Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 Part 9

[Footnote 3-18: Quoted in "BuPers Hist," p. 5.]

[Footnote 3-19: Memo, SecNav for Chmn, Gen Bd, 16 Jan 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of Colored Race in Other Than Messman Branch, Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives.]

When the General Board met on 23 January to consider the secretary's request, it became apparent that the minority report on the role of Negroes in the Navy had gained at least one convert among the senior officers. One board member, the Inspector General of the Navy, Rear Adm. Charles P. Snyder, repeated the arguments lately advanced by Addison Walker. He suggested that the board consider employing Negroes in some areas outside the servant cla.s.s: in the Musician's Branch, for example, because "the colored race is very musical and they are versed in all forms of rhythm," in the Aviation Branch where the Army had reported some success in employing Negroes, and on auxiliaries and minor vessels, especially transports. Snyder noted that these schemes would involve the creation of training schools, rigidly segregated at first, and that the whole program would be "troublesome and require tact, patience, and tolerance" on the part of those in charge. But, he added, "we have so many difficulties to surmount anyhow that one more possibly wouldn't swell the total very much." Foreseeing that segregation would become the focal point of black protest, he argued that the Navy had to begin accepting Negroes somewhere, and it might as well begin with a segregated general service.

Adamant in its opposition to any change in the Navy's policy, the (p. 064) Bureau of Navigation ignored Admiral Snyder's suggestions. The spokesman for the bureau warned that the 5,000 Negroes under consideration were just an opening wedge. "The sponsors of the program," Capt. Kenneth Whiting contended, "desire full equality on the part of the Negro and will not rest content until they obtain it." In the end, he predicted, Negroes would be on every man-of-war in direct proportion to their percentage of the population. The Commandant of the Marine Corps, Maj.

Gen. Thomas Holcomb, echoed the bureau's sentiments. He viewed the issue of black enlistments as crucial.

If we are defeated we must not close our eyes to the fact that once in they [Negroes] will be strengthened in their effort to force themselves into every activity we have. If they are not satisfied to be messmen, they will not be satisfied to go into the construction or labor battalions. Don't forget the colleges are turning out a large number of well-educated Negroes. I don't know how long we will be able to keep them out of the V-7 cla.s.s.

I think not very long.

The commandant called the enlistment of Negroes "absolutely tragic"; Negroes had every opportunity, he added, "to satisfy their aspiration to serve in the Army," and their desire to enter the naval service was largely an effort "to break into a club that doesn't want them."

The board heard similar sentiments from representatives of the Bureau of Aeronautics, the Bureau of Yards and Docks, and, with reservations, from the Coast Guard. Confronted with such united opposition from the powerful bureaus, the General Board capitulated. On 3 February it reported to the secretary that it was unable to submit a plan and strongly recommended that the current policy be allowed to stand. The board stated that "if, in the opinion of higher authority, political pressure is such as to require the enlistment of these people for general service, let it be for that." If restriction of Negroes to the Messman's Branch was discrimination, the board added, "it was but part and parcel of a similar discrimination throughout the United States."[3-20]

[Footnote 3-20: Enlistment of Men of Colored Race (201), 23 Jan 42, Hearings Before the General Board of the Navy, 1942; Memo, Chmn, Gen Bd, for SecNav, 3 Feb 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of Colored Race in Other Than Messman Branch. Both in Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives.]

Secretary Knox was certainly not one to dispute the board's findings, but it was a different story in the White House. President Roosevelt refused to accept the argument that the only choice lay between exclusion in the Messman's Branch and total integration in the general service. His desire to avoid the race issue was understandable; the war was in its darkest days, and whatever his aspirations for American society, the President was convinced that, while some change was necessary, "to go the whole way at one fell swoop would seriously impair the general average efficiency of the Navy."[3-21] He wanted the board to study the question further, noting that there were some additional tasks and some special a.s.signments that could be worked (p. 065) out for the Negro that "would not inject into the whole personnel of the Navy the race question."[3-22]

[Footnote 3-21: Quoted in "BuPers Hist," p. 6.]

[Footnote 3-22: Memo, SecNav for Chmn, Gen Bd, 14 Feb 42, Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives. The quotation is from the Knox Memo and is not necessarily in the exact words of the President.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MESSMEN VOLUNTEER AS GUNNERS, _Pacific task force, July 1942_.]

The Navy got the message. Armed with these instructions from the White House, the General Board called on the bureaus and other agencies to furnish lists of stations or a.s.signments where Negroes could be used in other than the Messman's Branch, adding that it was "unnecessary and inadvisable" to emphasize further the undesirability of recruiting Negroes. Freely interpreting the President's directive, the board decided that its proposals had to provide for segregation in order to prevent the injection of the race issue into the Navy. It rejected the idea of enlisting Negroes in such selected ratings as musician and carpenter's mate or designating a branch for Negroes (the possibility of an all-black aviation department for a carrier was discussed).

Basing its decision on the plans quickly submitted by the bureaus, the General Board recommended a course that it felt offered "least disadvantages and the least difficulty of accomplishment as a war measure": the formation of black units in the sh.o.r.e establishment, black crews for naval district local defense craft and selected Coast (p. 066) Guard cutters, black regiments in the Seabees, and composite battalions in the Marine Corps. The board asked that the Navy Department be granted wide lat.i.tude in deciding the number of Negroes to be accepted as well as their rate of enlistment and the method of recruiting, training, and a.s.signment.[3-23] The President agreed to the plan, but balked at the board's last request. "I think this is a matter," he told Secretary Knox, "to be determined by you and me."[3-24]

[Footnote 3-23: Memos, Chmn, Gen Bd, for Chief, BuNav, Cmdt, CG, and Cmdt, MC, 18 Feb 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of Colored Race in Other Than Messman Branch. For examples of responses, see Ltr, Cmdt, to Chmn, Gen Bd, 24 Feb 42, same sub; Memo, Chief, BuNav, for Chmn, Gen Bd, 7 Mar 42, same sub; Memo, CNO for Chief, BuNav, 25 Feb 42, same sub, with 1st Ind by CINCUSFLT, 28 Feb 42, same sub. The final enlistment plan is found in Memo, Chmn, Gen Bd, for SecNav, 20 Mar 42, same sub (G. B. No 421).

All in Recs of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives. It was transmitted to the President in Ltr, SecNav to President, 27 Mar 42, P14-4/MM, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-24: Memo, President for Secy of Navy, 31 Mar 42, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York.]

The two-year debate over the admission of Negroes ended just in time, for the opposition to the Navy's policy was enlisting new allies daily. The national press made the expected invidious comparisons when Joe Louis turned over his share of the purse from the Louis-Baer fight to Navy Relief, and Wendell Willkie in a well-publicized speech at New York's Freedom House excoriated the Navy's racial practices as a "mockery" of democracy.[3-25] But these were the last shots fired. On 7 April 1942 Secretary Knox announced the Navy's capitulation. The Navy would accept 277 black volunteers per week--it was not yet drafting anyone--for enlistment in all ratings of the general service of the reserve components of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. Their actual entry would have to await the construction of suitable, meaning segregated, facilities, but the Navy's goal for the first year was 14,000 Negroes in the general service.[3-26]

[Footnote 3-25: New York _Times_, January 10 and March 20, 1942.]

[Footnote 3-26: Office of SecNav, Press Release, 7 Apr 42.]

Members of the black community received the news with mixed emotions.

Some reluctantly accepted the plan as a first step; the NAACP's _Crisis_ called it "progress toward a more enlightened point of view."

Others, like the National Negro Congress, complimented Knox for his "bold, patriotic action."[3-27] But almost all were quick to point out that the black sailor would be segregated, limited to the rank of petty officer, and, except as a steward, barred from sea duty.[3-28] The Navy's plan offered all the disadvantages of the Army's system with none of the corresponding advantages for partic.i.p.ation and advancement.

The NAACP hammered away at the segregation angle, informing its public that the old system, which had fathered inequalities and humiliations in the Army and in civilian life, was now being followed by the Navy.

A. Philip Randolph complained that the change in Navy policy merely "accepts and extends and consolidates the policy of Jim-Crowism in the Navy as well as proclaims it as an accepted, recognized government (p. 067) ideology that the Negro is inferior to the white man."[3-29] The editors of the National Urban League's _Opportunity_ concluded that, "faced with the great opportunity to strengthen the forces of Democracy, the Navy Department chose to affirm the charge that j.a.pan is making against America to the brown people ... that the so-called Four Freedoms enunciated in the great 'Atlantic Charter' were for white men only."[3-30]

[Footnote 3-27: "The Navy Makes a Gesture," _Crisis_ 49 (May 1942):51. The National Negro Congress quotation reprinted in Dennis D. Nelson's summary of reactions to the Secretary of the Navy's announcement. See Nelson, "The Integration of the Negro in the United States Navy, 1776-1947"

(NAVEXOS-P-526), p. 38. (This earlier and different version of Nelson's published work, derived from his master's thesis, was sponsored by the U.S.

Navy.)]

[Footnote 3-28: Although essentially correct, the critics were technically inaccurate since some Negroes would be a.s.signed to Coast Guard cutters which qualified as sea duty.]

[Footnote 3-29: Quoted in Nelson, "The Integration of the Negro," p. 37.]

[Footnote 3-30: _Opportunity_ (May 1942), p. 82.]

_A Segregated Navy_

With considerable alacrity the Navy set a practical course for the employment of its black volunteers. On 21 April 1942 Secretary Knox approved a plan for training Negroes at Camp Barry, an isolated section of the Great Lakes Training Center. Later renamed Camp Robert Smalls after a black naval hero of the Civil War, the camp not only offered the possibility of practically unlimited expansion but, as the Bureau of Navigation put it, made segregation "less obvious" to recruits. The secretary also approved the use of facilities at Hampton Inst.i.tute, the well-known black school in Virginia, as an advanced training school for black recruits.[3-31]

[Footnote 3-31: Memo, Chief, BuNav, for SecNav, 17 Apr 42, sub: Training Facilities for Negro Recruits, Nav-102; Memo, SecNav for Rear Adm Randall Jacobs, 21 Apr 42, 54-1-22. Both in GenRecsNav.]

Black enlistments began on 1 June 1942, and black volunteers started entering Great Lakes later that month in cla.s.ses of 277 men. At the same time the Navy opened enlistments for an unlimited number of black Seabees and messmen. Lt. Comdr. Daniel Armstrong commanded the recruit program at Camp Smalls. An Annapolis graduate, son of the founder of Hampton Inst.i.tute, Armstrong first came to the attention of Knox in March 1942 when he submitted a plan for the employment of black sailors that the secretary considered practical.[3-32] Under Armstrong's energetic leadership, black recruits received training that was in some respects superior to that afforded whites. For all his success, however, Armstrong was strongly criticized, especially by educated Negroes who resented his theories of education. Imbued with the paternalistic att.i.tude of Tuskegee and Hampton, Armstrong saw the Negro as possessing a separate culture more attuned to vocational training. He believed that Negroes needed special treatment and discipline in a totally segregated environment free from white compet.i.tion. Educated Negroes, on the other hand, saw in this special treatment another form of discrimination.[3-33]

[Footnote 3-32: Memo, SecNav for Chmn, Gen Bd, 7 Mar 42, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-33: For a discussion of Armstrong's philosophy from the viewpoint of an educated black recruit, see Nelson, "Integration of the Negro,"

pp. 28-34. Sec also Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70, CMH files.]

During the first six months of the new segregated training program, before the great influx of Negroes from the draft, the Navy set the training period at twelve weeks. Later, when it had reluctantly abandoned the longer period, the Navy discovered that the regular eight-week course was sufficient. Approximately 31 percent of those graduating from the recruit course were qualified for Cla.s.s A (p. 068) schools and entered advanced cla.s.ses to receive training that would normally lead to petty officer rating for the top graduates and prepare men for a.s.signment to naval stations and local defense and district craft. There they would serve in such cla.s.s "A" specialties as radioman, signalman, and yeoman and the other occupational specialties such as machinist, mechanic, carpenter, electrician, cook, and baker.[3-34] Some of these cla.s.ses were held at Hampton, but, as the number of black recruits increased, the majority remained at Camp Smalls for advanced training.

[Footnote 3-34: With the exception of machinist school, where blacks were in training twice as long as whites, specialist training for Negroes and whites was similar in length. See "BuPers Hist,"

pp. 28-30, 60-61.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ELECTRICIAN MATES _string power lines in the Central Pacific_.]

The rest of the recruit graduates, those unqualified for advanced schooling, were divided. Some went directly to naval stations and local defense and district craft where they relieved whites as seaman, second cla.s.s, and fireman, third cla.s.s, and as trainees in specialties that required no advanced schooling; the rest, approximately eighty men per week, went to naval ammunition depots as unskilled laborers.[3-35]

[Footnote 3-35: BuPers, "Reports, Schedules, and Charts Relating to Enlistment, Training, and a.s.signment of Negro Personnel," 5 Jun 42, Pers-617, BuPersRecs.]

The Navy proceeded to a.s.similate the black volunteers along these lines, suffering few of the personnel problems that plagued the Army in the first months of the war. In contrast to the Army's chaotic situation, caused by the thousands of black recruits streaming in from Selective Service, the Navy's plans for its volunteers were disrupted only because qualified Negroes showed little inclination to flock to the Navy standard, and more than half of those who did were rejected.

The Bureau of Naval Personnel[3-36] reported that during the first three weeks of recruitment only 1,261 Negroes volunteered for general service, and 58 percent of these had to be rejected for physical and other reasons. The Chief of Naval Personnel, Rear Adm. Randall Jacobs, was surprised at the small number of volunteers, a figure far below the planners' expectations, and his surprise turned to concern in the next months as the seventeen-year-old volunteer inductees, the primary target of the armed forces recruiters, continued to choose the Army over the Navy at a ratio of 10 to 1.[3-37] The Navy's personnel officials agreed that they had to attract their proper share of intelligent and able Negroes but seemed unable to isolate the (p. 069) cause of the disinterest. Admiral Jacobs blamed it on a lack of publicity; the bureau's historians, perhaps unaware of the Navy's nineteenth century experience with black seamen, later attributed it to Negroes' "relative unfamiliarity with the sea or the large inland waters and their consequent fear of the water."[3-38]

[Footnote 3-36: In May 1942 the name of the Bureau of Navigation was changed to the Bureau of Naval Personnel to reflect more accurately the duties of the organization.]

[Footnote 3-37: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for CO, Great Lakes NTC, 23 Apr 43. P14-1, BuPersRecs.]

[Footnote 3-38: "BuPers Hist," p. 54.]

The fact was, of course, that Negroes shunned the Navy because of its recent reputation as the exclusive preserve of white America. Only when the Navy began a.s.signing black recruiting specialists to the numerous naval districts and using black chief petty officers, reservists from World War I general service, at recruiting centers to explain the new opportunities for Negroes in the Navy was the bureau able to overcome some of the young men's natural reluctance to volunteer. By 1 February 1943 the Navy had 26,909 Negroes (still 2 percent of the total enlisted): 6,662 in the general service; 2,020 in the Seabees; and 19,227, over two-thirds of the total, in the Steward's Branch.[3-39]

[Footnote 3-39: Ibid., p. 9.]

The smooth and efficient distribution of black recruits was short-lived. Under pressure from the Army, the War Manpower Commission, and in particular the White House, the Navy was forced into a sudden and significant expansion of its black recruit program.

The Army had long objected to the Navy's recruitment method, and as early as February 1942 Secretary Stimson was calling the volunteer recruitment system a waste of manpower.[3-40] He was even more direct when he complained to President Roosevelt that through voluntary recruiting the Navy had avoided acceptance of any considerable number of Negroes. Consequently, the Army was now faced with the possibility of having to accept an even greater proportion of Negroes "with adverse effect on its combat efficiency." The solution to this problem, as Stimson saw it, was for the Navy to take its recruits from Selective Service.[3-41] Stimson failed to win his point. The President accepted the Navy's argument that segregation would be difficult to maintain on board ship. "If the Navy living conditions on board ship were similar to the Army living conditions on land," he wrote Stimson, "the problem would be easier but the circ.u.mstances ... being such as they are, I feel that it is best to continue the present system at this time."[3-42]

[Footnote 3-40: Memo, SW for SecNav, 16 Feb 42, sub: Continuing of Voluntary Recruiting by the Navy, QN/P14-4, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-41: Idem for President, 16 Mar 42, copy in QN/P14-4, GenRecsNav.]