Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940 1965

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

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[Footnote 10-41: Ltr, CO, Naval Base, New York, to
CMC, 10 July 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines
to Second Guard Company, Marine Barracks, New York
Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, N.Y., NB-139.]

[Footnote 10-42: Ltr, Chief, Bur of Ord, to CNO, 11
Aug 47, sub: Naval Ammunition Depot, Earle,
N.J.--Assignment of Negro Marine Complement,
NTI-34.]

The commandant accepted these arguments and on 20 August 1947 revoked
the assignment of a black unit to Earle. Still, with its ability to
absorb 175 men and its relative suitability in terms of separate (p. 265)
living facilities, the depot remained a prime candidate for black
units, and in November General Vandegrift reversed himself. The Chief
of Naval Operations supported the commandant's decision over the
renewed objections of the Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance.[10-43] With
Hingham, Massachusetts, ruled out, the commandant now considered the
substitution of Marine barracks at Trinidad, British West Indies;
Scotia, New York; and Oahu, Hawaii. He rejected Trinidad in favor of
Oahu, and officials in Hawaii proved amenable.[10-44]

[Footnote 10-43: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 19 Nov 47, sub: First Enlistments of Negro
Personnel, A0-1; Memo, Chief, Bur of Ord, for CNO,
15 Dec 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines at
Naval Ammunition Depot, Earle, Red Bank, N.J.;
Memo, CNO for Chief, Bur of Ord, 6 Jan 48, same
sub.]

[Footnote 10-44: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
29 Jul 47, sub: Negro Requirements and Assignments,
A0-1, MC files.]

The chief of the Navy's Bureau of Supplies and Accounts objected to
the use of black marines at the supply depot in Scotia, claiming that
such an assignment to the Navy's sole installation in upper New York
State would bring about a "weakening of the local public relations
advantage now held by the Navy" and would be contrary to the Navy's
best interests. He pointed out that the assignment would necessitate
billeting white marine graves registration escorts and black marines
in the same squad rooms. The use of black marines for firing squads at
funerals, he thought, would be "undesirable." He also pointed out that
the local black population was small, making for extremely limited
recreational and social opportunities.[10-45] The idea of using Scotia
with all these attendant inconveniences was quietly dropped, and the
black marines were finally assigned to Earle, New Jersey; Fort
Mifflin, Pennsylvania; and Oahu, Hawaii.

[Footnote 10-45: Memo, Chief, Bur of Supplies and
Accounts, for CNO, 14 Oct 47, sub: Assignment of
Negro Marines, P-16-1; Memo, CNO to CMC, 20 Nov 47,
same sub, Op 415 D.]

Approved on 8 November 1946, the postwar plan to assign black units to
security guard assignments in the United States was not fully put into
practice until 15 August 1948, almost two years later. This episode in
the history of discrimination against Americans in uniform brought
little glory to anyone involved and revealed much about the extent of
race prejudice in American society. It was an indictment of people in
areas as geographically diverse as Oklahoma, New York, Massachusetts,
and New Jersey who objected to the assignment of black servicemen to
their communities. It was also an indictment of a great many
individual commanders, both in the Navy and Marine Corps, some perhaps
for personal prejudices, others for so readily bowing to community
prejudices. But most of all the blame must fall on the Marine Corps'
policy of segregation. Segregation made it necessary to find
assignments for a whole enlisted complement and placed an intolerable
administrative burden on the corps. The dictum that black marines
could not deal with white civilians, especially in situations in which
they would give orders, further limited assignments since such duties
were routine in any security unit. Thus, bound to a policy that was
neither just nor practical, the commandant spent almost two years
trying to place four hundred men.

Despite the obvious inefficiency and discrimination involved, the (p. 266)
commandant, General Vandegrift, adamantly defended the Marine
segregation policy before Secretary of the Navy Forrestal. Wartime
experience showed, he maintained, oblivious to overwhelming evidence
to the contrary since 1943, "that the assignment of negro Marines to
separate units promotes harmony and morale and fosters the competitive
spirit essential to the development of a high esprit."[10-46] His stand
was bound to antagonize the civil rights camp; the black press in
particular trumpeted the theme that the corps was as full of race
discrimination as it had been during the war.[10-47]

[Footnote 10-46: Memo, Gen Vandegrift to SecNav, 25
Aug 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines, 54-1-29,
GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 10-47: See, for example, the analysis that
appeared in the Chicago _Defender_, August 14,
1948.]

_Toward Integration_

But even as the commandant defended the segregation policy, the corps
was beginning to yield to pressure from outside forces and the demands
of military efficiency. The first policy breach concerned black
officers. Although a proposal for commissions had been rejected when
the subject was first raised in 1944, three black candidates were
accepted by the officer training school at Quantico in April 1945. One
failed to qualify on physical and two on scholastic grounds, but they
were followed by five other Negroes who were still in training on V-J
day. One of this group, Frederick Branch of Charlotte, North Carolina,
elected to stay in training through the demobilization period. He was
commissioned with his classmates on 10 November 1945 and placed in the
inactive reserves. Meanwhile, three Negroes in the V-12 program
graduated and received commissions as second lieutenants in the
inactive Marine Corps Reserve. Officer training for all these men was
integrated.[10-48]

[Footnote 10-48: Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks and the
Marine Corps_, pp. 47-48; see also Selective
Service System, _Special Groups_ (Monograph 10),
I:105.]

The first Negro to obtain a regular commission in the Marine Corps was
John E. Rudder of Paducah, Kentucky, a Marine veteran and graduate of
the Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps. Analyzing the case for the
commandant in May 1948, the Director of Plans and Policies noted that
the law did not require the Marine Corps to commission Rudder, but
that he was only the first of several Negroes who would be applying
for commissions in the next few years through the Naval Reserve
Officers' Training Corps. Since the reserve corps program was a vital
part of the plan to expand Marine Corps officer strength, rejecting a
graduate on account of race, General Robinson warned, might jeopardize
the entire plan. He thought that Rudder should be accepted for duty.
Rudder was appointed a second lieutenant in the Regular Marine Corps
on 28 May 1948 and ordered to Quantico for basic schooling.[10-49] In
1949 Lieutenant Rudder resigned. Indicative of the changing civil
rights scene was the apprehension shown by some Marine Corps officials
about public reaction to the resignation. But although Rudder reported
instances of discrimination at Quantico--stemming for the most (p. 267)
part from a lack of military courtesy that amounted to outright
ostracism--he insisted his decision to resign was based on personal
reasons and was irreversible. The Director of Public Information was
anxious to release an official version of the resignation,[10-50] but
other voices prevailed, and Rudder's exit from the corps was handled
quietly both at headquarters and in the press.[10-51]

[Footnote 10-49: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 11 May 48, sub: Appointment to
Commissioned Rank in the Regular Marine Corps, Case
of Midshipman John Earl Rudder, A0-1; see also Dept
of Navy Press Release, 25 Aug 48.]

[Footnote 10-50: Memo, Dir of Public Information for
CMC, 11 Feb 49, sub: Publicity on Second Lieutenant
John Rudder, USMC, AG 1364; see also Ltr, Lt Cmdr
Dennis Nelson to James C. Evans, 24 Feb 70, CMH
files.]

[Footnote 10-51: Memo, Oliver Smith for CMC, 11 Feb
49, with attached CMC note.]

[Illustration: LIEUTENANT AND MRS. BRANCH.]

The brief active career of one black officer was hardly evidence of a
great racial reform, but it represented a significant breakthrough
because it affirmed the practice of integrated officer training and
established the right of Negroes to command. And Rudder was quickly
followed by other black officer candidates, some of whom made careers
in the corps. Rudder's appointment marked a permanent change in Marine
Corps policy.

Enlistment of black women marked another change. Negroes had been
excluded from the Women's Reserve during World War II, but in March
1949 A. Philip Randolph asked the commandant, in the name of the
Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training, if black
women could join the corps. The commandant's reply was short and
direct: "If qualified for enlistment, negro women will be accepted on
the same basis as other applicants."[10-52] In September 1949 Annie N.
Graham and Ann E. Lamb reported to Parris Island for integrated
training and subsequent assignment.

[Footnote 10-52: Ltr, A. Philip Randolph to Gen C. B.
Cates, 8 Mar 49; Ltr, CMC to Randolph, 10 Mar 49,
AW 828.]

Yet another racial change, in the active Marine Corps Reserve, could
be traced to outside pressure. Until 1947 all black reservists were
assigned to inactive and unpaid volunteer reserve status, and
applications for transfer to active units were usually disapproved by
commanding officers on grounds that such transfers would cost the unit
a loss in whites. Rejections did not halt applications, however, and
in May 1947 the Director of Marine Corps Reserve decided to seek a
policy decision. While he wanted each commander of an active unit left
free to decide whether he would take Negroes, the director also wanted
units with black enlisted men formed in the organized reserve,
all-black voluntary training units recognized, and integrated active
duty training provided for reservists.[10-53] A group of Negroes (p. 268)
in Chicago had already applied for the formation of a black voluntary
training unit.

[Footnote 10-53: Memo, Dir, Div of Reserve, for CMC, 6
May 47, sub: General Policy Governing Negro
Reservists, AF 1271; Ltr, William Griffin to CMC, 3
Mar 47; Ltr, Col R. McPate to William Griffin, 11
Mar 47.]

General Thomas, Director of Plans and Policies, was not prepared to go
the whole way. He agreed that within certain limitations the local
commander should decide on the integration of black reservists into an
active unit, and he accepted integrated active duty training. But he
rejected the formation of black units in the organized reserve and the
voluntary training program; the latter because it would "inevitably
lead to the necessity for Negro officers and for authorizing drill
pay" in order to avoid charges of discrimination. Although Thomas
failed to explain why black officers and drill pay were unacceptable
or how rejecting the program would save the corps from charges of
discrimination, his recommendations were approved by the commandant
over the objection of the Reserve Division.[10-54] But the Director of
Reserves rejoined that volunteer training units were organized under
corps regulations, the Chicago group had met all the specifications,
and the corps would be subject to just criticism if it refused to form
the unit. On the other hand, by permitting the formation of some
all-black volunteer units, the corps might satisfy the wish of Negroes
to be a part of the reserve and thus avoid any concerted attempt to
get the corps to form all-black units in the organized reserve.[10-55]

[Footnote 10-54: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 7 May 47, sub: General Policy Governing
Negro Reservists, A0-1.]

[Footnote 10-55: Memo, Dir of Reserve for CMC, 15 May
47, sub: General Policy Concerning Negro
Reservists, AF 394.]

At this point the Division of Plans and Policies offered to
compromise. General Robinson recommended that when the number of
volunteers so warranted, the corps should form black units of company
size or greater, either separate or organic to larger reserve units
around the country. He remained opposed to integrated units,
explaining that experience proved--he neglected to mention what
experience, certainly none in the Marine Corps--that integrated units
served neither the best interests of the individual nor the corps.[10-56]
While the commandant's subsequent approval set the stage for the
formation of racially composite units in the reserve, the stipulation
that the black element be of company size or larger effectively
limited the degree of reform.

[Footnote 10-56: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies,
for CMC, 1 Mar 48, sub: Enlistment of Negro
Ex-Marines in Organized Reserve, A0-1.]

The development of composite units in the reserve paralleled a far
more significant development in the active forces. In 1947 the Marine
Corps began organizing such units along the lines established in the
postwar Army. Like the Army, the corps discovered that maintaining a
quota--even when the quota for the corps meant maintaining a minimum
number of Negroes in the service--in a period of shrinking manpower
resources necessitated the creation of new billets for Negroes. At the
same time it was obviously inefficient to assign combat-trained
Negroes, now surplus with the inactivation of the black defense
battalions, to black service and supply units when the Fleet Marine
Force battalions were so seriously understrength. Thus the strictures
against integration notwithstanding, the corps was forced to begin (p. 269)
attaching black units to the depleted Fleet Marine Force units.
In January 1947, for example, members of Headquarters Unit, Montford
Point Camp, and men of the inactivated 3d Antiaircraft Artillery
Battalion were transferred to Camp Geiger, North Carolina, and
assigned to the all-black 2d Medium Depot Company, which, along with
eight white units, was organized into the racially composite 2d Combat
Service Group in the 2d Marine Division.[10-57] Although the units of the
group ate in separate mess halls and slept in separate barracks,
inevitably the men of all units used some facilities in common. After
Negroes were assigned to Camp Geiger, for instance, recreational
facilities were open to all. In some isolated cases, black
noncommissioned officers were assigned to lead racially mixed details
in the composite group.[10-58]

[Footnote 10-57: USMC Muster Rolls, 1947.]

[Footnote 10-58: Interv, Martin Blumenson with 1st Sgt
Jerome Pressley, 21 Feb 66, CMH files.]

[Illustration: TRAINING EXERCISES. _Black Marine unit boards ship at
Morehead City, North Carolina, 1949._]

But these reforms, which did very little for a very few men, scarcely
dented the Marine Corps' racial policy. Corps officials were still
firmly committed to strict segregation in 1948, and change seemed very
distant. Any substantial modification in racial policy would require a
revolution against Marine tradition, a movement dictated by higher
civilian authority or touched off by an overwhelming military need.

CHAPTER 11 (p. 270)

The Postwar Air Force

The Air Force was a new service in 1947, but it was also heir to a
long tradition of segregation. Most of its senior officers, trained in
the Army, firmly supported the Army's policy of racially separate
units and racial quotas. And despite continuing objections to what
many saw as the Gillem Board's far too progressive proposals, the Air
Force adopted the Army's postwar racial policy as its own. Yet after
less than two years as an independent service the Air Force in late
1948 stood on the threshold of integration.

This sudden change in attitude was not so much the result of
humanitarian promptings by service officials, although some of them
forcibly demanded equal treatment and opportunity. Nor was it a
response to civil rights activists, although Negroes in and outside
the Air Force continued to exert pressure for change. Rather,
integration was forced upon the service when the inefficiency of its
racial practices could no longer be ignored. The inefficiency of
segregated troops was less noticeable in the Army, where a vast number
of Negroes could serve in a variety of expandable black units, and in
the smaller Navy, where only a few Negroes had specialist ratings and
most black sailors were in the separate Steward's Branch. But the
inefficiency of separatism was plainly evident in the Air Force.

Like the Army, the Air Force had its share of service units to absorb
the marginal black airman, but postwar budget restrictions had made
the enlargement of service units difficult to justify. At the same
time, the Gillem Board policy as well as outside pressures had made it
necessary to include a black air unit in the service's limited number
of postwar air wings. However socially desirable two air forces might
seem to most officials, and however easy it had been to defend them as
a wartime necessity, it quickly became apparent that segregation was,
organizationally at least, a waste of the Air Force's few black pilots
and specialists and its relatively large supply of unskilled black
recruits. Thus, the inclination to integrate was mostly pragmatic;
notably absent were the idealistic overtones sounded by the Navy's
Special Programs Unit during the war. Considering the magnitude of the
Air Force problem, it was probably just as well that efficiency rather
than idealism became the keynote of change. On a percentage basis the
Air Force had almost as many Negroes as the Army and, no doubt, a
comparable level of prejudice among its commanders and men. At the
same time, the Air Force was a new service, its organization still
fluid and its policies subject to rapid modification. In such
circumstances a straightforward appeal to efficiency had a chance to
succeed where an idealistic call for justice and fair play might well
have floundered.

_Segregation and Efficiency_ (p. 271)

Many officials in the Army Air Forces had defended segregated units
during the war as an efficient method of avoiding dangerous social
conflicts and utilizing low-scoring recruits.[11-1] General Arnold
himself repeatedly warned against bringing black officers and white
enlisted men together. Unless strict unit segregation was imposed,
such contacts would be inevitable, given the Air Forces' highly mobile
training and operations structure.[11-2] But if segregation restricted
contacts between the races it also imposed a severe administrative
burden on the wartime Air Forces. It especially affected the black
flying units because it ordained that not only pilots but the ground
support specialists--mechanics, supply clerks, armorers--had to be
black. Throughout most of the war the Air Forces, competing with the
rest of the Army for skilled and high-scoring Negroes, was unable to
fill the needs of its black air units. At a time when the Air Forces
enjoyed a surplus of white air and ground crews, the black fighter
units suffered from a shortage of replacements for their combat
veterans, a situation as inefficient as it was damaging to morale.[11-3]

[Footnote 11-1: For a comprehensive and authoritative
account of the Negro in the Army Air Forces during
World War II, sec Osur's _Blacks in the Army Air
Forces During World War II_.]

[Footnote 11-2: See Memo, CS/AC for G-3, 31 May 40,
sub: Employment of Negro Personnel in the Air Corps
Units, G-3/6541-Gen 527.]

[Footnote 11-3: For the effect on unit morale, see
Charles E. Francis, _The Tuskegee Airmen: The Story
of the Negro in the U.S. Air Force_ (Boston: Bruce
Humphries, 1955), p. 164; see also USAF Oral
History Program, Interview with Lt Gen B. O. Davis,
Jr., Jan 73.]

The shortage was compounded in the penultimate year of the war when
the all-black 477th Bombardment Group was organized. (Black airmen and
civil rights spokesmen complained that restricting Negroes to fighter
units excluded them from many important and prestigious types of air
service.) In the end the new bombardment group only served to limit
black participation in the air war. Already short of black pilots, the
Army Air Forces now had to find black navigators and bombardiers as
well, thereby intensifying the competition for qualified black cadets.
The stipulation that pilots and bombardiers for the new unit be
trained at segregated Tuskegee was another obvious cause for the
repeated delays in the operational date of the 477th, and its crews
were finally assembled only weeks before the end of the war.
Competition for black bomber crews also led to a ludicrous situation
in which men highly qualified for pilot training according to their
stanine scores (achievements on the battery of qualifying tests taken
by all applicants for flight service) were sent instead to
navigator-bomber training, for which they were only barely
qualified.[11-4]

[Footnote 11-4: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, pp.
462-64; see also Interv, author with Lt Gen
Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., 12 Jun 70, CMH files.]

Unable to obtain enough Negroes qualified for flight training, the
Army Air Forces asked the Ground and Service Forces to screen their
personnel for suitable candidates, but a screening early in 1945
produced only about one-sixth of the men needed. Finally, the Air
Forces recommended that the Army staff lower the General Classification
Test score for pilot training from 110 to 100, a recommendation the
Service and Ground Forces opposed because such a move would eventually
mean the mass transfer of high-scoring Negroes to the Air Forces, (p. 272)
thus depriving the Service and Ground Forces of their proportionate
share. Although the Secretary of War approved the Air Forces proposal,
the change came too late to affect the shortage of black pilots and
specialists before the end of the war.

[Illustration: DAMAGE INSPECTION. _A squadron operations officer of
the 332d Fighter Group points out a cannon hole to ground crew, Italy,
1945._]

While short of skilled Negroes, the Army Air Forces was being
inundated with thousands of undereducated and unskilled Negroes from
Selective Service. It tried to absorb these recruits, as it absorbed
some of its white draftees, by creating a great number of service and
base security battalions. A handy solution to the wartime quota
problem, the large segregated units eventually caused considerable
racial tension. Some of the tension might have been avoided had black
officers commanded black squadrons, a logical course since the Air
Force had a large surplus of nonrated black officers stationed at
Tuskegee.[11-5] Most were without permanent assignment or were assigned
such duties as custodial responsibility for bachelor officer quarters,
occupations unrelated to their specialties.[11-6]

[Footnote 11-5: A nonrated officer is one not having
or requiring a currently effective aeronautical
rating; that is, an officer who is not a pilot,
navigator, or bombardier.]

[Footnote 11-6: Interv, author with Davis; see also
Osur's _Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World
War II_, ch. V.]

Few of these idle black officers commanded black service units because
the units were scattered worldwide while the nonrated officers were
almost always assigned to the airfield at Tuskegee. Approximately
one-third of the Air Forces' 1,559 black officers were stationed at
Tuskegee in June 1945. Most others were assigned to the fighter group
in the Mediterranean theater or the new bombardment group in flight
training at Godman Field, Kentucky. Only twenty-five black (p. 273)
officers were serving at other stations in the United States. The
Second, Third, and Fourth Air Forces and I Troop Carrier Command, for
example, had a combined total of seventeen black officers as against
22,938 black enlisted men.[11-7] Col. Noel F. Parrish, the wartime
commander at Tuskegee, explained that the principal reason for this
restriction was the prevailing fear of social conflict. If assigned to
other bases, black officers might try to use the officers' clubs and
other base facilities. Thus, despite the surplus of black officers
only too evident at Tuskegee, their requests for transfer to other
bases for assignment in their rating were usually denied on the
grounds that the overall shortage of black officers made their
replacement impossible.[11-8]