Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

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

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The directorate also established a table of distribution plan that for
the first time provided for black regular marines in aviation units
and several other Marine Corps activities. Aviation units alone (p. 173)
accounted for 25 percent of the marines in the postwar corps, General
Thomas contended, and must absorb their proportionate share of black
strength. Further, the Navy's policy of nondiscrimination demanded
that all types of assignments be opened to black marines. Segregation
"best suits the needs of the Marine Corps," General Thomas concluded.
Ignoring the possibility of black officers and women marines, he
thought that the opening of all specialties and types of duty to the
enlisted ranks would find the Marine Corps "paralleling Navy
policy."[6-54] Clearly, the Division of Plans and Policies wanted the
corps to adopt a formula roughly analogous to the Gillem Board's
separate but equal system without that body's provisions for a fixed
quota, black officers, or some integrated service.

[Footnote 6-54: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 8 Apr 46, sub: Negro Personnel in the
Post-War Marine Corps. This memo was not submitted
for signature and was superseded by a memo of 13
May 46.]

But even this concession to nondiscrimination was never approved, for
the Plans and Policies Division ran afoul of a basic fact of
segregation: the postwar strength of many elements of the Marine Corps
was too small to support separate racial units. The Director of
Aviation, for example, argued that because of the size and nature of
his operation, segregated service was impossible. A substantial number
of his enlisted men also did double duty by serving in air stations
where Negroes could not be segregated, he explained. Only completely
separate aviation units, police and maintenance, and construction
units would be available for Negroes, a state of affairs "which would
be open to adverse criticism." He recommended instead that Negroes in
aviation be used only as stewards.[6-55] He failed to explain how this
solution would escape adverse criticism.

[Footnote 6-55: Memos, Dir, Aviation, for CMC, 26 Apr
46, sub: Negro Personnel in the Post-War Marine
Corps, and 31 May 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes
"For Duty in Aviation Units Only."]

General Thomas rejected these proposals, repeating that Secretary
Forrestal's nondiscrimination policy demanded that a separate but
equal system be extended throughout the Marine Corps. He also borrowed
one of the Gillem Board's arguments: Negroes must be trained in the
postwar military establishment in every occupation to serve as a cadre
for future general mobilizations.[6-56] Thomas did not mention the fact
that although large branches such as Fleet Marine Force aviation could
maintain separate but equal living facilities for its black marines,
even they would have to provide partially integrated training and
working conditions. And the smaller organizations in the corps would
be forced to integrate fully if forced to accept black marines. In
short, if the corps wanted segregation it must pay the price of
continued discrimination against black marines in terms of numbers
enlisted and occupations assigned.

[Footnote 6-56: Div of Plans and Policies (signed G.
C. Thomas), Consideration of Non-Concurrence, 2 May
46, attached to Memo, Dir, Aviation, for CMC, 26
Apr 46.]

The choice was left to Commandant Vandegrift. One solution to the
"Negro question," General Thomas told him, was complete integration
and the abolition of racial quotas, but Thomas did not press this
solution. Instead, he reviewed for Vandegrift the racial policies of
the other services, pointing out that these policies had more often
been devised to "appease the Negro press and other 'interested' (p. 174)
agencies than to satisfy their own needs." Until the matter was
settled on a "higher level," Thomas concluded, the services were not
required to go further than had been their custom, and until
Vandegrift decided on segregation or integration, setting quotas for
the different branches in the corps was inappropriate. Thomas himself
recommended that segregated units be adopted and that a quota be
devised only after each branch of the corps reported how many Negroes
it could use in segregated units.[6-57] Vandegrift approved Thomas's
recommendation for segregated black units, and the Marine Corps lost
the chance, temporarily, to adopt a policy in line with either the
Navy's limited and integrated system or the Army's separate but equal
system.

[Footnote 6-57: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 13 May 46, sub: Negro Personnel in the
Post-War Marine Corps.]

General Thomas spent the summer collecting and reviewing the proposals
of the corps' various components for the employment of black marines.
On the basis of this review General Vandegrift approved a postwar
policy for the employment of Negroes in the Marine Corps on 26
September 1946. The policy called for the enlistment of 2,264 Negroes,
264 as stewards, the rest to serve in separate units, chiefly in
ground security forces of the Fleet Marine Force in Guam and Saipan
and in Marine Corps activities of the naval shore establishment. No
Negroes except stewards would serve in Marine aviation, Marine forces
afloat, or, with the exception of service depots, in the Marine
logistic establishment.[6-58]

[Footnote 6-58: Idem for CMC, 25 Sep 46, sub:
Post-War Negro Personnel Requirements. For examples
of the proposals submitted by the various
components, see Memo, F. D. Beans, G-3, for G-1, 6
Aug 46, sub: Employment of Colored Personnel in the
Fleet Marine Force (Ground) (less Service Ground)
and in Training Activities; Memo, Lt Col Schmuck,
G-3, for Col Stiles, 10 Jun 46, sub: Utilization of
Negro Personnel in Post-War Infantry Units of the
Fleet Marine Force; Memo, QMC for CMC, 4 Sep 46,
sub: Negro Personnel in the Post-War Marine Corps.]

The policy was in effect by January 1947. In the end the Marine Corps'
white-only tradition had proved strong enough to resist the
progressive impulses that were pushing the other services toward some
relaxation of their segregation policies. Committed to limiting
Negroes to a token representation and employing black marines in
rigidly self-contained units, the Marine Corps could not establish a
quota for Negroes based on national racial proportions and could offer
no promise of equal treatment and opportunity in work assignments and
promotions.

Thus all the services emerged from their deliberations with postwar
policies that were markedly different in several respects but had in
common a degree of segregation. The Army, declaring that military
efficiency demanded ultimate integration, temporized, guaranteeing as
a first step an intricate system of separate but equal treatment and
opportunity for Negroes. The Marine Corps began with the idea that
separate but equal service was not discriminatory, but when equal
service proved unattainable, black marines were left with separatism
alone. The Navy announced the most progressive policy of all,
providing for integration of its general service. Yet it failed to
break the heavy concentration of Negroes in the Steward's Branch, (p. 175)
where no whites served. And unlike the segregated Army, the integrated
Navy, its admission standards too high to encourage black enlistments,
did not guarantee to take any black officers or specialists.

None of these policies provided for the equal treatment and
opportunity guaranteed to every black serviceman under the
Constitution, although the racial practices of all the services stood
far in advance of those of most institutions in the society from which
they were derived. The very weaknesses and inadequacies inherent in
these policies would in themselves become a major cause of the reforms
that were less than a decade away.

CHAPTER 7 (p. 176)

A Problem of Quotas

The War Department encountered overwhelming problems when it tried to
put the Gillem Board's recommendations into practice, and in the end
only parts of the new policy for the use of black manpower were ever
carried out. The policy foundered for a variety of reasons: some
implicit in the nature of the policy itself, others the result of
manpower exigencies, and still others because of prejudices lingering
in the staff, the Army, and the nation at large.

Even before the Army postwar racial policy was published in War
Department Circular 124 on 27 April 1946 it met formidable opposition
in the staff. Although Secretary Patterson had approved the new course
of action, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Personnel, General Paul,
sent a copy of what he called the "proposed" policy to the Army Air
Forces for further comment.[7-1] The response of the air commander,
General Carl Spaatz, revealed that he too considered the policy still
open for discussion. He suggested that the Army abandon the quota in
favor of admitting men on the basis of intelligence and professional
ability and forbid enlistment to anyone scoring below eighty in the
entry tests. He wanted the composite organizations of black and white
units recommended by the board held to a minimum, and none smaller
than an air group--a regimental-size unit. Black combat units should
have only black service units in support. In fact, Spaatz believed
that most black units should be service units, and he wanted to see
Negroes employed in overhead assignments only where and when their
specialties were needed. He did not want jobs created especially for
them.[7-2]

[Footnote 7-1: DF, ACofS, G-1, to CG, AAF, 15 Mar 46,
sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar
Army, WDGAP 291.2.]

[Footnote 7-2: Memo, CG, AAF, for ACofS, G-1, 3 Apr
46, sub: Utilization of Manpower in the Postwar
Army, WDGAP 291.2.]

These were not the only portents of difficulty for the new policy.
Before its publication General Paul had announced that he would not
establish a staff group on racial affairs as called for by the Gillem
Board. Citing manpower shortages and the small volume of work he
envisaged, Paul planned instead to divide such duties between his
Welfare Branch and Military Personnel Services Group.[7-3] The concept
of a central authority for the direction of racial policy was further
weakened in April when Paul invited the Assistant Chief of Staff for
Organization and Training, General Edwards, one of whose primary tasks
was to decide the size and number of military units, to share
responsibility for carrying out the recommendations of the Gillem
Board.[7-4]

[Footnote 7-3: DF, ACofS, G-1, to ASW, 26 Mar 46,
sub: Implementation of WD Cir 124, WDGAP 291.2.]

[Footnote 7-4: Idem to ACofS, G-3, 29 Apr 46, sub:
Implementation of WD Cir 124, WDGAP 291.2.]

Assistant Secretary Petersen was perturbed at the mounting (p. 177)
evidence of opposition. Specifically, he believed Spaatz's comments
indicated a lack of accord with Army policy, and he wanted the Army
Air Forces told that "these basic matters are no longer open for
discussion." He also wanted to establish a troop basis that would
lead, without the imposition of arbitrary percentages, to the
assignment of a "fair proportion" of black troops to all major
commands and their use in all kinds of duties in all the arms and
services. Petersen considered the composite unit one of the most
important features of the new policy, and he wanted "at least a few"
such units organized soon. He mentioned the assignment of a black
parachute battalion to the 82d Airborne Division as a good place to
begin.

Petersen had other concerns. He was distressed at the dearth of black
specialists in overhead detachments, and he wondered why War
Department Circular 105, which provided for the assignment of men to
critically needed specialties, explicitly excluded Negroes.[7-5] He
wanted the circular revised. Above all, Petersen feared the new policy
might falter from a lack of aggressive leadership. He estimated that
at first it would require at least the full attention of several
officers under the leadership of an "aggressive officer who knows the
Army and has its confidence and will take an active interest in
vigorous enforcement of the program."[7-6] By implication Petersen was
asking General Paul to take the lead.

[Footnote 7-5: WD Cir 105, 10 Apr 46.]

[Footnote 7-6: Memo, ASW for ACofS, G-1, 27 Apr 46,
ASW 291.2.]

Within a week of Petersen's comments on leadership, Paul had revised
Circular 105, making its provisions applicable to all enlisted men,
regardless of race or physical profile.[7-7] A few days later, he was
assuring Petersen that General Spaatz's comments were "inconsistent
with the approved recommendations" and were being disregarded.[7-8] Paul
also repeated the principal points of the new policy for the major
commanders, especially those dealing with composite units and overhead
assignments for black specialists. He stressed that, whenever
possible, Negroes should be assigned to places where local community
attitudes were most favorable and no undue burden would be imposed on
local civilian facilities.[7-9]

[Footnote 7-7: G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 3 May 46,
sub: Changes to WD Cir 105, 1946, WDGAP 291.2.
Revision appeared as WD Circular 142, 17 May 46.]

[Footnote 7-8: DF, ACofS, G-1, to ASW, 13 May 46,
sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in Postwar Army,
WDGAP 291.2.]

[Footnote 7-9: Ltr, TAG to CG's, AGF, AAF, and ASF, 6
May 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in
Postwar Army, AGAM-PM 291.2 (30 Apr 46); idem to
CG's, 10 Jun 46, same sub, same file (4 Jun 46).]

General Paul believed the principal impediment to practical
application of the new policy was not so much the opposition of field
commanders as the fact that many black units continued to perform
poorly. He agreed with Marcus Ray, Civilian Aide to the Secretary of
War, who had predicted as early as January 1946 that the success of
the Gillem Board's recommendations would depend on how many Negroes of
higher than average ability the armed forces could attract and retain.
Ray reasoned that among the Negroes enlisting in the Regular Army--14
percent of the 1945 total--were large numbers of noncommissioned (p. 178)
officers in the three highest grades whose abilities were limited.
They were able to maintain their ratings, usually in service units,
because their duties required knowledge of neither administration nor
weapons. Truckmasters, foremen, riggers, and the like, they rushed to
reenlist in order to freeze themselves in grade. Since many of these
men were in the two lowest test categories, they could not supply the
leaders needed for black units. Ray wanted to replace these men with
better educated enlistees who could be used on the broadened
professional base recommended by the Gillem Board. To that end he
wanted the Army to test all enlisted men, discharge those below
minimum standards, and launch a recruiting campaign to attract better
qualified men, both black and white.[7-10] For his part, Paul also
deplored the enlistment of men who were, in his words, "mentally
incapable of development into the specialists, technicians, and
instructors that we must have in the post-war Regular Army."[7-11]

[Footnote 7-10: Memo, Marcus H. Ray for ASW, 22 Jan
46, ASW 291.2.]

[Footnote 7-11: Memo, ACofS, G-1, for CofS, 25 Jan
46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the
Postwar Army, WDGAP 291.2.]

[Illustration: GENERAL PAUL.]

Here, even before the new racial policy was published, the Army staff
ran head on into the realities of postwar manpower needs. In a rapid
demobilization, the Army was critically short of troops, particularly
for overseas replacements, and it could maintain troop strength only
by accepting all the men it could get. Until Paul had more definite
information on the future operations of Selective Service and the rate
of voluntary Regular Army enlistments, he would have to postpone
action to curtail the admission of low-scoring men. So pressing were
the Army's needs that Paul could do nothing to guarantee that black
strength would not greatly exceed the 10 percent figure suggested by
the Gillem Board. He anticipated that by 1 July 1946 the regular and
active reserve components of the Army would together be approximately
15 percent black, a percentage impossible to avoid if the Army was to
retain 1.8 million men. Since all planning had been based on a 10
percent black strength, plans would have to be revised to make use of
the excess. In February 1946 the Chief of Staff approved General
Paul's program: Negroes would continue to be drafted at the 10 percent
ratio; at the same time their enlistment in the Regular Army would
continue without restriction on numbers. Negroes would be limited to
15 percent of the overseas commands, and the continental commands (p. 179)
would absorb all the rest.[7-12]

[Footnote 7-12: DF, ACofS, G-1, 23 Jan 46, sub:
Utilization of Negro Personnel, WDGAP 291.2 (23 Jan
46); Ltr, TAG to CG's, Major Forces, and Overseas
Cmdrs, 4 Feb 46, same sub, AG 291.2 (31 Jan 46)
OB-S-A-M.]

Paul's program for absorbing Negroes faced rough going, for the
already complex manpower situation was further complicated by
limitations on the use of Negroes in certain overseas theaters and the
demands of the War Department's major commands. The Army was
prohibited by an agreement with the State Department from sending
Negroes to the Panama Canal Zone; it also respected an unwritten
agreement that barred black servicemen from Iceland, the Azores, and
China.[7-13] Since the War Department was unable to use Negroes
everywhere, the areas where they could be used had to take more. The
increase in black troops provoked considerable discussion in the large
Pacific and European commands because it entailed separate housing,
transportation, and care for dependents--all the usual expensive
trappings of segregation. Theater commanders also faced additional
problems in public relations and management. As one War Department
staff officer claimed, black units required more than normal
administration, stricter policing, and closer supervision. This in
turn demanded additional noncommissioned officers, and "more Negro
bodies must be maintained to produce equivalent results."[7-14]

[Footnote 7-13: G-1 Memo for Rcd, Col Coyne,
Operations Gp, 19 Feb 47, WDGAP 291.2; prohibitions
for certain areas are discussed in detail in
Chapter 15.]

[Footnote 7-14: Memo, Actg Chief, Pac Theater Sec,
OPD, for Maj Gen H. A. Craig, Dep ACofS, OPD, 12
Feb 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, WDGOT
291.2.]

Both commands protested the War Department decision. Representatives
from the European theater arrived in Washington in mid-February 1946
to propose a black strength of 8.21 rather than the prescribed 15
percent. Seeking to determine where black soldiers could be used "with
the least harmful effect on theater operations," they discovered in
conferences with representatives of the War Department staff only the
places Negroes were not to be used: in infantry units, in the
constabulary, which acted as a border patrol and occupation police, in
highly technical services, or as supervisors of white civilian
laborers.[7-15]

[Footnote 7-15: Memo, Chief, Eur Sec, OPD, for Maj
Gen Howard A. Craig, Dep ACofS, OPD, 15 Feb 46,
sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, WDGOT 291.2.]

The commander of Army Forces, Pacific, was even more insistent on a
revision, asking how he could absorb so many Negroes when his command
was already scheduled to receive 50,000 Philippine Scouts and 29,500
Negroes in the second half of 1947. These two groups, which the
command considered far less adaptable than white troops to
occupational duties, would together make up about 40 percent of the
command's total strength. Although Philippine Scouts in the theater
never exceeded 31,000, the command's protest achieved some success.
The War Department agreed to reduce black troops in the Pacific to 14
percent by 1 January 1947 and 13 percent by 1 July 1947.[7-16]

[Footnote 7-16: Memo for Rcd, Lt Col French, Theater
Group, OPD, 7 May 46, sub: Negro Enlisted Strength,
Pacific Theater, 1947, WDGOT 291.2. For a
discussion of the Philippine Scouts in the Pacific
theater, see Robert Ross Smith, "The Status of
Philippine Military Forces During World War II,"
CMH files.]

No sooner had the demands of the overseas theaters been dealt with (p. 180)
than the enlarged black quotas came under attack from the commanders
of major forces. Instead of planning to absorb more Negroes, the Army
Air Forces wanted to divest itself of some black units on the premise
that unskilled troops were a liability in a highly technical service.
General Spaatz reported that some 60 percent of all his black troops
stationed in the United States in January 1946 were performing the
duties of unskilled laborers and that very few could be trained for
skilled tasks. He predicted that the Army Air Forces would soon have
an even higher percentage of low-scoring Negroes because 15 percent of
all men enlisting in his Regular Army units--expected to reach a total
of 45,000 men by 1 July 1946--were black. To forestall this increase
in "undesirable and uneconomical" troops, he wanted to stop inducting
Negroes into the Army Air Forces and suspend all black enlistments in
the Regular Army.[7-17]

[Footnote 7-17: Memo, CG, AAF, for ACofS, G-1, 25 Jan
46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the
Postwar Army, WDGAP 291.2.]

The Army Air Forces elaborated on these arguments in the following
months, refining both its estimates and demands. Specifically, its
manpower officials estimated that to reach the 15 percent black
strength ordered by 1 July 1946 the Air Forces would have to take
50,500 Negroes into units that could efficiently use only 22,000 men.
This embarrassment of more than 28,000 unusable men, the Army Air
Forces claimed, would require eliminating tactical units and creating
additional quartermaster car companies, mess platoons, and other
service organizations.[7-18] The Air staff wanted to eliminate the
unwanted 28,000 black airmen by raising to eighty the minimum
classification test score for Regular Army enlistment in the Army Air
Forces. In the end it retreated from this proposal, and on 25 February
requested permission to use the 28,000 Negroes in service units, but
over and above its 400,000-man troop basis. It promised to absorb all
these men into the troop basis by 30 June 1946.[7-19]

[Footnote 7-18: Memo, Brig Gen William Metheny, Off,
Commitments Div, ACofS Air Staff-3, for ACofS Air
Staff-3, 18 Feb 46, WDGOT 291.2.]

[Footnote 7-19: DF, DCofAS (Maj Gen C. C. Chauncey)
to G-3 25 Feb 46, sub: Utilization of Negro
Manpower in the Postwar Army, WDGOT 291.2.]

The Army staff rejected this plan on the grounds that any excess
allowed above the current Air Forces troop basis would have to be
balanced by a corresponding and unacceptable deficit in the Army
Ground Forces and Army Service Forces.[7-20] The Army Air Forces
countered with a proposal to discharge all black enlistees in excess
of Air Forces requirements in the European theater who would accept
discharge. It had in mind a group of 8,795 Negroes recently enlisted
for a three-year period, who, in accordance with a lure designed to
stimulate such enlistments, had chosen assignment in the Air Forces
and a station in Europe. With a surplus of black troops, the Air
Forces found itself increasingly unable to fulfill the "overseas
theater of choice" enlistment contract. Since some men would
undoubtedly refuse to serve anywhere but Europe, the Air staff (p. 181)
reasoned, why not offer a discharge to all men who preferred
separation over service elsewhere?