Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 Part 4

[Footnote 2-21: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, p.

113.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENGINEER CONSTRUCTION TROOPS IN LIBERIA, JULY 1942.]

The practice of creating units for the specific purpose of absorbing Negroes was particularly evident in the Army Air Forces.[2-22] Long considered the most recalcitrant of branches in accepting Negroes, (p. 027) the Air Corps had successfully exempted itself from the allotment of black troops in the 1940 mobilization plans. Black pilots could not be used, Maj. Gen. Henry H. Arnold, Chief of the Air Corps, explained, "since this would result in having Negro officers serving over white enlisted men. This would create an impossible social problem."[2-23]

And this situation could not be avoided, since it would take several years to train black mechanics; meanwhile black pilots would have to work with white ground crews, often at distant bases outside their regular chain of command. The Air Corps faced strong opposition (p. 028) when both the civil rights advocates and the rest of the Army attacked this exclusion. The civil rights organizations wanted a place for Negroes in the glamorous Air Corps, but even more to the point the other arms and services wanted this large branch of the Army to absorb its fair share of black recruits, thus relieving the rest of a disproportionate burden.

[Footnote 2-22: The Army's air arm was reorganized several times. Designated as the Army Air Corps in 1926 (the successor to the historic Army Air Service), it became the Army Air Forces in the summer of 1941. This designation lasted until a separate U.S. Air Force was created in 1947.

Organizationally, the Army was divided in March 1942 into three equal parts: the Army Ground Forces, the Army Service Forces (originally Services of Supply), and the Army Air Forces. This division was administrative. Each soldier continued to be a.s.signed to a branch of the Army, for example, Infantry, Artillery, or Air Corps, a t.i.tle retained as the name of an Army branch.]

[Footnote 2-23: Memo, CofAC for G-3, 31 May 40, sub: Employment of Negro Personnel in Air Corps Units, G-3/6541-Gen-527.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LABOR BATTALION TROOPS IN THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, MAY 1943. _Stevedores pause for a hot meal at Ma.s.sacre Bay._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SERGEANT ADDRESSING THE LINE. _Aviation squadron standing inspection, 1943._]

When the War Department supported these demands the Army Air Forces capitulated. Its 1941 mobilization plans provided for the formation of nine separate black aviation squadrons which would perform the miscellaneous tasks a.s.sociated with the upkeep of airfields. During the next year the Chief of Staff set the allotment of black recruits for the air arm at a rate that brought over 77,500 Negroes into the Air Corps by 1943. On 16 January 1941 Under Secretary Patterson announced the formation of a black pursuit squadron, but the Army Air Forces, bowing to the opposition typified by General Arnold's comments of the previous year, trained the black pilots in separate facilities at Tuskegee, Alabama, where the Army tried to duplicate the expensive training center established for white officers at Maxwell Field, just forty miles away.[2-24] Black pilots were at first trained exclusively for pursuit flying, a very difficult kind of combat for which a Negro had to qualify both physically and technically or else, in Judge (p. 029) Hastie's words, "not fly at all."[2-25] The 99th Fighter Squadron was organized at Tuskegee in 1941 and sent to the Mediterranean theater in April 1943. By then the all-black 332d Fighter Group with three additional fighter squadrons had been organized, and in 1944 it too was deployed to the Mediterranean.

[Footnote 2-24: USAF Oral History Program, Interv with Maj Gen Noel F Parrish (USAF, Ret.), 30 Mar 73.]

[Footnote 2-25: William H. Hastie, _On Clipped Wings: The Story of Jim Crow in the Army Air Corps_ (New York: NAACP, 1943). Based on War Department doc.u.ments and statistics, this famous pamphlet was essentially an attack on the Army Air Corps. For a more comprehensive account of the Negro and the Army Air Forces, see Osur, _Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PILOTS OF THE 332D FIGHTER GROUP BEING BRIEFED _for combat mission in Italy_.]

These squadrons could use only a limited number of pilots, far fewer than those black cadets qualified for such training. All applicants in excess of requirements were placed on an indefinite waiting list where many became overage or were requisitioned for other military and civilian duties. Yet when the Army Air Forces finally decided to organize a black bomber unit, the 477th Bombardment Group, in late 1943, it encountered a scarcity of black pilots and crewmen. Because of the lack of technical and educational opportunities for Negroes in America, fewer blacks than whites were included in the manpower pool, and Tuskegee, already overburdened with its manifold training functions and lacking the means to train bomber crews, was unable to fill the training gap. Sending black cadets to white training schools was one obvious solution; the Army Air Forces chose instead to postpone the operational date of the 477th until its pilots could be trained at Tuskegee. In the end, the 477th was not declared (p. 030) operational until after the war. Even then some compromise with the Army Air Forces' segregation principles was necessary, since Tuskegee could not accommodate B-25 pilot transition and navigator-bombardier training. In 1944 black officers were therefore temporarily a.s.signed to formerly all-white schools for such training. Tuskegee's position as the sole and separate training center for black pilots remained inviolate until its closing in 1946, however, and its graduates, the "Tuskegee Airmen," continued to serve as a powerful symbol of armed forces segregation.[2-26]

[Footnote 2-26: For a detailed discussion of the black training program, see Osur, _Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II_, ch. III; Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, pp. 461-66; Charles E. Francis, _The Tuskegee Airmen: The Story of the Negro in the U.S. Air Force_ (Boston Bruce Humphries, 1955).]

Training for black officer candidates other than flyers, like that of most officer candidates throughout the Army, was integrated. At first the possibility of integrated training seemed unlikely, for even though a.s.sistant Secretary of War for Air Robert A. Lovett had a.s.sured Hastie that officer candidate training would be integrated, the Technical Training Command announced plans in 1942 for a segregated facility. Although the plans were quickly canceled the command's announcement was the immediate cause for Hastie's resignation from the War Department. The Air staff a.s.sured the a.s.sistant Secretary of War in January of 1943 that qualified Negroes were being sent to officer candidate schools and to training courses "throughout the school system of the Technical Training Command."[2-27] In fact, Negroes did attend the Air Forces' officer candidate school at Miami Beach, although not in great numbers. In spite of their integrated training, however, most of these black officers were a.s.signed to the predominantly black units at Tuskegee and G.o.dman fields.

[Footnote 2-27: Memo, CofAS for ASW, 12 Jan 43, ASW 291.2.]

The Army Air Forces found it easier to absorb the thousands of black enlisted men than to handle the black flying squadrons. For the enlisted men it created a series of units with vaguely defined duties, usually common labor jobs operating for the most part under a bulk allotment system that allowed the Air Forces to absorb great numbers of new men. Through 1943 hundreds of these aviation training squadrons, quartermaster truck companies, and engineer aviation and air base security battalions were added to the Air Forces'

organization tables. Practically every American air base in the world had its contingent of black troops performing the service duties connected with air operations.

The Air Corps, like the Armor and the Artillery branches, was able to form separate squadrons or battalions for black troops, but the Infantry and Cavalry found it difficult to organize the growing number of separate black battalions and regiments. The creation of black divisions was the obvious solution, although this arrangement would run counter to current practice, which was based in part on the Army's experience with the 92d Division in World War I. Convinced of the poor performance of that unit in 1918, the War Department had decided in the 1920's not to form any more black divisions. The regiment would serve as the basic black unit, and from time to time these regiments would be employed as organic elements of divisions whose other regiments and units would be white. In keeping with this decision, the black 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments were combined in October (p. 031) 1940 with white regiments to form the 2d Cavalry Division.

Before World War II most black leaders had agreed with the Army's opposition to all-black divisions, but for different reasons. They considered that such divisions only served to strengthen the segregation pattern they so opposed. In the early weeks of the war a conference of black editors, including Walter White, pressed for the creation of an experimental integrated division of volunteers. White argued that such a unit would lift black morale, "have a tremendous psychological effect upon white America," and refute the enemy's charge that "the United States talks about democracy but practices racial discrimination and segregation."[2-28] The NAACP organized a popular movement in support of the idea, which was endorsed by many important individuals and organizations.[2-29] Yet this experiment was unacceptable to the Army. Ignoring its experience with all-volunteer paratroopers and other special units, the War Department declared that the volunteer system was "an ineffective and dangerous" method of raising combat units. Admitting that the integrated division might be an encouraging gesture toward certain minorities, General Marshall added that "the urgency of the present military situation necessitates our using tested and proved methods of procedure, and using them with all haste."[2-30]

[Footnote 2-28: Ltr, Walter White to Gen Marshall, 22 Dec 41, AG 291.21 (12-22-41).]

[Footnote 2-29: See C-279, 2, Volunteer Division Folder, NAACP Collection, Ma.n.u.scripts Division, LC.]

[Footnote 2-30: Ltr, CofS to Dorothy Canfield Fisher, 16 Feb 42, OCS 20602-254.]

Even though it rejected the idea of a volunteer, integrated division, the Army staff reviewed in the fall of 1942 a proposal for the a.s.signment of some black recruits to white units. The Organization-Mobilization Group of G-3, headed by Col. Edwin W.

Chamberlain, argued that the Army General Cla.s.sification Test scores proved that black soldiers in groups were less useful to the Army than white soldiers in groups. It was a waste of manpower, funds, and equipment, therefore, to organize the increasingly large numbers of black recruits into segregated units. Not only was such organization wasteful, but segregation "aggravated if not caused in its entirety"

the racial friction that was already plaguing the Army. To avoid both the waste and the strife, Chamberlain recommended that the Army halt the activation of additional black units and integrate black recruits in the low-score categories, IV and V, into white units in the ratio of one black to nine whites. The black recruits would be used as cooks, orderlies, and drivers, and in other jobs which required only the minimum basic training and which made up 10 to 20 percent of those in the average unit. Negroes in the higher categories, I through III, would be a.s.signed to existing black units where they could be expected to improve the performance of those units. Chamberlain defended his plan against possible charges of discrimination by pointing out that the Negroes would be a.s.signed wholly on the basis of native capacity, not race, and that this plan would increase the opportunities for Negroes to partic.i.p.ate in the war effort. To those who objected on the grounds that the proposal meant racial integration, Chamberlain replied that there was no more integration involved than in "the (p. 032) employment of Negroes as servants in a white household."[2-31]

[Footnote 2-31: Draft Memo (initialed E.W.C.) for Gen Edwards, G-3 Negro File, 1942-44. See also Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, pp. 152-57.]

The Chamberlain Plan and a variant proposed the following spring prompted discussion in the Army staff that clearly revealed general dissatisfaction with the current policy. Nonetheless, in the face of opposition from the service and ground forces, the plan was abandoned.

Yet because something had to be done with the mounting numbers of black draftees, the Army staff reversed the decision made in its prewar mobilization plans and turned once more to the concept of the all-black division. The 93d Infantry Division was reactivated in the spring of 1942 and the 92d the following fall. The 2d Cavalry Division was reconst.i.tuted as an all-black unit and reactivated in February 1943. These units were capable of absorbing 15,000 or more men each and could use men trained in the skills of practically every arm and service.

This absorbency potential became increasingly important in 1943 when the chairman of the War Manpower Commission, Paul V. Mc.n.u.tt, began to attack the use of racial quotas in selecting inductees. He considered the practice of questionable legality, and the commission faced mounting public criticism as white husbands and fathers were drafted while single healthy Negroes were not called.[2-32] Secretary Stimson defended the legality of the quota system. He did not consider the current practice "discriminatory in any way" so long as the Army accepted its fair percentage of Negroes. He pointed out that the Selective Service Act provided that no man would be inducted "_unless and until_" he was acceptable to the services, and Negroes were acceptable "only at a rate at which they can be properly a.s.similated."[2-33] Stimson later elaborated on this theme, arguing that the quota system would be necessary even after the Army reached full strength because inductions would be limited to replacement of losses.

Since there were few Negroes in combat, their losses would be considerably less than those of whites. Mc.n.u.tt disagreed with Stimson's interpretation of the law and announced plans to abandon it as soon as the current backlog of uninducted Negroes was absorbed, a date later set for January 1944.[2-34]

[Footnote 2-32: Ltr, Paul V. Mc.n.u.tt to SW, 17 Feb 43, AG 327.31 (9-19-40) (1) sec. 12.]

[Footnote 2-33: Ltr, SW to Mc.n.u.tt, 20 Feb 43, AG 327.31 (9-19-40) (1) sec. 12.]

[Footnote 2-34: Ltr, Mc.n.u.tt to SW, 23 Mar 43, AG 327.31 (9-19-40) (1) sec. 12.]

A crisis over the quota system was averted when, beginning in the spring of 1943, the Army's monthly manpower demands outran the ability of the Bureau of Selective Service to provide black inductees. So long as the Army requested more Negroes than the bureau could supply, little danger existed that Mc.n.u.tt would carry out his threat.[2-35] But it was no victory for the Army. The question of the quota's legality remained unanswered, and it appeared that the Army might be forced to abandon the system at some future time when there was a black surplus.

[Footnote 2-35: The danger was further reduced when, as part of a national manpower allocation reform, President Roosevelt removed the Bureau of Selective Service from the War Manpower Commission's control and restored it to its independent status as the Selective Service System on 5 December 1943. See Stimson and Bundy, _On Active Service_, pp. 483-86; Theodore Wyckoff, "The Office of the Secretary of War Under Henry L. Stimson," in CMH.]

There were many reasons for the sudden shortage of black inductees (p. 033) in the spring of 1943. Since more Negroes were leaving the service for health or other reasons, the number of calls for black draftees had increased. In addition, local draft boards were rejecting more Negroes. But the basic reason for the shortage was that the magnitude of the war had finally turned the manpower surpluses of the 1930's into manpower shortages, and the shortages were appearing in black as well as white levies for the armed forces. The Negro was no longer a manpower luxury. The quota calls for Negroes rose in 1944, and black strength stood at 701,678 men in September, approximately 9.6 percent of the whole Army. [2-36] The percentage of black women in the Army stayed at less than 6 percent of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps--after July 1943 the Women's Army Corps--throughout the war.

Training and serving under the same racial policy that governed the employment of men, the women's corps also had a black recruitment goal of 10 percent, but despite the active efforts of recruiters and generally favorable publicity from civil rights groups, the volunteer organization was unable to overcome the att.i.tude among young black women that they would not be well received at Army posts.[2-37]

[Footnote 2-36: Strength of the Army, 1 Jan 46, STM-30, p. 60.]

[Footnote 2-37: Memo, Dir of Mil Pers, SOS, for G-1, 12 Sep 42, SPGAM/322.5 (WAAC) (8-24-42). See also Edwin R. Embree, "Report of Informal Visit to Training Camp for WAAC's Des Moines, Iowa" (c.

1942), SPWA 291.21. For a general description of Negroes in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, see Mattie E. Treadwell, _The Women's Army Corps_, United States Army in World War II (Was.h.i.+ngton: Government Printing Office, 1954), especially Chapter III. See also Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, pp. 421-26.]

Faced with manpower shortages, the Army began to rea.s.sess its plan to distribute Negroes proportionately throughout the arms and services.

The demand for new service units had soared as the size of the overseas armies grew, while black combat units, unwanted by overseas commanders, had remained stationed in the United States. The War Department hoped to ease the strain on manpower resources by converting black combat troops into service troops. A notable example of the wholesale conversion of such combat troops and one that received considerable notice in the press was the inactivation of the 2d Cavalry Division upon its arrival in North Africa in March 1944.

Victims of the change included the 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments, historic combat units that had fought with distinction in the Indian wars, with Teddy Roosevelt in Cuba, and in the Philippine Insurrection.[2-38]

[Footnote 2-38: Inactivation of the 2d Cavalry Division began in February 1944, and its headquarters completed the process on 10 May. The 9th Cavalry was inactivated on 7 March, the 10th Cavalry on 20 March 1944.]

By trying to justify the conversion, Secretary Stimson only aggravated the controversy. In the face of congressional questions and criticism in the black press, Stimson declared that the decision stemmed from a study of the relative abilities and status of training of the troops in the units available for conversion. If black units were particularly affected, it was because "many of the Negro units have been unable to master efficiently the techniques of modern weapons."[2-39] Thus, by the end of 1944, the Army had abandoned its attempt to maintain a balance between black combat and service units, and during the rest of the war most Negroes were a.s.signed to service units.

[Footnote 2-39: Ltr, SW to Rep. Hamilton Fish, 19 Feb 44, reprinted in U.S. Congress, House, _Congressional Record_, 78th Cong., 2d sess., pp.

2007-08.]

According to the War Department, the relations.h.i.+p between Negroes (p. 034) and the Army was a mutual obligation. Negroes had the right and duty to serve their country to the best of their abilities; the Army had the right and the duty to see that they did so. True, the use of black troops was made difficult because their schooling had been largely inferior and their work therefore chiefly unskilled. Nevertheless, the Army staff concluded, all races were equally endowed for war and most of the less mentally alert could fight if properly led.[2-40] A manual on leaders.h.i.+p observed:

War Department concern with the Negro is focused directly and solely on the problem of the most effective use of colored troops ... the Army has no authority or intention to partic.i.p.ate in social reform as such but does view the problem as a matter of efficient troop utilization. With an imposed ceiling on the maximum strength of the Army it is the responsibility of all officers to a.s.sure the most efficient use of the manpower a.s.signed.[2-41]

[Footnote 2-40: War Department Pamphlet 20-6, _Command of Negro Troops_, 29 February 1944.]

[Footnote 2-41: Army Service Forces Manual M-5, _Leaders.h.i.+p and the Negro Soldier_, October 1944, p. iv.]

But the best efforts of good officers could not avail against poor policy. Although the Army maintained that Negroes had to bear a proportionate share of the casualties, by policy it a.s.signed the majority to noncombat units and thus withheld the chance for them to a.s.sume an equal risk. Subscribing to the advantage of making full use of individual abilities, the Army nevertheless continued to consider Negroes as a group and to insist that military efficiency required racially segregated units. Segregation in turn burdened the service with the costly provision of separate facilities for the races.

Although a large number of Negroes served in World War II, their employment was limited in opportunity and expensive for the service.