Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

M >> Morris J. MacGregor Jr. >> Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Illustration: THE 22D SPECIAL CONSTRUCTION BATTALION CELEBRATES V-J
DAY.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER 4 (p. 099)

World War II: The Marine Corps and the Coast Guard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_The First Black Marines_

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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