (p. 013) conscripts was to be a principal factor in the separate decisions of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps to integrate their units. _To Segregate Is To Discriminate_ As with all the administration's prewar efforts to increase opportunities for Negroes in the armed forces, the Selective Service Act failed to excite black enthusiasm because it missed the point of black demands. Guarantees of black participation were no longer enough. By 1940 most responsible black leaders shared the goal of an integrated armed forces as a step toward full participation in the benefits and responsibilities of American citizenship. The White House may well have thought that Walter White of the NAACP singlehandedly organized the demand for integration in 1939, but he was merely applying a concept of race relations that had been evolving since World War I. In the face of ever-worsening discrimination, White's generation of civil rights advocates had rejected the idea of the preeminent black leader Booker T. Washington that hope for the future lay in the development of a separate and strong black (p. 014) community. Instead, they gradually came to accept the argument of one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, William E. B. DuBois, that progress was possible only when Negroes abandoned their segregated community to work toward a society open to both black and white. By the end of the 1930's this concept had produced a fundamental change in civil rights tactics and created the new mood of assertiveness that Myrdal found in the black community. The work of White and others marked the beginning of a systematic attack against Jim Crow. As the most obvious practitioner of Jim Crow in the federal government, the services were the logical target for the first battle in a conflict that would last some thirty years. This evolution in black attitudes was clearly demonstrated in correspondence in the 1930's between officials of the NAACP and the Roosevelt administration over equal treatment in the armed forces. The discussion began in 1934 with a series of exchanges between Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur and NAACP Counsel Charles H. Houston and continued through the correspondence between White and the administration in 1937. The NAACP representatives rejected MacArthur's defense of Army policy and held out for a quota guaranteeing that Negroes would form at least 10 percent of the nation's military strength. Their emphasis throughout was on numbers; during these first exchanges, at least, they fought against disbandment of the existing black regiments and argued for similar units throughout the service.[1-27] [Footnote 1-27: See especially Ltr, Houston to CofS, 1 Aug and 29 Aug 34; Ltr, CofS to Houston, 20 Aug 34; Ltr, Maj Gen Edgar T. Conley, Actg AG, USA, to Walter White, 25 Nov 35; Ltr, Houston to Roosevelt, 8 Oct 37; Ltr, Houston to SW, 8 Oct 37. See also Elijah Reynolds, _Colored Soldiers and the Regular Army_ (NAACP Pamphlet, December 10, 1934). All in C-376, NAACP Collection, Library of Congress.] Yet the idea of integration was already strongly implied in Houston's 1934 call for "a more united nation of free citizens,"[1-28] and in February 1937 the organization emphasized the idea in an editorial in _The Crisis_, asking why black and white men could not fight side by side as they had in the Continental Army.[1-29] And when the Army informed the NAACP in September 1939 that more black units were projected for mobilization, White found this solution unsatisfactory because the proposed units would be segregated.[1-30] If democracy was to be defended, he told the President, discrimination must be eliminated from the armed forces. To this end, the NAACP urged Roosevelt to appoint a commission of black and white citizens to investigate discrimination in the Army and Navy and to recommend the removal of racial barriers.[1-31] [Footnote 1-28: Ibid. Ltr, Houston to CofS, 1 Aug 34.] [Footnote 1-29: _The Crisis_ 46 (1939):49, 241, 337.] [Footnote 1-30: Ltr, Presley Holliday to White, 11 Sep 39; Ltr, White to Holliday, 15 Sep 39. Both in C-376, NAACP Collection, LC.] [Footnote 1-31: Ltr, White to Roosevelt, 15 Sep 39, in C-376, NAACP Collection, LC. This letter was later released to the press.] The White House ignored these demands, and on 17 October the secretary to the President, Col. Edwin M. Watson, referred White to a War Department report outlining the new black units being created under presidential authorization. But the NAACP leaders were not to be diverted from the main chance. Thurgood Marshall, then the head of (p. 015) the organization's legal department, recommended that White tell the President "that the NAACP is opposed to the separate units existing in the armed forces at the present time."[1-32] [Footnote 1-32: Memo, Marshall for White, 28 Oct 39; Ltr, Secy to the President to White, 17 Oct 39. Both in C-376, NAACP Collection, LC.] When his associates failed to agree on a reply to the administration, White decided on a face-to-face meeting with the President.[1-33] Roosevelt agreed to confer with White, Hill of the Urban League, and A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the session finally taking place on 27 September 1940. At that time the civil rights officials outlined for the President and his defense assistants what they called the "important phases of the integration of the Negro into military aspects of the national defense program." Central to their argument was the view that the Army and Navy should accept men without regard to race. According to White, the President had apparently never considered the use of integrated units, but after some discussion he seemed to accept the suggestion that the Army could assign black regiments or batteries alongside white units and from there "the Army could 'back into' the formation of units without segregation."[1-34] [Footnote 1-33: Memo, White for Roy Wilkins et al., Oct 39; Ltr, Houston to White, Oct 39; Memo, Wilkins to White, 23 Oct 39. All in C-376, NAACP Collection, LC.] [Footnote 1-34: Walter White, "Conference at White House, Friday, September 27, 11:35 A.M.," Arthur B. Spingarn Papers, Library of Congress. See also White's _A Man Called White_ (New York: Viking Press, 1948), pp. 186-87.] Nothing came of these suggestions. Although the policy announced by the White House subsequent to the meeting contained concessions regarding the employment and distribution of Negroes in the services, it did not provide for integrated units. The wording of the press release on the conference implied, moreover, that the administration's entire program had been approved by White and the others. To have their names associated with any endorsement of segregation was particularly infuriating to these civil rights leaders, who immediately protested to the President.[1-35] The White House later publicly absolved the leaders of any such endorsement, and Press Secretary Early was forced to retract the "damaging impression" that the leaders had in any way endorsed segregation. The President later assured White, Randolph, and Hill that further policy changes would be made to insure fair treatment for Negroes.[1-36] [Footnote 1-35: Ltr, White to Stephen Early, 21 Oct 40. See also Memo, White for R. S. W. [Roy Wilkins], 18 Oct 40. Both in C-376, NAACP Collection, LC. See also Ltr, S. Early to White, 18 Oct 40, Incl to Ltr, White to Spingarn, 24 Oct 40, Spingarn Papers, LC.] [Footnote 1-36: White, _A Man Called White_, pp. 187-88.] Presidential promises notwithstanding, the NAACP set out to make integration of the services a matter of overriding interest to the black community during the war. The organization encountered opposition at first when some black leaders were willing to accept segregated units as the price for obtaining the formation of more all-black divisions. The NAACP stood firm, however, and demanded at its annual convention in 1941 an immediate end to segregation. In a related move symbolizing the growing unity behind the campaign to integrate the military, the leaders of the March on Washington Movement, a group of black activists under A. Philip Randolph, (p. 016) specifically demanded the end of segregation in the Army and Navy. The movement was the first since the days of Marcus Garvey to involve the black masses; in fact Negroes from every social and economic class rallied behind Randolph, ready to demonstrate for equal treatment and opportunity. Although some black papers objected to the movement's militancy, the major civil rights organization showed no such hesitancy. Roy Wilkins, a leader of the NAACP, later claimed that Randolph could supply only about 9,000 potential demonstrators and that the NAACP had provided the bulk of the movement's participants.[1-37] [Footnote 1-37: Roy Wilkins Oral History Interview, Columbia University Oral History Collection. See also A. Philip Randolph, "Why Should We March," _Survey Graphic_ 31 (November 1942), as reprinted in John H. Franklin and Isidore Starr, eds., _The Negro in Twentieth Century America_ (New York: Random House, 1967).] Although Randolph was primarily interested in fair employment practices, the NAACP had been concerned with the status of black servicemen since World War I. Reflecting the degree of NAACP support, march organizers included a discussion of segregation in the services when they talked with President Roosevelt in June 1941. Randolph and the others proposed ways to abolish the separate racial units in each service, charging that integration was being frustrated by prejudiced senior military officials.[1-38] [Footnote 1-38: White, _A Man Called White_, pp. 190-93.] The President's meeting with the march leaders won the administration a reprieve from the threat of a mass civil rights demonstration in the nation's capital, but at the price of promising substantial reform in minority hiring for defense industries and the creation of a federal body, the Fair Employment Practices Committee, to coordinate the reform. While it prompted no similar reform in the racial policies of the armed forces, the March on Washington Movement was nevertheless a significant milestone in the services' racial history.[1-39] It signaled the beginning of a popularly based campaign against segregation in the armed forces in which all the major civil rights organizations, their allies in Congress and the press, and many in the black community would hammer away on a single theme: segregation is unacceptable in a democratic society and hypocritical during a war fought in defense of the four freedoms. [Footnote 1-39: Herbert Garfinkle, _When Negroes March: The March on Washington Movement in the Organizational Politics of FEPC_ (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1959), provides a comprehensive account of the aims and achievements of the movement.] CHAPTER 2 (p. 017) World War II: The Army Civil rights leaders adopted the "Double V" slogan as their rallying cry during World War II. Demanding victory against fascism abroad and discrimination at home, they exhorted black citizens to support the war effort and to fight for equal treatment and opportunity for Negroes everywhere. Although segregation was their main target, their campaign was directed against all forms of discrimination, especially in the armed forces. They flooded the services with appeals for a redress of black grievances and levied similar demands on the White House, Congress, and the courts. Black leaders concentrated on the services because they were public institutions, their officials sworn to uphold the Constitution. The leaders understood, too, that disciplinary powers peculiar to the services enabled them to make changes that might not be possible for other organizations; the armed forces could command where others could only persuade. The Army bore the brunt of this attention, but not because its policies were so benighted. In 1941 the Army was a fairly progressive organization, and few institutions in America could match its record. Rather, the civil rights leaders concentrated on the Army because the draft law had made it the nation's largest employer of minority groups. For its part, the Army resisted the demands, its spokesmen contending that the service's enormous size and power should not be used for social experiment, especially during a war. Further justifying their position, Army officials pointed out that their service had to avoid conflict with prevailing social attitudes, particularly when such attitudes were jealously guarded by Congress. In this period of continuous demand and response, the Army developed a racial policy that remained in effect throughout the war with only superficial modifications sporadically adopted to meet changing conditions. _A War Policy: Reaffirming Segregation_ The experience of World War I cast a shadow over the formation of the Army's racial policy in World War II.[2-1] The chief architects of the new policy, and many of its opponents, were veterans of the first war and reflected in their judgments the passions and prejudices of that era.[2-2] Civil rights activists were determined to eliminate the (p. 018) segregationist practices of the 1917 mobilization and to win a fair representation for Negroes in the Army. The traditionalists of the Army staff, on the other hand, were determined to resist any radical change in policy. Basing their arguments on their evaluation of the performance of the 92d Division and some other black units in World War I, they had made, but not publicized, mobilization plans that recognized the Army's obligation to employ black soldiers yet rigidly maintained the segregationist policy of World War I.[2-3] These plans increased the number of types of black units to be formed and even provided for a wide distribution of the units among all the arms and services except the Army Air Forces and Signal Corps, but they did not explain how the skilled Negro, whose numbers had greatly increased since World War I, could be efficiently used within the limitations of black units. In the name of military efficiency the Army staff had, in effect, devised a social rather than a military policy for the employment of black troops. [Footnote 2-1: This survey of the Army and the Negro in World War II is based principally on Lee's _Employment of Negro Troops_. A comprehensive account of the development of policy, the mobilization of black soldiers, and their use in the various theaters and units of World War II, this book is an indispensable source for any serious student of the subject.] [Footnote 2-2: For examples of how World War I military experiences affected the thinking of the civil rights advocates and military traditionalists of World War II, see Lester B. Granger Oral History Interview, 1960, Columbia University Oral History Collection; Interview, Lee Nichols with Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee (c. 1953). For the influence of World War II on a major contributor to postwar racial policy, see Interview, Lee Nichols with Harry S. Truman, 24 Jun 53. Last two in Nichols Collection, CMH. These interviews are among many compiled by Nichols as part of his program associated with the production of _Breakthrough on the Color Front_ (New York: Random House, 1954). Nichols, a journalist, presented this collection of interviews, along with other documents and materials, to the Center of Military History in 1972. The interviews have proved to be a valuable supplement to the official record. They capture the thoughts of a number of important participants, some no longer alive, at a time relatively close to the events under consideration. They have been checked against the sources whenever possible and found accurate.] [Footnote 2-3: Memo, ACofS, G-3, for CofS, 3 Jun 40, sub: Employment of Negro Manpower, G-3/6541-527.] The White House tried to adjust the conflicting demands of the civil rights leaders and the Army traditionalists. Eager to placate and willing to compromise, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought an accommodation by directing the War Department to provide jobs for Negroes in all parts of the Army. The controversy over integration soon became more public, the opponents less reconcilable; in the weeks following the President's meeting with black representatives on 27 September 1940 the Army countered black demands for integration with a statement released by the White House on 9 October. To provide "a fair and equitable basis" for the use of Negroes in its expansion program, the Army planned to accept Negroes in numbers approximate to their proportion in the national population, about 10 percent. Black officers and enlisted men were to serve, as was then customary, only in black units that were to be formed in each major branch, both combatant and noncombatant, including air units to be created as soon as pilots, mechanics, and technical specialists were trained. There would be no racial intermingling in regimental organizations because the practice of separating white and black troops had, the Army staff said, proved satisfactory over a long period of time. To change would destroy morale and impair preparations for national defense. Since black units in the Army were already "going concerns, accustomed through many years to the present system" of segregation, "no experiments should be tried ... at this critical time."[2-4] [Footnote 2-4: Memo, TAG for CG's et al., 16 Oct 40, sub: War Department Policy in Regard to Negroes, AG 291.21 (10-9-40) M-A-M.] The President's "OK, F.D.R." on the War Department statement (p. 019) transformed what had been a routine prewar mobilization plan into a racial policy that would remain in effect throughout the war. In fact, quickly elevated in importance by War Department spokesmen who made constant reference to the "Presidential Directive," the statement would be used by some Army officials as a presidential sanction for introducing segregation in new situations, as, for example, in the pilot training of black officers in the Army Air Corps. Just as quickly, the civil rights leaders, who had expected more from the tone of the President's own comments and more also from the egalitarian implications of the new draft law, bitterly attacked the Army's policy. Black criticism came at an awkward moment for President Roosevelt, who was entering a heated campaign for an unprecedented third term and whose New Deal coalition included the urban black vote. His opponent, the articulate Wendell L. Willkie, was an unabashed champion of civil rights and was reportedly attracting a wide following among black voters. In the weeks preceding the election the President tried to soften the effect of the Army's announcement. He promoted Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., to brigadier general, thereby making Davis the first Negro to hold this rank in the Regular Army. He appointed the commander of reserve officers' training at Howard University, Col. Campbell C. Johnson, Special Aide to the Director of Selective Service. And, finally, he named Judge William H. Hastie, dean of the Howard University Law School, Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War. A successful lawyer, Judge Hastie entered upon his new assignment with several handicaps. Because of his long association with black causes, some civil rights organizations assumed that Hastie would be their man in Washington and regarded his duties as an extension of their crusade against discrimination. Hastie's War Department superiors, on the other hand, assumed that his was a public relations job and expected him to handle all complaints and mobilization problems as had his World War I predecessor, Emmett J. Scott. Both assumptions proved false. Hastie was evidently determined to break the racial logjam in the War Department, yet unlike many civil rights advocates he seemed willing to pay the price of slow progress to obtain lasting improvement. According to those who knew him, Hastie was confident that he could demonstrate to War Department officials that the Army's racial policies were both inefficient and unpatriotic.[2-5] [Footnote 2-5: The foregoing impressions are derived largely from Interviews, Lee Nichols with James C. Evans, who worked for Judge Hastie during World War II, and Ulysses G. Lee (c. 1953). Both in Nichols Collection, CMH.] Judge Hastie spent his first ten months in office observing what was happening to the Negro in the Army. He did not like what he saw. To him, separating black soldiers from white soldiers was a fundamental error. First, the effect on black morale was devastating. "Beneath the surface," he wrote, "is widespread discontent. Most white persons are unable to appreciate the rancor and bitterness which the Negro, as a matter of self-preservation, has learned to hide beneath a smile, a joke, or merely an impassive face." The inherent paradox of trying to inculcate pride, dignity, and aggressiveness in a black soldier while inflicting on him the segregationist's concept of the Negro's (p. 020) place in society created in him an insupportable tension. Second, segregation wasted black manpower, a valuable military asset. It was impossible, Hastie charged, to employ skilled Negroes at maximum efficiency within the traditionally narrow limitations of black units. Third, to insist on an inflexible separation of white and black soldiers was "the most dramatic evidence of hypocrisy" in America's professed concern for preserving democracy. Although he appreciated the impossibility of making drastic changes overnight, Judge Hastie was disturbed because he found "no apparent disposition to make a beginning or a trial of any different plan." He looked for some form of progressive integration by which qualified Negroes could be classified and assigned, not by race, but as individuals, according to their capacities and abilities.[2-6] [Footnote 2-6: Memo, William H. Hastie for SW, with attachment, 22 Sep 41, sub: Survey and Recommendations Concerning the Integration of the Negro Soldiers Into the Army, G-1/15640-120. See also Intervs, Nichols with Evans and Lee.] [Illustration: JUDGE HASTIE.] Judge Hastie gained little support from the Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, or the Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, when he called for progressive integration. Both considered the Army's segregated units to be in accord with prevailing public sentiment against mixing the races in the intimate association of military life. More to the point, both Stimson and Marshall were sensitive to military tradition, and segregated units had been a part of the Army since 1863. Stimson embraced segregation readily. While conveying to the President that he was "sensitive to the individual tragedy which went with it to the colored man himself," he nevertheless urged Roosevelt not to place "too much responsibility on a race which was not showing initiative in battle."[2-7] Stimson's attitude was not unusual for the times. He professed to believe in civil rights for every citizen, but he opposed social integration. He never tried to reconcile these seemingly inconsistent views; in fact, he probably did not consider them inconsistent. Stimson blamed what he termed Eleanor Roosevelt's "intrusive and impulsive folly" for some of the criticism visited upon the Army's racial policy, just as he inveighed against the "foolish leaders of the colored race" who were seeking "at (p. 021) bottom social equality," which, he concluded, was out of the question "because of the impossibility of race mixture by marriage."[2-8] Influenced by Under Secretary Robert P. Patterson, Assistant Secretary John J. McCloy, and Truman K. Gibson, Jr., who was Judge Hastie's successor, but most of all impressed by the performance of black soldiers themselves, Stimson belatedly modified his defense of segregation. But throughout the war he adhered to the traditional arguments of the Army's professional staff. [Footnote 2-7: Stimson, a Republican, had been appointed by Roosevelt in 1940, along with Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, in an effort to enlist bipartisan support for the administration's foreign policy in an election year. Stimson brought a wealth of experience with him to the office, having served as Secretary of War under William Howard Taft and Secretary of State under Herbert Hoover. The quotations are from Stimson Diary, 25 October 1940, Henry L. Stimson Papers, Yale University Library.] [Footnote 2-8: Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, _On Active Service in Peace and War_ (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1947), pp. 461-64. The quotations are from Stimson Diary, 24 Jan 42.] [Illustration: GENERAL MARSHALL AND SECRETARY STIMSON.] General Marshall was a powerful advocate of the views of the Army staff. He lived up to the letter of the Army's regulations, consistently supporting measures to eliminate overt discrimination in the wartime Army. At the same time, he rejected the idea that the Army should take the lead in altering the racial mores of the nation. Asked for his views on Hastie's "carefully prepared memo,"[2-9] General Marshall admitted that many of the recommendations were sound but said that Judge Hastie's proposals would be tantamount to solving a social problem which has perplexed the American people throughout the history of this nation. The Army cannot accomplish such a solution and (p. 022) should not be charged with the undertaking. The settlement of vexing racial problems cannot be permitted to complicate the tremendous task of the War Department and thereby jeopardize discipline and morale.[2-10] [Footnote 2-9: Memo, USW for CofS, 6 Oct 41, G-1/15640-120.] [Footnote 2-10: Memo, CofS for SW, 1 Dec 41, sub: Report of Judge William H. Hastie, Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War, dated 22 Sep 41, OCS 20602-219.] As Chief of Staff, Marshall faced the tremendous task of creating in haste a large Army to deal with the Axis menace. Since for several practical reasons the bulk of that Army would be trained in the south where its conscripts would be subject to southern laws, Marshall saw no alternative but to postpone reform. The War Department, he said, could not ignore the social relationship between blacks and whites, established by custom and habit. Nor could it ignore the fact that the "level of intelligence and occupational skill" of the black population was considerably below that of whites. Though he agreed that the Army would reach maximum strength only if individuals were placed according to their abilities, he concluded that experiments to solve social problems would be "fraught with danger to efficiency, discipline, and morale." In sum, Marshall saw no reason to change the policy approved by the President less than a year before.[2-11] [Footnote 2-11: Ibid. See also Forrest C. Pogue, _George C. Marshall: Organizer of Victory_ (New York: The Viking Press, 1973), pp. 96-99.] The Army's leaders and the secretary's civilian aide had reached an impasse on the question of policy even before the country entered the war. And though the use of black troops in World War I was not entirely satisfactory even to its defenders,[2-12] there appeared to be no time now, in view of the larger urgency of winning the war, to plan other approaches, try other solutions, or tamper with an institution that had won victory in the past. Further ordering the thoughts of some senior Army officials was their conviction that wide-scale mixing of the races in the services might, as Under Secretary Patterson phrased it, foment social revolution.[2-13] [Footnote 2-12: The Army staff's mobilization planning for black units in the 1930's generally relied upon the detailed testimony of the commanders of black units in World War I. This testimony, contained in documents submitted to the War Department and the Army War College, was often critical of the Army's employment of black troops, although rarely critical of segregation. The material is now located in the U.S. Army's Military History Research Collection, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. For discussion of the post-World War I review of the employment of black troops, see Lee's _Employment of Negro Troops_, Chapter I, and Alan M. Osur's _Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II: The Problem of Race Relations_ (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1977), Chapter I.] [Footnote 2-13: Memo, USW for Maj Gen William Bryden (principal deputy chief of staff), 10 Jan 42, OCS 20602-250.] These opinions were clearly evident on 8 December 1941, the day the United States entered World War II, when the Army's leaders met with a group of black publishers and editors. Although General Marshall admitted that he was not satisfied with the department's progress in racial matters and promised further changes, the conference concluded with a speech by a representative of The Adjutant General who delivered what many considered the final word on integration during the war. The Army is made up of individual citizens of the United States who have pronounced views with respect to the Negro just as they have individual ideas with respect to other matters in their daily walk of life. Military orders, fiat, or dicta, will not change their viewpoints. The Army then cannot be made the (p. 023) means of engendering conflict among the mass of people because of a stand with respect to Negroes which is not compatible with the position attained by the Negro in civil life.... The Army is not a sociological laboratory; to be effective it must be organized and trained according to the principles which will insure success. Experiments to meet the wishes and demands of the champions of every race and creed for the solution of their problems are a danger to efficiency, discipline and morale and would result in ultimate defeat.[2-14] [Footnote 2-14: Col Eugene R. Householder, TAGO, Speech Before Conference of Negro Editors and Publishers, 8 Dec 41, AG 291.21 (12-1-41) (1).] The civil rights advocates refused to concede that the discussion was over. Judge Hastie, along with a sizable segment of the black press, believed that the beginning of a world war was the time to improve military effectiveness by increasing black participation in that war.[2-15] They argued that eliminating segregation was part of the struggle to preserve democracy, the transcendent issue of the war, and they viewed the unvarying pattern of separate black units as consonant with the racial theories of Nazi Germany.[2-16] Their continuing efforts to eliminate segregation and discrimination eventually brought Hastie a sharp reminder from John J. McCloy. "Frankly, I do not think that the basic issues of this war are involved in the question of whether colored troops serve in segregated units or in mixed units and I doubt whether you can convince people of the United States that the basic issues of freedom are involved in such a question." For Negroes, he warned sternly, the basic issue was that if the United States lost the war, the lot of the black community would be far worse off, and some Negroes "do not seem to be vitally concerned about winning the war." What all Negroes ought to do, he counseled, was to give unstinting support to the war effort in anticipation of benefits certain to come after victory.[2-17] [Footnote 2-15: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, ch. VI.] [Footnote 2-16: Noteworthy is the fact that for several reasons not related to race (for instance, language and nationality) the German Army also organized separate units. Its 162d Infantry Division was composed of troops from Turkestan and the Caucasus, and its 5th SS Panzer Division had segregated Scandinavian, Dutch, and Flemish regiments. Unlike the racially segregated U.S. Army, Germany's so-called Ost units were only administratively organized into separate divisions, and an Ost infantry battalion was often integrated into a "regular" German infantry regiment as its fourth infantry battalion. Several allied armies also had segregated units, composed, for example, of Senegalese, Gurkhas, Maoris, and Algerians.] [Footnote 2-17: Memo, ASW for Judge Hastie, 2 Jul 42, ASW 291.2, NT 1942.] Thus very early in World War II, even before the United States was actively engaged, the issues surrounding the use of Negroes in the Army were well defined and the lines sharply drawn. Was segregation, a practice in conflict with the democratic aims of the country, also a wasteful use of manpower? How would modifications of policy come--through external pressure or internal reform? Could traditional organizational and social patterns in the military services be changed during a war without disrupting combat readiness? _Segregation and Efficiency_ In the years before World War II, Army planners never had to consider segregation in terms of manpower efficiency. Conditioned by the experiences of World War I, when the nation had enjoyed a surplus of untapped manpower even at the height of the war, and aware of the overwhelming manpower surplus of the depression years, the staff (p. 024) formulated its mobilization plans with little regard for the economical use of the nation's black manpower. Its decision to use Negroes in proportion to their percentage of the population was the result of political pressures rather than military necessity. Black combat units were considered a luxury that existed to indulge black demands. When the Army began to mobilize in 1940 it proceeded to honor its pledge, and one year after Pearl Harbor there were 399,454 Negroes in the Army, 7.4 percent of the total and 7.95 percent of all enlisted troops.[2-18] [Footnote 2-18: Strength of the Army, 1 Jan 46, STM-30, p. 61.] The effect of segregation on manpower efficiency became apparent only as the Army tried to translate policy into practice. In the face of rising black protest and with direct orders from the White House, the Army had announced that Negroes would be assigned to all arms and branches in the same ratio as whites. Several forces, however, worked against this equitable distribution. During the early months of mobilization the chiefs of those arms and services that had traditionally been all white accepted less than their share of black recruits and thus obliged some organizations, the Quartermaster Corps and the Engineer Corps in particular, to absorb a large percentage of black inductees. The imbalance worsened in 1941. In December of that year Negroes accounted for 5 percent of the Infantry and less than 2 percent each of the Air Corps, Medical Corps, and Signal Corps. The Quartermaster Corps was 15 percent black, the Engineer Corps 25 percent, and unassigned and miscellaneous detachments were 27 percent black. The rejection of black units could not always be ascribed to racism alone. With some justification the arms and services tried to restrict the number and distribution of Negroes because black units measured far below their white counterparts in educational achievement and ability to absorb training, according to the Army General Classification Test (AGCT). The Army had introduced this test system in March 1941 as its principal instrument for the measurement of a soldier's learning ability. Five categories, with the most gifted in category I, were used in classifying the scores made by the soldiers taking the test (_Table 1_). The Army planned to take officers and enlisted specialists from the top three categories and the semiskilled soldiers and laborers from the two lowest. Table 1--Classification of All Men Tested From March 1941 Through December 1942 White Black AGCT Category Number Percentage Number Percentage I 273,626 6.6 1,580 0.4 II 1,154,700 28.0 14,891 3.4 III 1,327,164 32.1 54,302 12.3 IV 1,021,818 24.8 152,725 34.7 V 351,951 8.5 216,664 49.2 Total 4,129,259 100.0 440,162 100.0 _Source_: Tab A, Memo, G-3 for CofS, 10 Apr 43, AG 201.2 (19 Mar 43)(1). Although there was considerable confusion on the subject, basically the Army's mental tests measured educational achievement rather than native intelligence, and in 1941 educational achievement in the United States hinged more on geography and economics than color. Though black and white recruits of comparable educations made comparable scores, the majority of Negroes came from areas of the country where inferior schools combined with economic and cultural poverty to put them at a significant disadvantage.[2-19] Many whites suffered similar (p. 025) disadvantages, and in absolute numbers more whites than blacks appeared in the lower categories. But whereas the Army could distribute the low-scoring white soldiers throughout the service so that an individual unit could easily absorb its few illiterate and semiliterate white men, the Army was obliged to assign an almost equal number of low-scoring Negroes to the relatively few black units where they could neither be absorbed nor easily trained. By the same token, segregation penalized the educated Negro whose talents were likely to be wasted when he was assigned to service units along with the unskilled. [Footnote 2-19: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, pp. 241-57. For an extended discussion of Army test scores and their relation to education, see Department of the Army, _Marginal Man and Military Service: A Review_ (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966). This report was prepared for the Deputy Under Secretary of the Army for Personnel Management by a working group under the leadership of Dr. Samuel King, Office of the Chief of Research and Development.] Segregation further hindered the efficient use of black manpower by complicating the training of black soldiers. Although training facilities were at a premium, the Army was forced to provide its training and replacement centers with separate housing and other facilities. With an extremely limited number of Regular Army Negroes to draw from, the service had to create cadres for the new units and find officers to lead them. Black recruits destined for most arms and services were assured neither units, billets, nor training cadres. The Army's solution to the problem: lower the quotas for black inductees. The use of quotas to regulate inductees by race was itself a source of tension between the Army and the Bureau of Selective Service.[2-20] Selective Service questioned the legality of the whole procedure whereby white and black selectees were delivered on the basis of separate calls; in many areas of the country draft boards were under attack for passing over large numbers of Negroes in order to fill these racial quotas. With the Navy depending exclusively on volunteers, Selective Service had by early 1943 a backlog of 300,000 black registrants who, according to their order numbers, should have been called to service but had been passed over. Selective Service wanted to eliminate the quota system altogether. At the very least it demanded that the Army accept more Negroes to adjust the racial imbalance of the draft rolls. The Army, determined to preserve the quota system, tried to satisfy the Selective Service's minimum demands, making room for more black inductees by forcing its arms (p. 026) and services to create more black units. Again the cost to efficiency was high. [Footnote 2-20: For discussion of how Selective Service channeled manpower into the armed forces, see Selective Service System, Special Monograph Number 10, _Special Groups_ (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1953), ch. VIII, and Special Monograph Number 12, _Quotas, Calls, and Inductions_ (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1948), chs. IV-VI.] Under the pressure of providing sufficient units for Negroes, the organization of units for the sake of guaranteeing vacancies became a major goal. In some cases, careful examination of the usefulness of the types of units provided was subordinated to the need to create units which could receive Negroes. As a result, several types of units with limited military value were formed in some branches for the specific purpose of absorbing otherwise unwanted Negroes. Conversely, certain types of units with legitimate and important military functions were filled with Negroes who could not function efficiently in the tasks to which they were assigned.[2-21] [Footnote 2-21: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, p. 113.] [Illustration: ENGINEER CONSTRUCTION TROOPS IN LIBERIA, JULY 1942.] The practice of creating units for the specific purpose of absorbing Negroes was particularly evident in the Army Air Forces.[2-22] Long considered the most recalcitrant of branches in accepting Negroes, (p. 027) the Air Corps had successfully exempted itself from the allotment of black troops in the 1940 mobilization plans. Black pilots could not be used, Maj. Gen. Henry H. Arnold, Chief of the Air Corps, explained, "since this would result in having Negro officers serving over white enlisted men. This would create an impossible social problem."[2-23] And this situation could not be avoided, since it would take several years to train black mechanics; meanwhile black pilots would have to work with white ground crews, often at distant bases outside their regular chain of command. The Air Corps faced strong opposition (p. 028) when both the civil rights advocates and the rest of the Army attacked this exclusion. The civil rights organizations wanted a place for Negroes in the glamorous Air Corps, but even more to the point the other arms and services wanted this large branch of the Army to absorb its fair share of black recruits, thus relieving the rest of a disproportionate burden. [Footnote 2-22: The Army's air arm was reorganized several times. Designated as the Army Air Corps in 1926 (the successor to the historic Army Air Service), it became the Army Air Forces in the summer of 1941. This designation lasted until a separate U.S. Air Force was created in 1947. Organizationally, the Army was divided in March 1942 into three equal parts: the Army Ground Forces, the Army Service Forces (originally Services of Supply), and the Army Air Forces. This division was administrative. Each soldier continued to be assigned to a branch of the Army, for example, Infantry, Artillery, or Air Corps, a title retained as the name of an Army branch.] [Footnote 2-23: Memo, CofAC for G-3, 31 May 40, sub: Employment of Negro Personnel in Air Corps Units, G-3/6541-Gen-527.] [Illustration: LABOR BATTALION TROOPS IN THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, MAY 1943. _Stevedores pause for a hot meal at Massacre Bay._] [Illustration: SERGEANT ADDRESSING THE LINE. _Aviation squadron standing inspection, 1943._] When the War Department supported these demands the Army Air Forces capitulated. Its 1941 mobilization plans provided for the formation of nine separate black aviation squadrons which would perform the miscellaneous tasks associated with the upkeep of airfields. During the next year the Chief of Staff set the allotment of black recruits for the air arm at a rate that brought over 77,500 Negroes into the Air Corps by 1943. On 16 January 1941 Under Secretary Patterson announced the formation of a black pursuit squadron, but the Army Air Forces, bowing to the opposition typified by General Arnold's comments of the previous year, trained the black pilots in separate facilities at Tuskegee, Alabama, where the Army tried to duplicate the expensive training center established for white officers at Maxwell Field, just forty miles away.[2-24] Black pilots were at first trained exclusively for pursuit flying, a very difficult kind of combat for which a Negro had to qualify both physically and technically or else, in Judge (p. 029) Hastie's words, "not fly at all."[2-25] The 99th Fighter Squadron was organized at Tuskegee in 1941 and sent to the Mediterranean theater in April 1943. By then the all-black 332d Fighter Group with three additional fighter squadrons had been organized, and in 1944 it too was deployed to the Mediterranean. [Footnote 2-24: USAF Oral History Program, Interv with Maj Gen Noel F Parrish (USAF, Ret.), 30 Mar 73.] [Footnote 2-25: William H. Hastie, _On Clipped Wings: The Story of Jim Crow in the Army Air Corps_ (New York: NAACP, 1943). Based on War Department documents and statistics, this famous pamphlet was essentially an attack on the Army Air Corps. For a more comprehensive account of the Negro and the Army Air Forces, see Osur, _Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II_.] [Illustration: PILOTS OF THE 332D FIGHTER GROUP BEING BRIEFED _for combat mission in Italy_.] These squadrons could use only a limited number of pilots, far fewer than those black cadets qualified for such training. All applicants in excess of requirements were placed on an indefinite waiting list where many became overage or were requisitioned for other military and civilian duties. Yet when the Army Air Forces finally decided to organize a black bomber unit, the 477th Bombardment Group, in late 1943, it encountered a scarcity of black pilots and crewmen. Because of the lack of technical and educational opportunities for Negroes in America, fewer blacks than whites were included in the manpower pool, and Tuskegee, already overburdened with its manifold training functions and lacking the means to train bomber crews, was unable to fill the training gap. Sending black cadets to white training schools was one obvious solution; the Army Air Forces chose instead to postpone the operational date of the 477th until its pilots could be trained at Tuskegee. In the end, the 477th was not declared (p. 030) operational until after the war. Even then some compromise with the Army Air Forces' segregation principles was necessary, since Tuskegee could not accommodate B-25 pilot transition and navigator-bombardier training. In 1944 black officers were therefore temporarily assigned to formerly all-white schools for such training. Tuskegee's position as the sole and separate training center for black pilots remained inviolate until its closing in 1946, however, and its graduates, the "Tuskegee Airmen," continued to serve as a powerful symbol of armed forces segregation.[2-26] [Footnote 2-26: For a detailed discussion of the black training program, see Osur, _Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II_, ch. III; Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, pp. 461-66; Charles E. Francis, _The Tuskegee Airmen: The Story of the Negro in the U.S. Air Force_ (Boston Bruce Humphries, 1955).] Training for black officer candidates other than flyers, like that of most officer candidates throughout the Army, was integrated. At first the possibility of integrated training seemed unlikely, for even though Assistant Secretary of War for Air Robert A. Lovett had assured Hastie that officer candidate training would be integrated, the Technical Training Command announced plans in 1942 for a segregated facility. Although the plans were quickly canceled the command's announcement was the immediate cause for Hastie's resignation from the War Department. The Air staff assured the Assistant Secretary of War in January of 1943 that qualified Negroes were being sent to officer candidate schools and to training courses "throughout the school system of the Technical Training Command."[2-27] In fact, Negroes did attend the Air Forces' officer candidate school at Miami Beach, although not in great numbers. In spite of their integrated training, however, most of these black officers were assigned to the predominantly black units at Tuskegee and Godman fields. [Footnote 2-27: Memo, CofAS for ASW, 12 Jan 43, ASW 291.2.] The Army Air Forces found it easier to absorb the thousands of black enlisted men than to handle the black flying squadrons. For the enlisted men it created a series of units with vaguely defined duties, usually common labor jobs operating for the most part under a bulk allotment system that allowed the Air Forces to absorb great numbers of new men. Through 1943 hundreds of these aviation training squadrons, quartermaster truck companies, and engineer aviation and air base security battalions were added to the Air Forces' organization tables. Practically every American air base in the world had its contingent of black troops performing the service duties connected with air operations. The Air Corps, like the Armor and the Artillery branches, was able to form separate squadrons or battalions for black troops, but the Infantry and Cavalry found it difficult to organize the growing number of separate black battalions and regiments. The creation of black divisions was the obvious solution, although this arrangement would run counter to current practice, which was based in part on the Army's experience with the 92d Division in World War I. Convinced of the poor performance of that unit in 1918, the War Department had decided in the 1920's not to form any more black divisions. The regiment would serve as the basic black unit, and from time to time these regiments would be employed as organic elements of divisions whose other regiments and units would be white. In keeping with this decision, the black 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments were combined in October (p. 031) 1940 with white regiments to form the 2d Cavalry Division. Before World War II most black leaders had agreed with the Army's opposition to all-black divisions, but for different reasons. They considered that such divisions only served to strengthen the segregation pattern they so opposed. In the early weeks of the war a conference of black editors, including Walter White, pressed for the creation of an experimental integrated division of volunteers. White argued that such a unit would lift black morale, "have a tremendous psychological effect upon white America," and refute the enemy's charge that "the United States talks about democracy but practices racial discrimination and segregation."[2-28] The NAACP organized a popular movement in support of the idea, which was endorsed by many important individuals and organizations.[2-29] Yet this experiment was unacceptable to the Army. Ignoring its experience with all-volunteer paratroopers and other spec