Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

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

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[Footnote 5-35: Ltr, Lt Gen Edward M. Almond to Brig
Gen James L. Collins, Jr., 1 Apr 72, CMH files.
General Almond's views are thoroughly explored in
Paul Goodman, _A Fragment of Victory_ (Army War
College, 1952). For an objective and detailed
treatment of the 92d Division, see Lee, _Employment
of Negro Troops_, Chapter XIX, and Ernest F.
Fisher, Jr., _Cassino to the Alps_, United States
Army in World War II (Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1977), Chapter XXIII.]

Similar judgments were expressed concerning the combat capability of
the other major black unit, the 93d Infantry Division.[5-36] When
elements of the 93d, the 25th Regimental Combat Team in particular,
participated in the Bougainville campaign in the Solomon Islands,
their performance was the subject of constant scrutiny by order of the
Chief of Staff.[5-37] The combat record of the 25th included enough
examples of command and individual failure to reinforce the War
Department's decision in mid-1944 to use the individual units of the
division in security, laboring, and training duties in quiet areas of
the theater, leaving combat to more seasoned units.[5-38] During the
last year of the war the 93d performed missions that were essential
but not typical for combat divisions.

[Footnote 5-36: A third black division, the 2d
Cavalry, never saw combat because it was disbanded
upon arrival in the Mediterranean theater.]

[Footnote 5-37: Rad, Marshall to Lt Gen Millard
Harmon, CG, USAFISPA, 18 Mar 44, CM-OUT 7514 (18
Mar 44).]

[Footnote 5-38: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_,
pp. 498-517. Lee discusses here the record of the
93d Infantry Division and War Department decisions
concerning its use.]

Analyses of the division's performance ran along familiar lines. The
XIV Corps commander, under whom the division served, rated the
performance of the 25th Regimental Combat Team infantry as fair and
artillery as good, but found the unit, at least those parts commanded
by black officers, lacking in initiative, inadequately trained, and
poorly disciplined. Other reports tended to agree. All of them, along
with reports on the 24th Infantry, another black unit serving in the
area, were assembled in Washington for Assistant Secretary McCloy.
While he admitted important limitations in the performance of the
units, McCloy nevertheless remained encouraged. Not so the Secretary
of War. "I do not believe," he told McCloy, "they can be turned into
really effective combat troops without all officers being white."[5-39]

[Footnote 5-39: The above digested reports and
quotations are from Lee, _Employment of Negro
Troops_, pp. 513-17.]

Black officers of the 93d, however, entertained a different view. They
generally cited command and staff inefficiencies as the major cause of
the division's discipline and morale problems. One respondent, a company
commander in the 25th Infantry, singled out the "continuous (p. 136)
dissension and suspicion characterizing the relations between white
and colored officers of the division." All tended to stress what they
considered inadequate jungle training, and, like many white observers,
they all agreed the combat period was too brief to demonstrate the
division's developing ability.[5-40]

[Footnote 5-40: USAFFE Board Reports No. 185, 20 Jan
45, and 221, 25 Feb 45, sub: Information on Colored
Troops. These reports were prepared at the behest
of the commanding general of the Army Ground Forces
during the preparation of Bell I. Wiley's _The
Training of Negro Troops_ (AGF Study No. 36, 1946).
The quotation is from Exhibit K of USAFFE Board
Report No. 221.]

[Illustration: 92D DIVISION ENGINEERS PREPARE A FORD FOR ARNO RIVER
TRAFFIC.]

Despite the performance of some individuals and units praised by all,
the combat performance of the 92d and 93d Infantry Divisions was
generally considered less than satisfactory by most observers. A much
smaller group of commentators, mostly black journalists, never
accepted the prevailing view. Pointing to the decorations and honors
received by individuals in the two divisions, they charged that the
adverse reports were untrue, reflections of the prejudices of white
officers. Such an assertion presupposed that hundreds of officers and
War Department officials were so consumed with prejudice that they
falsified the record. And the argument from decorations, as one expert
later pointed out, faltered once it was understood that the 92d (p. 137)
and 93d Infantry Divisions combined a relatively high number of
decorations with relatively few casualties.[5-41]

[Footnote 5-41: E. W. Kenworthy, "The Case Against
Army Segregation," _Annals of the American Academy
of Political Science_ 275 (May 1952):28-29. A low
decoration to casualty ratio is traditionally used
as one measure of good unit performance. However,
so many different unit attitudes and standards for
decorations existed during World War II that any
argument over ratios can only be self-defeating no
matter what the approach.]

Actually, there was little doubt that the performance of the black
divisions in World War II was generally unacceptable. Beyond that
common conclusion, opinions diverged widely. Commanders tended to
blame undisciplined troops and lack of initiative and control by black
officers and noncommissioned officers as the primary cause of the
difficulty. Others, particularly black observers, cited the white
officers and their lack of racial sensitivity. In fact, as Ulysses Lee
points out with careful documentation, all these factors were
involved, but the underlying problem usually overlooked by observers
was segregation. Large, all-black combat units submerged able soldiers
in a sea of men with low aptitude and inadequate training. Segregation
also created special psychological problems for junior black officers.
Carefully assigned so that they never commanded white officers or men,
they were often derided by white officers whose attitudes were quickly
sensed by the men to the detriment of good discipline. Segregation was
also a factor in the rapid transfer of men in and out of the
divisions, thus negating the possible benefits of lengthy training.
Furthermore, the divisions were natural repositories for many
dissatisfied or inadequate white officers, who introduced a host of
other problems.

Truman Gibson was quick to point out how segregation had intensified
the problem of turning civilians into soldiers and groups into units.
The "dissimilarity in the learning profiles" between black and white
soldiers as reflected in their AGCT scores was, he explained to
McCloy, primarily a result of inferior black schooling, yet its
practical effect on the Army was to burden it with several large units
of inferior combat ability (_Table 2_). In addition to the fact that
large black units had a preponderance of slow learners, Gibson
emphasized that nearly all black soldiers were trained near
"exceedingly hostile" communities. This hostile atmosphere, he
believed, had played a decisive role in their adjustment to Army life
and adversely affected individual motivation. Gibson also charged the
Army with promoting some black officers who lacked leadership
qualifications and whose performance, consequently, was under par. He
recommended a single measure of performance for officers and a single
system for promotion, even if this system reduced promotions for black
officers. Promotions on any basis other than merit, he concluded,
deprived the Army of the best leadership and inflicted weak commanders
on black units.

Table 2--AGCT Percentages in Selected World War II Divisions

Unit I II III IV V Total
(130 +) (110-120) (90-109) (60-89) (0-59)

11th Armored
Division....... 3.0 23.8 33.8 33.1 6.3 100
35th Infantry
Division....... 3.3 27.0 34.2 28.0 7.5 100
92d Infantry
Division (Negro) 0.4 5.2 11.8 43.5 39.1 100
93d Infantry
Division (Negro) 0.1 3.5 13.0 38.4 45.0 100
100th Infantry
Division........ 3.6 27.1 34.1 29.1 6.1 100

_Source_: Tables submitted by The Adjutant General to the Gillem
Board, 1945.

Gibson was not trying to magnify the efficiency of segregated (p. 138)
units. He made a special effort to compare the performance of the 92d
Division with that of the integrated black platoons in Germany because
such a comparison would demonstrate, he believed, that the Army's
segregation policy was in need of critical reexamination. He cited
"many officers" who believed that the problems connected with large
segregated combat units justified their abolition in favor of the
integration of black platoons into larger white units. Although such
unit integration would not abolish segregation completely, Gibson
concluded, it would permit the Army to use men and small units on the
basis of ability alone.[5-42]

[Footnote 5-42: Memo, Gibson for ASW, 23 Apr 45, sub:
Report of Visit to MTO and ETO, ASW 291.2 (NT); see
also Interv, Bell I. Wiley with Truman K. Gibson,
Civilian Aide to Secretary of War, 30 May 45, CMH
files.]

The flexibility Gibson detected among many Army officers was not
apparent in the answers to the McCloy questionnaire that flowed into
the War Department during the summer and fall of 1945. With few
exceptions, the senior officers queried expressed uniform reactions.
They reiterated a story of frustration and difficulty in training and
employing black units, characterized black soldiers as unreliable and
inefficient, and criticized the performance of black officers and
noncommissioned officers. They were particularly concerned with racial
disturbances, which, they believed, were not only the work of racial
agitators but also the result of poor morale and a sense of
discrimination among black troops. Yet they wanted to retain
segregation, albeit in units of smaller size, and they wanted to
depend, for the most part, on white officers to command these black
units. Concerned with performance, pragmatic rather than reflective in
their habits, the commanders showed little interest in or
understanding of the factors responsible for the conditions of which
they complained. Many believed that segregation actually enhanced
black pride.[5-43]

[Footnote 5-43: Eventually over thirty-five commands
responded to the McCloy questionnaire. For examples
of the attitudes mentioned above, see Ltr, HQ, U.S.
Forces, European Theater (Main) to TAG, 1 Oct 45,
sub: Study of Participation of Negro Troops in the
Postwar Establishment; Ltr, HQ, U.S. Forces, India,
Burma Theater, to TAG, 28 Aug 45, same sub; Ltr,
GHQ USARPAC to TAG, 3 Sep 45, same sub. All in AG
291.2 (23 May 45). Some of these and many others
are also located in WDSSP 291.2 (1945).]

These responses were summarized by the commanding generals of the
major force commands at the request of the War Department's Special
Planning Division.[5-44] For example, the study prepared by the Army
Service Forces, which had employed a high proportion of black troops
in its technical services during the war, passed on the
recommendations made by these far-flung commands and touched
incidentally on several of the points raised by Gibson.[5-45] Like
Gibson, the Army Service Forces recommended that Negroes of little (p. 139)
or no education be denied induction or enlistment and that no
deviation from normal standards for the sake of maintaining racial
quotas in the officer corps be tolerated. The Army Service Forces also
wanted Negroes employed in all major forces, participating
proportionately in all phases of the Army's mission, including
overseas and combat assignments, but not in every occupation. For the
Army Service Forces had decided that Negroes performed best as truck
drivers, ammunition handlers, stevedores, cooks, bakers, and the like
and should be trained in these specialties rather than more highly
skilled jobs such as armorer or machinist. Even in the occupations
they were best suited to, Negroes should be given from a third more to
twice as much training as whites, and black units should have 25 to 50
percent more officers than white units. At the same time, the Army
Service Forces wanted to retain segregated units, although it
recommended limiting black service units to company size. Stating in
conclusion that it sought only "to insure the most efficient training
and utilization of Negro manpower" and would ignore the question of
racial equality or the "wisdom of segregation in the social sense,"
the Army Service Forces overlooked the possibility that the former
could not be attained without consideration of the latter.

[Footnote 5-44: Memo, Dir, WDSSP, for CG's, ASF et
al., 23 May 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops
in the Postwar Military Establishment, AG 291.2 (23
May 45).]

[Footnote 5-45: Memo, CofS, ASF, for Dir, Special
Planning Division, WDSS, 1 Oct 45, sub:
Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar
Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2 (2 Oct 45). On
the use of Negroes in the Signal Corps, see the
following volumes in the United States Army in
World War II series: Dulany Terrett, _The Signal
Corps: The Emergency_ (Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1956); George Raynor Thompson et
al., _The Signal Corps: The Test_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1957); George Raynor
Thompson and Dixie R. Harris, _The Signal Corps:
The Outcome_ (Washington: Government Printing
Office, 1966).]

The Army Ground Forces, which trained black units for all major
branches of the field forces, also wanted to retain black units, but
its report concluded that these units could be of battalion size. The
organization of black soldiers in division-size units, it claimed,
only complicated the problem of training because of the difficulty in
developing the qualified black technicians, noncommissioned officers,
and field grade officers necessary for such large units and finding
training locations as well as assignment areas with sufficient
off-base recreational facilities for large groups of black soldiers.
The Army Ground Forces considered the problem of finding and training
field grade officers particularly acute since black units employing
black officers, at least in the case of infantry, had proved
ineffective. Yet white officers put in command of black troops felt
they were being punished, and their presence added to the frustration
of the blacks.

The Army Ground Forces was also particularly concerned with racial
disturbances, which, it believed, stemmed from conflicting white and
black concepts of the Negro's place in the social pattern. The Army
Ground Forces saw no military solution for a problem that transcended
the contemporary national emergency, and its conclusion--that the
solution lay in society at large and not primarily in the armed
forces--had the effect, whether or not so intended, of neatly
exonerating the Army. In fact, the detailed conclusions and
recommendations of the Army Ground Forces were remarkably similar to
those of the Army Service Forces, but the Ground Forces study, more
than any other, was shot full with blatant racism. The study quoted a
1925 War College study to the effect that the black officer was (p. 140)
"still a Negro with all the faults and weaknesses of character
inherent in the Negro race." It also discussed the "average Negro" and
his "inherent characteristics" at great length, dwelling on his
supposed inferior mentality and weakness of character, and raising
other racial shibboleths. Burdened with these prejudices, the Army
Ground Forces study concluded

that the conception that negroes should serve in the military
forces, or in particular parts of the military forces, or sustain
battle losses in proportion to their population in the United
States, may be desirable but is impracticable and should be
abandoned in the interest of a logical solution to the problem of
the utilization of negroes in the armed forces.[5-46]

[Footnote 5-46: Memo, Ground AG, AGF, for CofSA, 28
Nov 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the
Postwar Military Establishment, with Incl, WDSSP
291.2 (27 Dec 45).]

The Army Air Forces, another large employer of black servicemen,
reported a slightly different World War II experience. Conforming with
departmental policies on utilizing black soldiers, it had selected
Negroes for special training on the same basis as whites with the
exception of aviation cadets. Negroes with a lower stanine (aptitude)
had been accepted in order to secure enough candidates to meet the
quota for pilots, navigators, and bombardiers in the black units. In
its preliminary report to the War Department on the employment of
Negroes, the Army Air Forces admitted that individuals of both races
with similar aptitudes and test scores had the same success in
technical schools, could be trained as pilots and technicians in the
same period of time, and showed the same degree of mechanical
proficiency. Black units, on the other hand, required considerably
more time in training than white units, sometimes simply because they
were understrength and their performance was less effective. At the
same time the Air Forces admitted that even after discounting the
usual factors, such as time in service and job assignment, whites
advanced further than blacks. No explanation was offered.
Nevertheless, the commanding general of the Air Forces reported very
little racial disorder or conflict overseas. There had been a
considerable amount in the United States, however; many Air Forces
commanders ascribed this to the unwillingness of northern Negroes to
accept southern laws or social customs, the insistence of black
officers on integrated officers' clubs, and the feeling among black
fliers that command had been made an exclusive prerogative of white
officers rather than a matter depending on demonstrated qualification.

In contrast to the others, the Army Air Forces revealed a marked
change in sentiment over the post-World War I studies of black troops.
No more were there references to congenital inferiority or inherent
weaknesses, but everywhere a willingness to admit that Negroes had
been held back by the white majority.

The commanding general of the Army Air Forces recommended Negroes be
apportioned among the three major forces--the Army Ground Forces, the
Army Service Forces, and the Army Air Forces--but that their numbers
in no case exceed 10 percent of any command; that black servicemen be
trained exactly as whites; and that Negroes be segregated in units (p. 141)
not to exceed air group size. Unlike the others, the Army Air Forces
wanted black units to have black commanders as far as possible and
recommended that the degree of segregation in messing, recreation, and
social activities conform to the custom of the surrounding community.
It wanted Negroes assigned overseas in the same proportion as whites,
and in the United States, to the extent practicable, only to those
areas considered favorable to their welfare. Finally, the Air Forces
wanted Negroes to be neither favored nor discriminated against in
disciplinary matters.[5-47]

[Footnote 5-47: Memo, CG, AAF, for CofSA, 17 Sep 45,
sub: Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar
Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2 (1945). For the
final report of 2 Oct 45, which summed up the
previous recommendations, see Summary Sheet,
AC/AS-1 for Maj Gen C. C. Chauncey, DCofAS, 2 Oct
45, same sub and file.]

Among the responses of the subordinate commands were some exceptions
to the generalizations found in those of the major forces. One
commander, for example, while concluding that segregation was
desirable, admitted that it was one of the basic causes of the Army's
racial troubles and would have to be dealt with "one way or the
other."[5-48] Another recommended dispersing black troops, one or two in
a squad, throughout all-white combat units.[5-49] Still another pointed
out that the performance of black officers and noncommissioned
officers in terms of resourcefulness, aggressiveness, sense of
responsibility, and ability to make decisions was comparable to the
performance of white soldiers when conditions of service were nearly
equal. But the Army failed to understand this truth, the commander of
the 1st Service Command charged, and its separate and unequal
treatment discriminated in a way that would affect the efficiency of
any man. The performance of black troops, he concluded, depended on
how severely the community near a post differentiated between the
black and white soldier and how well the Negro's commander
demonstrated the fairness essential to authority. The Army admitted
that black units needed superior leadership, but, he added, it
misunderstood what this leadership entailed. All too often commanders
of black units acted under the belief that their men were different
and needed special treatment, thus clearly suggesting racial
inferiority. The Army, he concluded, should learn from its wartime
experience the deleterious effect of segregation on motivation and
ultimately on performance.[5-50]

[Footnote 5-48: Ltr, OCSigO (Col David E. Washburn,
Exec Off) to WDSSP, 31 Jul 45, sub: Participation
of Negro Troops in the Postwar Military
Establishment, WDSSP 291.2 (1945).]

[Footnote 5-49: Ltr, Maj Gen James L. Collins, CG,
Fifth Service Cmd, to CG, ASF, 24 Jul 45, sub:
Participation of Negro Troops in the Postwar
Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2.]

[Footnote 5-50: Memo, CG, First Service Cmd, for CG,
ASF, 23 Jul 45, sub: Participation of Negro Troops
in the Postwar Military Establishment, WDSSP 291.2
(1945).]

Truman Gibson took much the same approach when he summed up for McCloy
his estimate of the situation facing the Army. After rehearsing the
recent history of segregation in the armed forces, he suggested that
it was not enough to compare the performance of black and white
troops; the reports of black performance should be examined to
determine whether the performance would be improved or impaired by
changing the policy of segregation. Any major Army review, he urged,
should avoid the failure of the old studies on race that based (p. 142)
differences in performance on racial characteristics and should
question instead the efficiency of segregation. For him, segregation
was the heart of the matter, and he counseled that "future policy
should be predicated on an assumption that civilian attitudes will not
remain static. The basic policy of the Army should, therefore, not
itself be static and restrictive, but should be so framed as to make
further progress possible on a flexible basis."[5-51]

[Footnote 5-51: Memo, Truman Gibson for ASW, 8 Aug
45, ASW 291.2.]

Before passing Gibson's suggestions to the Assistant Secretary of War,
McCloy's executive assistant, Lt. Col. Davidson Sommers, added some
ideas of his own. Since it was "pretty well recognized," he wrote,
that the Army had not found the answer to the efficient use of black
manpower, a first-class officer or group of officers of high rank,
supplemented perhaps with a racially mixed group of civilians, should
be designated to prepare a new racial policy. But, he warned, their
work would be ineffectual without specific directions from Army
leaders. He wanted the Army to make "eventual nonsegregation" its
goal. Complete integration, Sommers felt, was impossible to achieve at
once. Classification test scores alone refuted the claim that "Negroes
in general make as good soldiers as whites." But he thought there was
no need "to resort to racial theories to explain the difference," for
the lack of educational, occupational, and social opportunities was
sufficient.[5-52]