Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 Part 13

He said that Admiral King sat for a moment, and looked out (p. 089) the window and then said reflectively, "You know, we say that we are a democracy and a democracy ought to have a democratic Navy. I don't think you can do it, but if you want to try, I'm behind you all the way." And he told me, "And Admiral King was behind me, all the way, not only he but all of the Bureau of Personnel, BuPers. They've been bricks."[3-105]

[Footnote 3-105: Quoted in the Columbia University Oral History Interview with Granger. Granger's incorrect reference to Admiral King as "chief of staff" is interesting because it ill.u.s.trates the continuing evolution of that office during World War II.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAILORS IN THE GENERAL SERVICE MOVE AMMUNITION.]

Admiral Jacobs, the Chief of Naval Personnel, also pledged his support.[3-106]

[Footnote 3-106: James V. Forrestal, "Remarks for Dinner Meeting at National Urban League," 12 Feb 58, Box 31, Misc file, Forrestal Papers, Princeton Library. Forrestal's truncated version of the King meeting agreed substantially with Granger's lengthier remembrance.]

As news of the King-Forrestal conversation filtered through the department, many of the programs long suggested by the Special Programs Unit and heretofore treated with indifference or disapproval suddenly received respectful attention.[3-107] With the high-ranking officers cooperating, the Navy under Forrestal began to attack some of the more obvious forms of discrimination and causes of racial tension.

Admiral King led the attack, personally directing in August 1944 that all elements give close attention to the proper selection of officers to command black sailors. As he put it: "Certain officers will be temperamentally better suited for such commands than others."[3-108] The qualifications of these officers were to be kept under constant (p. 090) review. In December he singled out the commands in the Pacific area, which had a heavy concentration of all-black base companies, calling for a reform in their employment and advancement of Negroes.[3-109]

[Footnote 3-107: Intervs, Lee Nichols with Adm Louis E. Denfeld (Deputy Chief of Naval Personnel, later CNO) and with Cmdr Charles Dillon (formerly of BuPers Special Unit), 1953; both in Nichols Collection, CMH.]

[Footnote 3-108: ALNAV, 7 Aug 44, quoted in Nelson, "Integration of the Negro," p. 46.]

[Footnote 3-109: Dir, CNO, to Forward Areas, Dec 44, quoted in Nelson's "Integration of the Negro," p.

51.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SECURITY WATCH IN THE MARIANAS. _Ratings of these men guarding an ammunition depot include boatswain, second cla.s.s, seaman, first cla.s.s, and fireman, first cla.s.s._]

The Bureau of Naval Personnel also stepped up the tempo of its reforms. In March 1944 it had already made black cooks and bakers eligible for duty in all commissary branches of the Navy.[3-110] In June it got Forrestal's approval for putting all rated cooks and stewards in chief petty officer uniforms.[3-111] (While providing finally for the proper uniforming of the chief cooks and stewards, this reform set their subordinates, the rated cooks and stewards, even further apart from their counterparts in the general service who of course continued to wear the familiar bell bottoms.) The bureau also began to attack the concentration of Negroes in ammunition depots and base companies.

On 21 February 1945 it ordered that all naval magazines and ammunition depots in the United States and, wherever practical, overseas limit their black seamen to 30 percent of the total employed.[3-112] It (p. 091) also organized twenty logistic support companies to replace the formless base companies sent to the Pacific in the early months of the recruitment program. Organized to perform supply functions, each company consisted of 250 enlisted men and five officers, with a flexible range of petty officer billets.

[Footnote 3-110: BuPers Cir Ltr 72-44, 13 Mar 44, sub: Negro Personnel of the Commissary Branch, a.s.signment to Duty of.]

[Footnote 3-111: Idem, 182-44, 29 Jun 44, "Uniform for Chief Cooks and Chief Stewards and Cooks and Stewards."]

[Footnote 3-112: Idem, 45-18, 21 Feb 45, and 45-46, 31 May 45, sub: Negro Enlisted Personnel--Limitation on a.s.signment of to Naval Ammunition Depots and Naval Magazines.]

In the reform atmosphere slowly permeating the Bureau of Naval Personnel, the Special Programs Unit found it relatively easy to end segregation in the specialist training program.[3-113] From the first, the number of Negroes eligible for specialist training had been too small to make costly duplication of equipment and services practical.

In 1943, for example, the black aviation metalsmith school at Great Lakes had an average enrollment of eight students. The school was quietly closed and its students integrated with white students. Thus, when the _Mason's_ complement was a.s.sembled in early 1944, Negroes were put into the destroyer school at Norfolk side by side with whites, and the black and white petty officers were quartered together. As a natural consequence of the decision to place Negroes in the auxiliary fleet, the Bureau of Naval Personnel opened training in seagoing rates to Negroes on an integrated basis. Citing the practicality of the move, the bureau closed the last of the black schools in June 1945.[3-114]

[Footnote 3-113: There is some indication that integration was already going on unofficially in some specialist schools; see Ltr, Dr. M. A. F.

Ritchie to James C. Evans, 13 Aug 65, CMH files.]

[Footnote 3-114: BuPers Cir Ltr 194-44, sub: Advanced Schools, Nondiscrimination in Selection of Personnel for Training in; Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to CO, AdComd, NavTraCen, 12 Jun 45, sub: Selection of Negro Personnel for Instruction in Cla.s.s "A"

Schools, 54-1-21, GenRecsNav.]

Despite these reforms, the months following Forrestal's talk with King saw many important recommendations of the Special Programs Unit wandering uncertainly through the bureaucratic desert. For example, a proposal to make the logistic support companies interracial, or at least to create comparable white companies to remove the stigma of segregated manual labor, failed to survive the objections of the enlisted personnel section. The Bureau of Naval Personnel rejected a suggestion that Negroes be a.s.signed to repair units on board s.h.i.+ps and to LST's, LCI's, and LCT's during the expansion of the amphibious program. On 30 August 1944 Admiral King rejected a bureau recommendation that the crews of net tenders and mine s.h.i.+ps be integrated. He reasoned that these vessels were being kept in readiness for overseas a.s.signment and required "the highest degree of experienced seamans.h.i.+p and precision work" by the crews. He also cited the crowded living quarters and less experienced officers as further reasons for banning Negroes.[3-115]

[Footnote 3-115: Memo, CNO for Chief, NavPers, 30 Aug 44, sub: Negro Personnel--a.s.signment to ANs and YMs, P13-/MM, BuPersRecs.]

There were other examples of backsliding in the Navy's racial practices. Use of Negroes in general service had created a shortage of messmen, and in August 1944 the Bureau of Naval Personnel authorized commanders to recruit among black seamen for men to transfer to the Steward's Branch. The bureau suggested as a talking point the fact (p. 092) that stewards enjoyed more rapid advancement, shorter hours, and easier work than men in the general service.[3-116] And, ill.u.s.trating that a move toward integration was sometimes followed by a step backward, a bureau representative reported in July 1945 that whereas a few black trainees at the Bainbridge Naval Training Center had been integrated in the past, many now arriving were segregated in all-black companies.[3-117]

[Footnote 3-116: BuPers Cir Ltr 227-44, 12 Aug 44, sub: Steward's Branch, Procurement of From General-Service Negroes.]

[Footnote 3-117: Memo, Lt William H. Robertson, Jr., for Rear Adm William M. Fechteler, a.s.st Chief, NavPers, 20 Jul 45, sub: Conditions Existing at NTC, Bainbridge, Md., Regarding Negro Personnel, Reported on by Lt Wm. H. Robertson, Jr., Pers-2119-FB, BuPersRecs.]

There were reasons for the inconsistent stance in Was.h.i.+ngton. The Special Programs Unit had for some time been convinced that only full integration would eliminate discrimination and dissolve racial tensions in the Navy, and it had understood Forrestal's desire "to do something" for the Negro to mean just that. Some senior commanders and their colleagues in the Bureau of Naval Personnel, on the other hand, while accepting the need for reform and willing to accept some racial mixing, nevertheless rejected any substantial change in the policy of restricted employment of Negroes on the grounds that it might disrupt the wartime fleet. Both sides could argue with a.s.surance since Forrestal and King had not made their positions completely clear.

Whatever the secretary's ultimate intention, the reforms carried out in 1944 were too little and too late. Perhaps nothing would have been sufficient, for the racial incidents visited upon the Navy during the last year of the war were symptomatic of the overwhelming dissatisfaction Negroes felt with their lot in the armed forces. There had been incidents during the Knox period, but investigation had failed to isolate any "single, simple cause," and troubles continued to occur during 1944.[3-118]

[Footnote 3-118: "BuPers Hist," p. 75.]

Three of these incidents gained national prominence.[3-119] The first was a mutiny at Mare Island, California, after an explosion destroyed two ammunition s.h.i.+ps loading at nearby Port Chicago on 17 July 1944.

The explosion killed over 300 persons, including 250 black seamen who had toiled in large, segregated labor battalions. The survivors refused to return to work, and fifty of them were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to prison. The incident became a _cause celebre_.

Finally, through the intervention of the black press and black organizations and the efforts of Thurgood Marshall and Lester Granger, the convictions were set aside and the men restored to active duty.

[Footnote 3-119: Nelson, "Integration of the Negro,"

ch. VIII.]

A riot on Guam in December 1944 was the climax of months of friction between black seamen and white marines. A series of shootings in and around the town of Agana on Christmas Eve left a black and a white marine dead. Believing one of the killed a member of their group, black sailors from the Naval Supply Depot drove into town to confront the outnumbered military police. No violence ensued, but the next day two truckloads of armed Negroes went to the white Marine camp. A riot followed and forty-three Negroes were arrested, charged with rioting and theft of the trucks, and sentenced to up to four years in prison.

The authorities also recommended that several of the white marines (p. 093) involved be court-martialed. These men too were convicted of various offenses and sentenced.[3-120] Walter White went to Guam to investigate the matter and appeared as a princ.i.p.al witness before the Marine Court of Inquiry. There he pieced together for officials the long history of discrimination suffered by men of the base company.

This situation, combined with poor leaders.h.i.+p in the unit, he believed, caused the trouble. His efforts and those of other civil rights advocates led to the release of the black sailors in early 1946.[3-121]

[Footnote 3-120: Henry I. Shaw, Jr., and Ralph W.

Donnelly, _Blacks in the Marine Corps_ (Was.h.i.+ngton: Government Printing Office, 1975), pp. 44-45.]

[Footnote 3-121: White's testimony before the Court of Inquiry was attached to a report by Maj Gen Henry L. La.r.s.en to CMC (ca. 22 Jan 45), Ser. No.

04275, copy in CMH.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SPECIALISTS REPAIR AIRCRAFT, _Naval Air Station, Seattle, Was.h.i.+ngton, 1945_.]

A hunger strike developed as a protest against discrimination in a Seabee battalion at Port Hueneme, California, in March 1945. There was no violence. The thousand strikers continued to work but refused to eat for two days. The resulting publicity forced the Navy to investigate the charges; as a result, the commanding officer, the focus of the grievance, was replaced and the outfit sent overseas.

The riots, mutinies, and other incidents increased the pressure for further modifications of policy. Some senior officers became convinced that the only way to avoid ma.s.s rebellion was to avert the (p. 094) possibility of collective action, and collective action was less likely if Negroes were dispersed among whites. As Admiral Chester W.

Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet and an eloquent proponent of the theory that integration was a practical means of avoiding trouble, explained to the captain of an attack cargo s.h.i.+p who had just received a group of black crewmen and was segregating their sleeping quarters: "If you put all the Negroes together they'll have a chance to share grievances and to plot among themselves, and this will damage discipline and morale. If they are distributed among other members of the crew, there will be less chance of trouble. And when we say we want integration, we mean _integration_."[3-122] Thus integration grew out of both idealism and realism.

[Footnote 3-122: As quoted in White, _A Man Called White_, p. 273. For a variation on this theme, see Interv, Nichols with Hillenkoetter.]

If racial incidents convinced the admirals that further reforms were necessary, they also seem to have strengthened Forrestal's resolve to introduce a still greater change in his department's policy. For months he had listened to the arguments of senior officials and naval experts that integration of the fleet, though desirable, was impossible during the war. Yet Forrestal had seen integration work on the small patrol craft, on fleet auxiliaries, and in the WAVES. In fact, integration was working smoothly wherever it had been tried.

Although hard to substantiate, the evidence suggests that it was in the weeks after the Guam incident that the secretary and Admiral King agreed on a policy of total integration in the general service. The change would be gradual, but the progress would be evident and the end a.s.sured--Negroes were going to be a.s.signed as individuals to all branches and billets in the general service.[3-123]

[Footnote 3-123: Ltr, Rear Adm Hillenkoetter to Nichols, 22 May 53; see also Intervs, Nichols with Granger, Hillenkoetter, Jacobs, Thomas Darden, Dillon, and other BuPers officials. In contrast to the Knox period, where the files are replete with Secretary of the Navy memos, BuPers letters, and General Board reports on the development of the Navy's racial policy, there is scant doc.u.mentation on the same subject during the early months of the Forrestal administration. This is understandable because the subject of integration was extremely delicate and not readily susceptible to the usual staffing needed for most policy decisions.

Furthermore, Forrestal's laconic manner of expressing himself, famous in bureaucratic Was.h.i.+ngton, inhibited the usual flow of letters and memos.]

Forrestal and King received no end of advice. In December 1944 a group of black publicists called upon the secretary to appoint a civilian aide to consider the problems of the Negro in the Navy. The group also added its voice to those within the Navy who were suggesting the appointment of a black public relations officer to disseminate news of particular interest to the black press and to improve the Navy's relations with the black community.[3-124] One of Forrestal's a.s.sistants proposed that an intradepartmental committee be organized to standardize the disparate approaches to racial problems throughout the naval establishment; another recommended the appointment of a black civilian to advise the Bureau of Naval Personnel; and still another recommended a white a.s.sistant on racial affairs in the office of the under secretary.[3-125]

[Footnote 3-124: Ltr, John H. Sengstacke to Forrestal, 19 Dec 44, 54-1-9, GenRecsNav; Interv, Nichols with Granger.]

[Footnote 3-125: Memo, Under Sec Bard for SecNav, 1 Jan 45; Memo, H Struve Hensel (Off of Gen Counsel) for Forrestal, 5 Jan 45; both in 54-1-9, Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

These ideas had merit. The Special Programs Unit had for some time been urging a public relations effort, pointing to the existence of an influential black press as well as to the desirability of (p. 095) fostering among whites a greater knowledge of the role of Negroes in the war. Forrestal brought two black officers to Was.h.i.+ngton for possible a.s.signment to public relations work, and he asked the director of public relations to arrange for black newsmen to visit vessels manned by black crewmen. Finally, in June 1945, a black officer was added to the staff of the Navy's Office of Public Relations.[3-126]

[Footnote 3-126: Memo, SecNav for Eugene Duffield (a.s.st to Under Sec), 16 Jan 45, 54-1-9; idem for Rear Adm A. Stanton Merrill (Dir of Pub Relations), 24 Mar and 4 May 45, 54-1-16. All in Forrestal file, GenRecsNav.]

Appointment of a civilian aide on racial affairs was under consideration for some time, but when no agreement could be reached on where best to a.s.sign the official, Forrestal, who wanted someone he could "casually talk to about race relations,"[3-127] invited the Executive Secretary of the National Urban League to "give us some of your time for a period."[3-128] Thus in March 1945 Lester B. Granger began his long a.s.sociation with the Department of Defense, an a.s.sociation that would span the military's integration effort.[3-129]

Granger's a.s.signment was straightforward. From time to time he would make extensive trips representing the secretary and his special interest in racial problems at various naval stations.