Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

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

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Clearly, the majority of Army officers viewed segregated service as
the acceptable norm. General Jacob L. Devers, then commanding general
of Army Ground Forces, gave a clue to their view when he told his
fellow officers in 1946 that "we are going to put colored battalions
in white divisions. This is purely business--the social side will not
be brought into it."[6-36] Here then was the dilemma: Was not the Army a
social institution as well as a fighting organization? The solution to
the Army's racial problems could not be achieved by ignoring the
social implications. On both counts there was a reluctance among many
professional soldiers to take in Negroes. They registered acute social
discomfort at the large influx of black soldiers, and many who had
devoted their lives to military service had very real misgivings over
using Negroes in white combat units or forming new black combat units
because they felt that black fighters in the air and on the ground had
performed badly in the past. To entrust the fighting to Negroes who
had failed to prove their competence in this highest mission of the
Army seemed to them to threaten the institution itself.

[Footnote 6-36: Remarks by Gen J. L. Devers, Armored
Conference Report, 16 May 46.]

Despite these shortcomings, the work of the Gillem Board was a
progressive step in the history of Army race relations. It broke with
the assumption implicit in earlier Army policy that the black soldier
was inherently inferior by recommending that Negroes be assigned (p. 166)
tasks as varied and skilled as those handled by white soldiers. It
also made integration the Army's goal by declaring as official policy
the ultimate employment of all manpower without regard to race.

Even the board's insistence on a racial quota, it could be argued, had
its positive aspects, for in the end it was the presence of so many
black soldiers in the Korean War that finally ended segregation. In
the meantime, controversy over the quota, whether it represented a
floor supporting minimum black participation or a ceiling limiting
black enlistment, continued unabated, providing the civil rights
groups with a focal point for their complaints. No matter how hard the
Army tried to justify the quota, the quota increased the Army's
vulnerability to charges of discrimination.

_Integration of the General Service_

The Navy's postwar revision of racial policy, like the Army's, was the
inevitable result of its World War II experience. Inundated with
unskilled and undereducated Negroes in the middle of the war, the Navy
had assigned most of these men to segregated labor battalions and was
surprised by the racial clashes that followed. As it began to
understand the connection between large segregated units and racial
tensions, the Navy also came to question the waste of the talented
Negro in a system that denied him the job for which he was qualified.
Perhaps more to the point, the Navy's size and mission made
immediately necessary what the Army could postpone indefinitely.
Unlike the Army, the Navy seriously modified its racial policy in the
last year of the war, breaking up some of the large segregated units
and integrating Negroes in the specialist and officer training
schools, in the WAVES, and finally in the auxiliary fleet and the
recruit training centers.

Yet partial integration was not enough. Lester Granger's surveys and
the studies of the secretary's special committee had demonstrated that
the Navy could resolve its racial problems only by providing equal
treatment and opportunity. But the absurdity of trying to operate two
equal navies, one black and one white, had been obvious during the
war. Only total integration of the general service could serve justice
and efficiency, a conclusion the civil rights advocates had long since
reached. After years of leaving the Navy comparatively at peace, they
now began to demand total integration.

There was no assurance, however, that a move to integration was
imminent when Granger returned from his final inspection trip for
Secretary Forrestal in October 1945. Both Granger and the secretary's
Committee on Negro Personnel had endorsed the department's current
practices, and Granger had been generally optimistic over the reforms
instituted toward the end of the war. Admirals Nimitz and King both
endorsed Granger's recommendations, although neither saw the need for
further change.[6-37] For his part Secretary Forrestal seemed determined
to maintain the momentum of reform. "What steps do we take," he (p. 167)
asked the Chief of Naval Personnel, "to correct the various practices
... which are not in accordance with Navy standards?"[6-38]

[Footnote 6-37: Ltr, CINCPAC&POA to SecNav via Ch,
NavPers, 30 Oct 45, sub: Negro Naval
Personnel--Pacific Ocean Areas, and 2d Ind, CNO, 7
Dec 45, same sub, both in P16-3/MM, OpNavArchives.]

[Footnote 6-38: Memo, J. F. for Adm Jacobs, 23 Aug
45, 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

[Illustration: ADMIRAL DENFELD.]

In response the Bureau of Naval Personnel circulated the Granger
reports throughout the Navy and ordered steps to correct practices
identified by Granger as "not in accordance with Navy standards."[6-39]
But it was soon apparent that the bureau would be selective in
adopting Granger's suggestions. In November, for example, the Chief of
Naval Personnel, Admiral Louis E. Denfeld, arguing that officers
"could handle black personnel without any special indoctrination,"
urged the secretary to reject Granger's recommendation that an office
be established in headquarters to deal exclusively with racial
problems. At the same time some of the bureau's recruiting officials
were informing Negroes that their reenlistment in the Regular Navy was
to be limited to the Steward's Branch.[6-40] With the help of Admiral
Nimitz, Chief of Naval Operations, Forrestal quickly put an end to
this recruiting practice, but he paid no further attention to racial
matters except to demand in mid-December a progress report on racial
reforms in the Pacific area.[6-41] Nor did he seem disturbed when the
Pacific commander reported a large number of all-black units, some
with segregated recreational facilities, operating in the Pacific area
as part of the permanent postwar naval organization.[6-42]

[Footnote 6-39: Memo, Asst Ch, NavPers, for SecNav,
10 Sep 45, sub: Ur Memo of August 23, 1945,
Relative to Lester B. Granger ... 54-1-13,
Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 6-40: 1st Ind, Chief, NavPers, to Ltr,
CINCPAC&POA to SecNav, 30 Oct 45, sub: Negro
Personnel--Pacific Ocean Areas (ca. 15 Nov 45),
P16-3MM, OpNavArchives; Memo, M. F. Correa (Admin
Asst to SecNav) for Capt Robert N. McFarlane, 30
Nov 45, 54-1-13, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 6-41: Forrestal's request for a progress
report was circulated in CNO Dispatch 142105Z Dec
45 to CINCPAC&POA, quoted in Nelson, "Integration
of the Negro," p. 58.]

[Footnote 6-42: Memo, CINCPAC&POA for CNO, 5 Jan 46,
sub: Negro Naval Personnel--Pacific Ocean Areas,
P10/P11, OpNavArchives.]

In the end the decision to integrate the general service came not from
the secretary but from that bastion of military tradition, the Bureau
of Naval Personnel. Despite the general reluctance of the bureau to
liberalize the Navy's racial policy, there had been all along some
manpower experts who wanted to increase the number of specialties open
to black sailors. Capt. Hunter Wood, Jr., for example, suggested in
January 1946 that the bureau make plans for an expansion in
assignments for Negroes. Wood's proposal fell on the sympathetic ears
of Admiral Denfeld, who considered the Granger recommendations (p. 168)
practical for the postwar Navy. Denfeld, of course, was well aware
that these recommendations had been endorsed by Admirals King and
Nimitz as well as Forrestal, and he himself had gone on record as
believing that Negroes in the peacetime Navy should lose none of the
opportunities opened to them during the war.[6-43]

[Footnote 6-43: Admiral Denfeld's statement to the
black press representatives in this regard is
referred to in Memo, Capt H. Wood, Jr., for Chief,
NavPers, 2 Jan 46, P16-3/MM, BuPersRecs.]

Denfeld had had considerable experience with the Navy's evolving
racial policy in his wartime assignment as assistant chief of
personnel where his principal concern had been the efficient
distribution and assignment of men. He particularly objected to the
fact that current regulations complicated what should have been the
routine transfer of sailors. Simple control procedures for the
segregation of Negroes in general service had been effective when
Negroes were restricted to particular shore stations and duties, he
told Admiral Nimitz on 4 January 1946, but now that Negroes were
frequently being transferred from shore to sea and from ship to ship
the restriction of Negroes to auxiliary ships was becoming extremely
difficult to manage and was also "noticeably contrary to the
non-differentiation policy enunciated by the Secretary of the Navy."
The only way to execute that policy effectively and maintain
efficiency, he concluded, was to integrate the general service
completely. Denfeld pointed out that the admission of Negroes to the
auxiliary fleet had caused little friction in the Navy and passed
almost unnoticed by the press. Secretary Forrestal had promised to
extend the use of Negroes throughout the entire fleet if the
preliminary program proved practical, and the time had come to fulfill
that promise. He would start with "the removal of restrictions
governing the type of duty to which general service Negroes can be
assigned," but would limit the number of Negroes on any ship or at any
shore station to a percentage no greater than that of general service
Negroes throughout the Navy.[6-44]

[Footnote 6-44: Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to CNO, 4 Jan
46, sub: Assignment of Negro Personnel, P16-3MM,
BuPersRecs.]

With the enlistment of the Chief of Naval Personnel in the cause, the
move to an integrated general service was assured. On 27 February 1946
the Navy published Circular Letter 48-46: "Effective immediately all
restrictions governing types of assignments for which Negro naval
personnel are eligible are hereby lifted. Henceforth, they shall be
eligible for all types of assignments in all ratings in all activities
and all ships of naval service." The letter went on to specify that
"in housing, messing, and other facilities, there would be no special
accommodations for Negroes." It also directed a redistribution of
personnel by administrative commands so that by 1 October 1946 no ship
or naval activity would be more than 10 percent Negro. The single
exception would be the Naval Academy, where a large contingent of
black stewards would be left intact to serve the midshipmen's meals.

The publication of Circular Letter 48-46 was an important step in the
Navy's racial history. In less than one generation, in fewer years
actually than the average sailor's service life, the Navy had made a
complete about-face. In a sense the new policy was a service (p. 169)
reform rather than a social revolution; after a 23-year hiatus
integration had once again become the Navy's standard racial policy.
Since headlines are more often reserved for revolutions than
reformations, the new policy attracted little attention. The
metropolitan press gave minimum coverage to the event and never
bothered to follow later developments. For the most part the black
press treated the Navy's announcement with skepticism. On behalf of
Secretary Forrestal, Lester Granger invited twenty-three leading black
editors and publishers to inspect ships in the fleet as well as shore
activities to see for themselves the changes being made. Not one
accepted. As one veteran put it, the editors shrank from praising the
Navy's policy change for fear of being proved hasty. They preferred to
remain on safe ground, "givin' 'em hell."[6-45]

[Footnote 6-45: As reported in Ltr, Granger to
author, 25 Jun 69, CMH files.]

The editors had every reason to be wary: integration was seriously
circumscribed in the new directive, which actually offered few
guarantees of immediate change. Applying only to enlisted men in the
shore establishment and on ships, the directive ignored the Navy's
all-white officer corps and its nonwhite servants branch of stewards.
Aimed at abolishing discrimination in the service, it failed to
guarantee either through enlistment, assignment guidelines, or
specific racial quotas a fair proportion of black sailors in the
postwar Navy. Finally, the order failed to create administrative
machinery to carry out the new policy. In a very real sense the new
policy mirrored tradition. It was naval tradition to have black
sailors in the integrated ranks and a separate Messman's Branch. The
return to this tradition embodied in the order complemented
Forrestal's philosophy of change as an outgrowth of self-realized
reform. At the same time naval tradition did not include the concept
of high-ranking black officers, white servants, and Negroes in
specialized assignments. Here Forrestal's hope of self-reform did not
materialize, and equal treatment and opportunity for Negroes in the
Navy remained an elusive goal.

But Forrestal and his military subordinates made enough of a start to
draw the fire of white segregationists. The secretary answered charges
and demands in a straightforward manner. When, for example, a
congressman complained that "white boys are being forced to sleep with
these negroes," Forrestal explained that men were quartered and messed
aboard ship according to their place in the ship's organization
without regard to race. The Navy made no attempt to prescribe the
nature or extent of their social relationships, which were beyond the
scope of its authority. Although Forrestal expressed himself as
understanding the strong feelings of some Americans on this matter, he
made it clear that the Navy had finally decided segregation was the
surest way to emphasize and perpetuate the gap between the races and
had therefore adopted a policy of integration.[6-46]

[Footnote 6-46: Ltr, Congressman Stephen Pace of
Georgia to Forrestal, 22 Jun 46; Ltr, Forrestal to
Pace, 14 Aug 46, both in 54-1-13, Forrestal file,
GenRecsNav.]

What Forrestal said was true, but the translation of the Navy's
postwar racial policy into the widespread practice of equal treatment
and opportunity for Negroes was still before him and his officers. (p. 170)
To achieve it they would have to fight the racism common in many
segments of American society as well as bureaucratic inertia. If put
into practice the new policy might promote the efficient use of naval
manpower and give the Navy at least a brief respite from the criticism
of civil rights advocates, but because of Forrestal's failure to give
clear-cut direction--a characteristic of his approach to racial
reform--the Navy might well find itself proudly trumpeting a new
policy while continuing its old racial practices.

_The Marine Corps_

As part of the naval establishment, the Marine Corps fell under the
strictures of Secretary Forrestal's announced policy of racial
nondiscrimination.[6-47] At the same time the Marine Corps was
administratively independent of the Chief of Naval Operations and the
Chief of Naval Personnel, and Circular Letter 48-46, which
desegregated the Navy's general service, did not apply to the corps.
In the development of manpower policy the corps was responsible to the
Navy, in organization it closely resembled the Army, but in size and
tradition it was unique. Each of these factors contributed to the
development of the corps' racial policy and helped explain its postwar
racial practices.

[Footnote 6-47: The latest pronouncement of that
policy was ALNAV 423-45.]

Because of the similarities in organization and mission between the
Army and the Marine Corps, the commandant leaned toward the Army's
solution for racial problems. The Army staff had contended that
racially separate service was not discriminatory so long as it was
equal, and through its Gillem Board policy it accepted the
responsibility of guaranteeing that Negroes would be represented in
equitable numbers and their treatment and opportunity would be similar
to that given whites. Since the majority of marines served in the
ground units of the Fleet Marine Force, organized like the Army in
regiments, battalions, and squadrons with tables of organization and
equipment, the formation of racially separate units presented no great
problem.

Although the Marine Corps was similar to the Army in organization, it
was very different in size and tradition. With a postwar force of
little more than 100,000 men, the corps was hardly able to guarantee
its segregated Negroes equal treatment and opportunity in terms of
specialized training and variety of assignment. Again in contrast to
the Army and Navy with their long tradition of Negroes in service, the
Marine Corps, with a few unauthorized exceptions, had been an
exclusively white organization since 1798. This habit of racial
exclusion was strengthened by those feelings of intimacy and
fraternity natural to any small bureaucracy. In effect the marines
formed a small club in which practically everybody knew everybody else
and was reluctant to admit strangers.[6-48] Racial exclusion often
warred with the corps' clear duty to provide the fair and equal
service for all Americans authorized by the Secretary of the Navy. At
one point the commandant, General Alexander Vandegrift, even had (p. 171)
to remind his local commanders that black marines would in fact be
included in the postwar corps.[6-49]

[Footnote 6-48: See USMC Oral History Interviews, Lt
Gen James L. Underhill, 25 Mar 68, and Lt Gen Ray
A. Robinson, 18 Mar 68, both in Hist Div, HQMC.]

[Footnote 6-49: Memo, CO, 26th Marine Depot Co.,
Fifth Service Depot, Second FMF, Pacific, for CMC,
2 Nov 45, with Inds, sub: Information Concerning
Peacetime Colored Marine Corps, Request for; Memos,
CMC for CG, FMF (Pacific), et al., 11 Dec 45, sub:
Voluntary Enlistments, Negro Marines, in Regular
Marine Corps, Assignment of Quotas; idem for Cmdr,
MCAB, Cherry Point, N.C., et al., 14 Dec 45. Unless
otherwise noted, all documents cited in this
section are located in Hist Div, HQMC.]

One other factor influenced the policy deliberations of the Marine
Corps: its experiences with black marines during World War II.
Overshadowing the praise commanders gave the black depot companies
were reports of the trials and frustrations suffered by those who
trained the large black combat units. Many Negroes trained long and
hard for antiaircraft duty, yet a senior group commander found them
ill-suited to the work because of "emotional instability and lack of
appreciation of materiel." One battery commander cited the "mechanical
ineptitude" of his men; another fell back on "racial characteristics
of the Negro as a whole" to explain his unit's difficulty.[6-50]
Embodying rash generalization and outright prejudice, the reports of
these commanders circulated in Marine Corps headquarters, also
revealed that a large group of black marines experienced enough
problems in combat training to cast serious doubt on the reliability
of the defense battalions. This doubt alone could explain the corps'
decision to relegate the units to the backwaters of the war zone.
Seeing only the immediate shortcomings of the large black combat
units, most commanders ignored the underlying reasons for the failure.
The controversial commander of the 51st Defense Battalion, Col. Curtis
W. LeGette,[6-51] however, gave his explanation to the commandant in
some detail. He reported that more than half the men in the 51st as it
prepared for overseas deployment--most of them recent draftees--were
in the two lowest categories, IV and V, for either general
classification or mechanical aptitude. That some 212 of the
noncommissioned officers of the units were also in categories IV and V
was the result of the unit's effort to carry out the commandant's
order to replace white noncommissioned officers as quickly as
possible. The need to develop black noncommissioned officers was
underscored by LeGette, who testified to a growing resentment among
his black personnel at the assignment of new white noncoms.
Symptomatic of the unit's basic problems in 1944 was what LeGette
called an evolving "occupational neurosis" among white officers forced
to serve for lengthy periods with black marines.[6-52]

[Footnote 6-50: AAA Gp, 51st Defense Bn, FMF,
Montford Pt., Gp Cmdr's Endorsement on Annual
Record Practice, Year 1943, 20 Dec 43; AAA Gp, 51st
Defense Bn, FMF, Montford Pt., Battery Cmdr's
Narrative Report of Record Practice, 1943, 21 Dec
43; idem, Battery Cmdr's Narrative Rpt (signed R.
H. Twisdale) (ca. 20 Dec 43).]

[Footnote 6-51: For the extensive charges and
countercharges concerning the controversy between
Colonel LeGette and his predecessor in the 51st,
see files of Hist Div, HQMC.]

[Footnote 6-52: Memo, CO, 51st Defense Bn, FMF, for
CMC, 20 Jul 44, sub: Combat Efficiency, Fifty-First
Defense Battalion, Serial 1085.]

The marines experienced far fewer racial problems than either the Army
or Navy during the war, but the difficulties that occurred were
nonetheless important in the development of postwar racial policy. The
basic cause of race problems was the rigid concentration of (p. 172)
often undertrained and undereducated men, who were subjected to racial
slurs and insensitive treatment by some white officials and given
little chance to serve in preferred military specialties or to advance
in the labor or defense units or steward details to which they were
invariably consigned. But this basic cause was ignored by Marine Corps
planners when they discussed the postwar use of Negroes. They
preferred to draw other lessons from the corps' wartime experience.
The employment of black marines in small, self-contained units
performing traditional laboring tasks was justified precisely because
the average black draftee was less well-educated and experienced in
the use of the modern equipment. Furthermore, the correctness of this
procedure seemed to be demonstrated by the fact that the corps had
been relatively free of the flare-ups that plagued the other services.
Many officials would no doubt have preferred to eliminate race
problems by eliminating Negroes from the corps altogether. Failing
this, they were determined that regular black marines continue to
serve in those assignments performed by black marines during the war:
in service units, stewards billets, and a few antiaircraft artillery
units, the postwar successors to defense battalions.[6-53]

[Footnote 6-53: Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks in the
Marine Corps_, pp 47-49; Interv, James Westfall
with Col Curtis W. LeGette (USMC, Ret.), 8 Feb 72,
copy in CMH.]

[Illustration: GENERAL THOMAS.]

The development of a postwar racial policy to carry out the Navy
Department's nondiscrimination order in the Marine Corps fell to the
Division of Plans and Policies and its director, Brig. Gen. Gerald C.
Thomas. It was a complicated task, and General Thomas and his staff
after some delay established a series of guidelines intended to steer
a middle path between exclusion and integration that would be
nondiscriminatory. In addition to serving in the Steward's Branch,
which contained 10 percent of all blacks in the corps, Negroes would
serve in segregated units in every branch of the corps, and their
strength would total some 2,800 men. This quota would not be like that
established in the Army, which was pegged to the number of black
soldiers during the war and which ultimately was based on national
population ratios. The Marine Corps ratio of blacks to whites would be
closer to 1 in 30 and would merely represent the estimated number of
billets that might be filled by Negroes in self-sustaining segregated
units.