Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 Part 39

[Footnote 11-9: Ltr, Hq AAF, to CG, Tactical Training Cmd, 21 Aug 42, sub: Professional Qualities of Officers a.s.signed to Negro Units, 220.765-3, AFSHRC.]

[Footnote 11-10: Parrish, "Segregation of the Negro in the Army Air Forces," pp. 50-55. The many difficulties involved in the a.s.signment of white officers to black units are discussed in Osur's _Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II_, ch V.]

The social problems predicted for integration proved inevitable under segregation. Commanders found it prohibitively expensive to provide separate but equal facilities, and without them discrimination became more obvious. The walk-in protest at the Freeman Field Officers Club was but one of the natural consequences of segregation rules. And such demonstrations were only the more spectacular problems. Just as time-consuming and perhaps more of a burden were the many administrative difficulties. The Air Transport Command admitted in 1946 that it was too expensive to maintain, as the command was obligated to do, separate and equal housing and messing, including separate orderly and day rooms for black airmen. At the same time it complained of the disproportionately high percentage of black troops violating military and civil law. Although Negroes accounted for 20 percent of the command's troops, they committed more than 50 percent of its law infractions. The only connection the command was able to make between the separate, unequal facilities and the high misconduct rate was to point out that, while it had done its best to provide for Negroes, they "had not earned a very enviable record by themselves."[11-11]

[Footnote 11-11: AAF Transport Cmd, "History of the Command, 1 July 1946-31 December 1946" pp. 120-26.]

In one crucial five-month period of the war, Army Air Forces (p. 274) headquarters processed twenty-two separate staff actions involving black troops.[11-12] To avoid the supposed danger of large-scale social integration, the Air Forces, like the rest of the Army during World War II, had been profligate in its use of material resources, inefficient in its use of men, and destructive of the morale of black troops.

[Footnote 11-12: Parrish, "Segregation of the Negro in the Army Air Forces."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: COLONEL PARRISH. (_1946 photograph_).]

The Air staff was not oblivious to these facts and made some adjustments in policy as the war progressed. Notably, it rejected separate training of nonrated black officers and provided for integrated training of black navigators and bombardiers. In the last days of the war General Arnold ordered his commanders to "take affirmative action to insure that equity in training and a.s.signment opportunity is provided all personnel."[11-13] And when it came to postwar planning, the Air staff demonstrated it had learned much from wartime experience:

The degree to which negroes can be successfully employed in the Post-War Military Establishment largely depends on the success of the Army in maintaining at a minimum the feeling of discrimination and unfair treatment which basically are the causes for irritation and disorders ... in the event of a future emergency the arms will employ a large number of negroes and their contribution in such an emergency will largely depend on the training, treatment and intelligent use of negroes during the intervening years.[11-14]

[Footnote 11-13: AAF Ltr 35-268, 11 Aug 45.]

[Footnote 11-14: Rpt, ACS/AS-1 to WDSS, 17 Sep 45, sub: Partic.i.p.ation of Negro Troops in the Post-War Military Establishment, WDSS 291.2.]

But while admitting that discrimination was at the heart of its racial problem, the Air staff failed to see the connection between discrimination and segregation. Instead it adopted the recommendations of its senior commanders. The consensus was that black combat (flying) units had performed "more or less creditably," but required more training than white units, and that the ground echelon and combat support units had performed below average. Rather than abolish these below average units, however, commanders wanted them preserved and wanted postwar policy to strengthen segregation. The final recommendation of the Army Air Forces to the Gillem Board was that blacks be trained according to the same standards as whites but that they be employed in separate units and segregated for recreation, messing, and social activities "on the post as well as off," in (p. 275) keeping with prevailing customs in the surrounding civilian community.[11-15]

[Footnote 11-15: Ibid. For an a.n.a.lysis of these recommendations, see Gropman's _The Air Force Integrates_, ch. II.]

The Army Air Forces' postwar use of black troops was fairly consonant with the major provisions of the Gillem Board Report. To reduce black combat units in proportion to the reduction of its white units, it converted the 477th Bombardment Group (M) into the 477th Composite Group. This group, under the command of the Army's senior black pilot, Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., included a fighter, a bombardment, and a service squadron. To provide segregated duty for its black specialists, the Army Air Forces organized regular black squadrons, mostly ammunition, motor transport, and engineer throughout its commands. To absorb the large number of unskilled Negroes, it organized one black squadron (Squadron F) in each of the ninety-seven base units in its worldwide base system to perform laboring and housekeeping ch.o.r.es. Finally, it promised "to the fullest possible extent" to a.s.sign Negroes with specialized skills and qualifications to overhead and special units.[11-16]

[Footnote 11-16: WD Bureau of Public Relations, Memo for the Press, 20 Sep 45; Office of Public Relations, G.o.dman Field, Ky., "Col. Davis Issues Report on G.o.dman Field," 10 Oct 45; Memo, Chief, Programs and Manpower Section, Troop Basis Branch, Organization Division, D/T&R, for Dir of Military Personnel, 23 Apr 48, no sub; all in Negro Affairs, SecAF files. See also "History of G.o.dman Field, Ky., 1 Mar--15 Oct 45," AFSHRC.]

In the summer of 1947, the Army Air Forces integrated aviation training at Randolph Field, Texas, and quietly closed Tuskegee airfield, thus ending the last segregated officer training in the armed forces. The move was unrelated to the Gillem Board Report or to the demands of civil rights advocates. The Tuskegee operation had simply become impractical. In the severe postwar retrenchment of the armed forces, Tuskegee's cadet enrollment had dropped sharply, only nine men graduated in the October 1945 cla.s.s.[11-17] To the general satisfaction of the black community, the few black cadets shared both quarters and cla.s.ses with white students.[11-18] Nine black cadets were in training at the end of 1947.[11-19]

[Footnote 11-17: "History of the 2143d AAF Base Unit, Pilot School, Basic, Advanced, and Tuskegee Army Air Field, 1 Sep 1945-31 Oct 1945," AFSHRC.]

[Footnote 11-18: For an example of black reaction see _Ebony_ Magazine V (September 1949).]

[Footnote 11-19: Memo, James C. Evans, Adviser to the SecDef, for Capt Robert W. Berry, 10 Feb 48, SecDef 291.2 files.]

Another postwar reduction was not so advantageous for Negroes. By February 1946 the 477th Composite Group had been reduced to sixteen B-25 bombers, twelve P-47 fighter-bombers, and only 746 men--a 40 percent drop in four months.[11-20] Although the Tactical Air Command rated the unit's postwar training and performance satisfactory, and its transfer to the more hospitable surroundings and finer facilities of Lockbourne Field, Ohio, raised morale, the 477th, like other understaffed and underequipped organizations, faced inevitable conversion to specialized service. In July 1947 the 477th was inactivated and replaced by the 332d Fighter Group composed of the 99th, 100th, and 301st Fighter Squadrons. Black bomber pilots were converted to fighter pilots, and the bomber crews were removed from flying status.

[Footnote 11-20: "History of the 477th Composite Group," 15 Sep 45-15 Feb 46, Feb-Mar 46, and 1 Mar-15 Jul 46, AFSHRC.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: OFFICERS' SOFTBALL TEAM _representing the 477th Composite Group, G.o.dwin Field, Kentucky_.]

These changes flew in the face of the Gillem Board Report, for (p. 276) however slightly that doc.u.ment may have changed the Army's segregation policy, it did demand at least a modest response to the call for equal opportunity in training, a.s.signment, and advancement. The board clearly looked to the command of black units by qualified black officers and the training of black airmen to serve as a cadre for any necessary expansion of black units in wartime. Certainly the conversion of black bomber pilots to fighters did not meet these modest demands. In its defense the Army Air Forces in effect pleaded that there were too many Negroes for its present force, now severely reduced in size and lacking planes and other equipment, and too many of the black troops lacked education for the variety of a.s.signments recommended by the board.

The Army Air Forces seemed to have a point, for in the immediate postwar period its percentage of black airmen had risen dramatically.

It was drafting men to replace departing veterans, and in 1946 it was taking anyone who qualified, including many Negroes. In seven months the air arm lost over half its black strength, going from a wartime high of 80,606 on 31 August 1945 to 38,911 on 31 March 1946, but in the same period the black percentage almost doubled, climbing from 4.2 to 7.92.[11-21] The War Department predicted that all combat arms would have a black strength of 15 percent by 1 July 1946.[11-22]

[Footnote 11-21: All figures from STM-30, 1 Sep 45 and 1 Apr 46.]

[Footnote 11-22: Memo, TAG for CG's et al., 4 Feb 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, AG 291.2 (31 Jan 46).]

This prophecy never materialized in the Air Forces. Changes in enlistment standards, curtailment of overseas a.s.signments for Negroes, and, finally, suspension of all black enlistments in the Regular Army except in certain military specialist occupations turned the percentage of Negroes downward. By the fall of 1947, when the Air (p. 277) Force became a separate service,[11-23] the proportion of black airmen had leveled off at nearly 7 percent. Nor did the proportion of Negroes ever exceed the Gillem Board's 10 percent quota during the next decade.

[Footnote 11-23: Under the terms of the National Security Act of 1947 the U.S. Air Force was created as a separate service in a Department of the Air Force on 18 September 1947. The new service included the old Army Air Forces; the Air Corps, U.S. Army; and General Headquarters Air Force. The strictures of WD Circular 124, like those of many other departmental circulars, were adopted by the new service. For convenience' sake the terms _Air Force_ and _service_ will be employed in the remaining sections of this chapter even where the terms _Army Air Forces_ and _component_ would be more appropriate.]

The Air Force seemed on safer ground when it pleaded that it lacked the black airmen with skills to carry out the variety of a.s.signments called for by the Gillem Board. The Air Force was finding it impossible to organize effective black units in appreciable numbers; even some units already in existence were as much as two-thirds below authorized strength in certain ground specialist slots.[11-24] Yet here too the statistics do not reveal the whole truth. Despite a general shortage of Negroes in the high test score categories, the Air Force did have black enlisted men qualified for general a.s.signment as specialists or at least eligible for specialist training, who were instead a.s.signed to labor squadrons.[11-25] In its effort to reduce the number of Negroes, the service had also relieved from active duty other black specialists trained in much needed skills. Finally, the Air Force still had a surplus of black specialists in some categories at Lockbourne Field who were not a.s.signed to the below-strength units.

[Footnote 11-24: "Tactical Air Command (TAC) History, 1 Jan-30 Dec 48," pp. 94-96, AFSHRC; see also Lawrence J. Paszek, "Negroes and the Air Force, 1939-1949," _Military Affairs_ (Spring 1967), p.

8.]

[Footnote 11-25: Memo, DCofS/Personnel, TAC, for CG, TAC, 18 Mar 48, AFSHRC.]

Again it was not too many black enlisted men or too few black officers or specialists but the policy of strict segregation that kept the Air Force from using black troops efficiently. Insistence on segregation, not the number of Negroes, caused maldistribution among the commands.

In 1947, for example, the Tactical Air Command contained some 5,000 black airmen, close to 28 percent of the command's strength. This situation came about because the command counted among its units the one black air group and many of the black service units whose members in an integrated service would have been distributed throughout all the commands according to needs and abilities. The Air Force segregation policy restricted all but forty-five of the black officers in the continental United States to one base,[11-26] just as it was the Air Force's attempt to avoid integration that kept black officers from command. In November 1947, 1,581 black enlisted men and only two black officers were stationed at MacDill Field; at San Antonio there were 3,450 black airmen and again two black officers. These figures provide some clue to the cause of the riot involving black airmen at MacDill Field on 27 October 1946.[11-27]

[Footnote 11-26: Memo, DCofS/P&A, USAF, for a.s.st SecAF, 5 Dec 47, sub: Air Force Negro Troops in the Zone of Interior, Negro Affairs, SecAF files.]

[Footnote 11-27: "History of MacDill Army Airfield, Oct 46," pp. 10-11, AFSHRC. For a detailed a.n.a.lysis of the MacDill riot and its aftermath, see Gropman, _The Air Force Integrates_, ch. I; see also ch. 5, above.]

Segregation also prevented the use of Negroes on a broader professional scale. In April 1948, 84.2 percent of Negroes in the Air Force were working in an occupational specialty as against 92.7 (p. 278) percent of whites, but the number of Negroes in radar, aviation specialist, wire communications, and other highly specialized skills required to support a tactical air unit was small and far below the percentage of whites. The Air Force argued that since Negroes were a.s.signed to black units and since there was only one black tactical unit, there was little need for Negroes with these special skills.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHECKING AMMUNITION. _An armorer in the 332d Fighter Group inspects the P-51 Mustang, Italy, 1945._]

The fact that rated black officers and specialists were restricted to one black fighter group particularly concerned civil rights advocates.

Without bomber, transport, ferrying, or weather observation a.s.signments, black officers qualified for larger aircraft had no chance to diversify their careers. It was essentially the same story for black airmen. Without more varied and large black combat units the Air Force had no need to a.s.sign many black airmen to specialist training. In December 1947, for example, only 80 of approximately 26,000 black airmen were attending specialist schools.[11-28] When asked about the absence of Negroes in large aircraft, especially bombers, Air Force spokesmen cited the conversion of the 477th Composite Group, which contained the only black bomber unit, to a specialized fighter group as merely part of a general reorganization to meet the needs (p. 279) of a 55-wing organization.[11-29] That the one black bomber unit happened to be organized out of existence was pure accident.

[Footnote 11-28: Memo, unsigned (probably DCofS/P&A), for a.s.st SecAF Zuckert, 22 Apr 48, SecAF files.]

[Footnote 11-29: See Air Force Testimony Before the National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs (afternoon session), pp. 29-32, CMH files.]

The Gillem Board had sought to expand the training and placement of skilled Negroes by going outside the regular black units and giving them overhead a.s.signments. After the war some base commanders made such a.s.signments unofficially, taking advantage of the abilities of airmen in the overmanned, all-black Squadron F's and a.s.signing them to skilled duties. In one instance the base commander's secretary was a member of his black unit; in another, black mechanics from Squadron F worked on the flight line with white mechanics. But whatever their work, these men remained members of Squadron F, and often the whole black squadron, rather than individual airmen, found itself functioning as an overhead unit, contrary to the intent of the Gillem Board. Even the few Negroes formally trained in a specialty and placed in an integrated overhead unit did not approximate the Gillem Board's intention of training a cadre that would be readily expandable in an emergency.

The alternative to expanded overhead a.s.signments was continuation of segregated service units and Squadron F's, but, as some manpower experts pointed out, many special purpose units suitable for unskilled airmen were disappearing from the postwar Air Force. Experience gained through the a.s.signment of large numbers of marginal men to such units in peacetime would be of questionable value during large-scale mobilization.[11-30] As Colonel Parrish, the wartime commander of training at Tuskegee, warned, a peacetime policy incapable of wartime application was not only unrealistic, but dangerous.[11-31]

[Footnote 11-30: Memo, DCofS/P&A, TAC, for CG, TAC, 18 Mar 48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, AFSHRC.]

[Footnote 11-31: Parrish, "Segregation of the Negro in the Army Air Forces," pp. 72-73.]

The Air staff tried to carry out the Gillem Board's suggestion that Negroes be stationed "where att.i.tudes are most favorable for them insofar as military factors permit," but even here the service lagged behind civilian practice. When Marcus H. Ray arrived at Wright Field, Ohio, for a two-day inspection tour in July 1946, he found almost 3,000 black civilians working peacefully and effectively alongside 18,000 white civilians, all a.s.signed to their jobs without regard to race. "I would rate this installation," Ray reported, "as the best example of efficient utilization of manpower I have seen." He went on to explain: "The integration has been accomplished without publicity and simply by a.s.signing workers according to their capabilities and without regard to race, creed, or color." But Ray also noted that there were no black military men on the base.[11-32] a.s.sistant Secretary of War Petersen was impressed. "In view of the fact that the racial climate seems exceptionally favorable at Wright Field," he wrote General Carl Spaatz, "consideration should be given to the employment of carefully selected Negro military personnel with specialist ratings for work in that installation."[11-33]

[Footnote 11-32: Memo, Ray for ASW, 25 Jul 46, ASW 291.2.]

[Footnote 11-33: Memo, Petersen for CG, AAF, 29 Jul 46, ASW 291.2.]

The Air Force complied. In the fall of 1946 it was forming black (p. 280) units for a.s.signment to Air Materiel Command Stations, and it planned to move a black unit to Wright Field in the near future.[11-34] In a.s.signing an all-black unit to Wright, however, the Air Force was introducing segregation where none had existed before, and here as in other areas its actions belied the expressed intent of the Gillem Board policy.

[Footnote 11-34: Memo, Brig Gen Reuben C. Hood, Jr., Office of CG, AAF, for ASW, 13 Sep 46, ASW 291.2.]