CHAPTER 9

(p. 234)

The Postwar Navy

That Army concerns and problems dominated the discussions of race relations in the armed forces in the postwar years is understandable since the Army had the largest number of Negroes and the most widely publicized segregation policy of all the services. At the same time the Army bore, unfairly, the brunt of public criticism for all the services' race problems. The Navy, committed to a policy of integration, but with relatively few Negroes in its integrated general service or in the ranks of the segregated Marine Corps and the new Air Force, its racial policy still fluid, merely attracted less attention and so escaped many of the charges hurled at the Army by civil rights advocates both in and out of the federal government. But however different or unformed their racial policies, all the services for the most part segregated Negroes in practice and all were open to charges of discrimination.

Although the services developed different racial policies out of their separate circumstances, all three were reacting to the same set of social forces and all three suffered from race prejudice. They also faced in common a growing indifference to military careers on the part of talented young Negroes who in any case would have to compete with an aging but persistent group of less talented black professionals for a limited number of jobs. Of great importance was the fact that the racial practices of the armed forces were a product of the individual service's military traditions. Countless incidents support the contention that service traditions were a transcendent factor in military decisions. Marx Leva, Forrestal's assistant, told the story of a Forrestal subordinate who complained that some admirals were still opposed to naval aviation, to which Forrestal replied that he knew some admirals who still opposed steam engines.[9-1] Forrestal's humorous exaggeration underscored the tenacity of traditional attitudes in the Navy. Although self-interest could never be discounted as a motive, tradition also figured prominently, for example, in the controversy between proponents of the battleship and proponents of the aircraft carrier. Certainly the influence of tradition could be discerned in the antipathy of Navy officials toward racial change.[9-2]

[Footnote 9-1: Interv, Lee Nichols with Marx Leva, 1953, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]

[Footnote 9-2: On the survival of traditional attitudes in the Navy, see Karsten, _Naval Aristocracy_, ch. v; Waldo H. Heinricks, Jr., "The Role of the U.S. Navy," in Dorothy Borg and Shumpei Okamoto, eds., _Pearl Harbor as History_ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973); David Rosenberg, "Arleigh Burke and Officer Development in the Inter-war Navy," _Pacific Historical Review_ 44 (November 1975).]

The Army also had its problems with tradition. It endured tremendous inner conflict before it decided to drop the cavalry in favor of mechanized and armored units. Nor did the resistance to armor die quickly. Former Chief of Staff Peyton C. March reported that a (p. 235) previous Chief of Cavalry told him in 1950 that the Army had betrayed the horse.[9-3] President Roosevelt was also a witness to how military tradition frustrated attempts to change policy. He picked his beloved Navy to make the point: "To change anything in the Na-a-vy is like punching a feather bed. You punch it with your right and you punch it with your left until you are finally exhausted, and then you find the damn bed just as it was before you started punching."[9-4] Many senior officers resisted equal treatment and opportunity simply because of their traditional belief that Negroes needed special treatment and any basic change in their status was fraught with danger.[9-5]

[Footnote 9-3: Edward M. Coffman, _The Hilt of the Sword_ (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), p. 245.]

[Footnote 9-4: Quoted in Marriner S. Eccles, _Beckoning Frontiers: Public and Personal Recollections_, ed. Sidney Hyman (New York: Knopf, 1951), p. 336.]

[Footnote 9-5: The influence of tradition on naval racial practices was raised during the hearings of the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, 13 January 1949, pages 105-08, 111-12.]

Still, tradition could work two ways, and in the case of the Navy, at least, the postwar decision to liberalize racial practices can be traced in part to its sense of tradition. When James Forrestal started to integrate the general service in 1944, his appeals to his senior military colleagues, the President, and the public were always couched in terms of military efficiency. But if military efficiency made the new policy announced in February 1946 inevitable, military tradition made partial integration acceptable. Black sailors had served in significant numbers in an integrated general service during the nation's first century and a half, and those in the World War II period who spoke of a traditional Navy ban against Negroes were just as wrong as those who spoke of a traditional ban on liquor. The same abstemious secretary who completely outlawed alcohol on warships in 1914 initiated the short-lived restrictions on the service of Negroes in the Navy.[9-6] Both limited integration and liquor were old traditions in the American Navy, and the influence of military tradition made integration of the general service relatively simple.

[Footnote 9-6: SecNav (Josephus Daniels) General Order 90, 1 Jul 14. Alcohol had been outlawed for enlisted men at sea by Secretary John D. Long more than a decade earlier. The 1914 prohibition rule infuriated the officers. One predicted that the ruling would push officers into "the use of cocaine and other dangerous drugs." Quoted in Ronald Spector, _Admiral of the New Empire_ (Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, 1974), pp. 191-92.]

Forrestal was convinced that in order to succeed racial reform must first be accepted by the men already in uniform; integration, if quietly and gradually put into effect, would soon demonstrate its efficiency and make the change acceptable to all members of the service. Quiet gradualism became the hallmark of his effort. In August 1945 the Navy had some 165,000 Negroes, almost 5.5 percent of its total strength. Sixty-four of them, including six women, were commissioned officers.[9-7] Presumably, these men and women would be the first to enjoy the fruits of the new integration order. Their number could also be expected to increase because, as Secretary Forrestal reported in August 1946, the only quotas on enlistment were those determined by the needs of the Navy and the limitation of (p. 236) funds.[9-8] Even as he spoke, at least some black sailors were being trained in almost all naval ratings and were serving throughout the fleet, on planes and in submarines, working and living with whites. The signs pointed to a new day for Negroes in the Navy.

[Footnote 9-7: Unless otherwise noted the statistical information used in this section was supplied by the Office, Assistant Chief for Management Information, BuPers. See also BuPers, "Enlisted Strength--U.S. Navy," 26 Jul 46, Pers 215-BL, copy in CMH.]

[Footnote 9-8: Ltr, SecNav to Harvard Chapter, AVC, 26 Aug 46, P16-3 MM GenRecsNav.]

[Illustration: SHORE LEAVE IN KOREA. _Men of the USS Topeka land in Inch'on, 1948._]

But during the chaotic months of demobilization a different picture began to emerge. Although Negroes continued to number about 5 percent of the Navy's enlisted strength, their position altered radically. The average strength figures for 1946 showed 3,300 Negroes, 16 percent of the total black strength, serving in the integrated general service while 17,300, or 84 percent, were classified as stewards. By mid-1948 the outlook was somewhat brighter, but still on the average only 38 percent of the Negroes in the Navy held jobs in the general service while 62 percent remained in the nonwhite Steward's Branch. At this time only three black officers remained on active duty. Again, what Navy officials saw as military efficiency helps explain this postwar retreat. Because of its rapidly sinking manpower needs, the Navy could afford to set higher enlistment standards than the Army, and the fewer available spaces in the general service went overwhelmingly to the many more eligible whites who applied. Only in the Steward's Branch, with its separate quotas and lower enlistment standards, did the (p. 237) Navy find a place for the many black enlistees as well as the thousands of stewards ready and willing to reenlist for peacetime service.

If efficiency explains why the Navy's general service remained disproportionately white, tradition explains how segregation and racial exclusion could coexist with integration in an organization that had so recently announced a progressive racial policy. Along with its tradition of an integrated general service, the Navy had a tradition of a white officer corps. It was natural for the Navy to exclude black officers from the Regular Navy, Secretary John L. Sullivan said later, just as it was common to place Negroes in mess jobs.[9-9] A _modus vivendi_ could be seen emerging from the twin dictates of efficiency and tradition: integrate a few thousand black sailors throughout the general service in fulfillment of the letter of the Bureau of Naval Personnel circular; as for the nonwhite Steward's Branch and the lack of black officers, these conditions were ordinary and socially comfortable. Since most Navy leaders agreed that the new policy was fair and practical, no further changes seemed necessary in the absence of a pressing military need or a demand from the White House or Congress.

[Footnote 9-9: Interv, Nichols with Secretary John L. Sullivan, Dec 52, in Nichols Collection, CMH. Sullivan succeeded James Forrestal as secretary on 18 September 1947.]

To black publicists and other advocates of civil rights, the Navy's postwar manpower statistics were self-explanatory: the Navy was discriminating against the Negro. Time and again the Navy responded to this charge, echoing Secretary Forrestal's contention that the Navy had no racial quotas and that all restrictions on the employment of black sailors had been lifted. As if suggesting that all racial distinctions had been abandoned, personnel officials discontinued publishing racial statistics and abolished the Special Programs Unit.[9-10] Cynics might have ascribed other motives for these decisions, but the civil rights forces apparently never bothered. For the most part they left the Navy's apologists to struggle with the increasingly difficult task of explaining why the placement of Negroes deviated so markedly from assignment for whites.

[Footnote 9-10: The BuPers Progress Report (Pers 215), the major statistical publication of the department, terminated its statistical breakdown by race in March 1946. The Navy's racial affairs office was closed in June 1946. See BuPers, "Narrative of Bureau of Naval Personnel, 1 September 1945 to 1 October 1946" (hereafter "BuPers Narrative"), 1:73.]

The Navy's difficulty in this regard stemmed from the fact that the demobilization program under which it geared down from a 3.4 million-man service to a peacetime force of less than half a million was quite straightforward and simple. Consequently, the latest state of the Negro in the Navy was readily apparent to the black serviceman and to the public. The key to service in the postwar Navy was acceptance into the Regular Navy. The wartime Navy had been composed overwhelmingly of reservists and inductees, and shortly after V-J day the Navy announced plans for the orderly separation of all reservists by September 1946. In April 1946 it discontinued volunteer enlistment in the Naval Reserve for immediate active duty, and in May it (p. 238) issued its last call for draftees through Selective Service.[9-11]

[Footnote 9-11: Ibid., p. 143; Selective Service System, _Special Groups_ (Monograph 10), 2:200. Between September 1945 and May 1946 the Navy drafted 20,062 men, including 3,394 Negroes.]

At the same time the Bureau of Naval Personnel launched a vigorous program to induce reservists to switch to the Regular Navy. In October 1945 it opened all petty officer ratings in the Regular Navy to such transfers and offered reservists special inducements for changeover in the form of ratings, allowance extras, and, temporarily, short-term enlistments. So successful was the program that by July 1947 the strength of the Regular Navy had climbed to 488,712, only a few thousand short of the postwar authorization. The Navy ended its changeover program in early 1947.[9-12] While it lasted, black reservists and inductees shared in the program, although the chief of the personnel recruiting division found it necessary to amplify the recruiting instructions to make this point clear.[9-13] The Regular Navy included 7,066 enlisted Negroes on V-J day, 2.1 percent of the total enlisted strength. This figure nearly tripled in the next year to 20,610, although the percentage of Negroes only doubled.[9-14]

[Footnote 9-12: "BuPers Narrative," 1:141, 192; see also BuPers Cir Ltr 41-46, 15 Feb 46.]

[Footnote 9-13: See Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to CO, Naval Barracks, NAD, Seal Beach, Calif., 8 Oct 45, sub: Eligibility of Negroes for Enlistment in USN, P16 MM, BuPersRecs; Recruiting Dir, BuPers, Directive to Recruiting Officers, 25 Jan 46, quoted in Nelson, "Integration of the Negro," p. 58.]

[Footnote 9-14: BuPers, "Enlisted Strength--U.S. Navy," 26 Jul 46, Pers 215-BL.]

_The Steward's Branch_

The major concern of the civil rights groups was not so much the number of Negroes in the Regular Navy, although this remained far below the proportion of Negroes in the civilian population, but that the majority of Negroes were being accepted for duty in the nonwhite Steward's Branch. More than 97 percent of all black sailors in the Regular Navy in December 1945 were in this branch. The ratio improved somewhat in the next six months when 3,000 black general service personnel (out of a wartime high of 90,000) transferred into the Regular Navy while more than 10,000 black reservists and draftees joined the 7,000 regulars already in the Steward's Branch.[9-15] The statistical low point in terms of the ratio of Negroes in the postwar regular general service and the Steward's Branch occurred in fiscal year 1947 when only 19.21 percent of the Navy's regular black personnel were assigned outside the Steward's Branch.[9-16] In short, more than eight out of every ten Negroes in the Navy trained and worked separately from white sailors, performing menial tasks and led by noncommissioned officers denied the perquisites of rank.

[Footnote 9-15: Memo, Dir of Planning and Control, BuPers, for Chief, NavPers (ca. Jan 46), sub: Negro Personnel, Pers 21B, BuPersRecs.]

[Footnote 9-16: BuPers, Memo on Discrimination of the Negro, 24 Jan 59. filed in BuPers Technical Library.]

The Navy itself had reason to be concerned. The Steward's Branch created efficiency problems and was a constant source of embarrassment to the service's public image. Because of its low standards, the branch attracted thousands of poorly educated and underprivileged individuals who had a high rate of venereal disease but were (p. 239) engaged in preparing and serving food. Leaders within the branch itself, although selected on the basis of recommendations from superiors, examinations, and seniority, were often poor performers. Relations between the individual steward and the outfit to which he was assigned were often marked by personal conflicts and other difficulties. Consequently, while stewards eagerly joined the branch in the Regular Navy, the incidence of disciplinary problems among them was high. The branch naturally earned the opprobrium of civil rights groups, who were sensitive not only to the discrimination of a separate branch for minorities but also to the unfavorable image these men created of Negroes in the service.[9-17]

[Footnote 9-17: Memo, Lt Dennis D. Nelson for Dep Dir. Pub Relations. 26 Mar 48, sub: Problems of the Stewards' Branch, PR 221-5393, GenRecsNav. On mental standards for stewards, sec BuPers Cir Ltr 41-46, 15 Feb 46.]

[Illustration: MESS ATTENDANTS, USS BUSHNELL, 1918.]

[Illustration: MESS ATTENDANTS, USS WISCONSIN, 1953.]

The Navy had a ready defense for its management of the branch. Its spokesmen frequently explained that it performed an essential function, especially at sea. Since this function was limited in scope, they added, the Navy was able to reduce the standards for the branch, thus opening opportunities for many men otherwise ineligible to join the service. In order to offer a chance for advancement the Navy had to create a separate recruiting and training system for (p. 240) stewards. This separation in turn explained the steward's usual failure to transfer to branches in the regular command channels. Since there were no minimum standards for the branch, it followed that most of its noncommissioned officers remained unqualified to exercise military command over personnel other than their branch subordinates. Lack of command responsibility was also present in a number of other branches not directly concerned with the operation of ships. It was not the result of race prejudice, therefore, but of standards for enlistment and types of duties performed. Nor was the steward's frequent physical separation based on race; berthing was arranged by department and function aboard large vessels. Separation did not exist on smaller ships. Messmen were usually berthed with other men of the supply department, including bakers and storekeepers. Chief stewards, however, as Under Secretary Kimball later explained, had not been required to meet the military qualifications for chief petty officer, and therefore it was "considered improper that they should be accorded the same messing, berthing, club facilities, and other privileges reserved for the highest enlisted grade of the Navy."[9-18] Stewards of the lower ranks received the same chance for advancement as members of other enlisted branches, but to grant them command responsibility would necessitate raising qualifications for the whole branch, (p. 241) thus eliminating many career stewards and extending steward training to include purely military subjects.[9-19]

[Footnote 9-18: Ltr, Under SecNav for Congressman Clyde Doyle of California. 24 Aug 49, MM(1), GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 9-19: For examples of the Navy's official explanation of steward duties, see Ltr, Actg SecNav to Lester Granger, 22 Apr 46, QN/MM(2), and Ltr, Under SecNav to Congressman Clyde Doyle of California, 24 Aug 49; both in GenRecsNav. See also Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to Dr. Carl Yaeger, 16 Oct 47, P16-1, BuPersRecs, and Testimony of Capt Fred R. Stickney, BuPers, and Vice Adm William M. Fechteler, Chief of Naval Personnel, before the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services (Fahy Cmte), 13 Jan and 28 Mar 49.]

There was truth in these assertions. Stewards had taken advantage of relaxed regulations, flocking into the Regular Navy during the first months of the changeover program. Many did so because they had many years invested in a naval career. Some may have wanted the training and experience to be gained from messman's service. In fact, some stewards enjoyed rewarding careers in restaurant, club, and hotel work after retirement. More surprising, considering the numerous complaints about the branch from civil rights groups, the Steward's Branch consistently reported the highest reenlistment rate in the Navy. Understandably, the Navy constantly reiterated these statistics. Actually, the stewards themselves were a major stumbling block to reform of the branch. Few of the senior men aspired to other ratings; many were reluctant to relinquish what they saw as the advantages of the messman's life. Whatever its drawbacks, messman's duty proved to be a popular assignment.[9-20]

[Footnote 9-20: Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70.]

The Navy's defense was logical, but not too convincing. Technically the Steward's Branch was open to all, but in practice it remained strictly nonwhite. Civil rights activists could point to the fact that there were six times as many illiterate whites as Negroes in the wartime Navy, yet none of these whites were ever assigned to the Steward's Branch and none transferred to that branch of the Regular Navy after the war.[9-21] Moreover, shortly after the war the Bureau of Naval Personnel predicted a 7,577-man shortage in the Steward's Branch, but the Navy made no attempt to fill the places with white sailors. Instead, it opened the branch to Filipinos and Guamanians, recruiting 3,500 of the islanders before the program was stopped on 4 July 1946, the date of Philippine independence. Some Navy recruiters found other ways to fill steward quotas. The Urban League and others reported cases in which black volunteers were rejected by recruiters for any assignment but steward duty.[9-22] Nor did civil rights spokesmen appreciate the distinction in petty officer rank the Navy made between the steward and other sailors; they continued to interpret it as part and parcel of the "injustices, lack of respect and the disregard for the privileges accorded rated men in other branches of the service."[9-23] They also resented the paternalism implicit in the secretary's assurances that messman's duty was a haven for men unable to compete.

[Footnote 9-21: Ltr, Dir, Plans and Oper Div, BuPers, to Richard Lueking, Berea College, 6 Dec 46, P16.1, BuPersRecs.]

[Footnote 9-22: Department of National Defense, "National Defense Conference on Racial Affairs," 26 Apr 48, morning session, pp. 46-47.]

[Footnote 9-23: Memo, Lt D. D. Nelson, office of Public Relations, for Capt E. B. Dexter, Office of Public Relations, 24 Aug 48, sub: Negro Stewards, Petty Officer Ratings, Status of, PR 221-14003, GenRecsNav.]

Some individuals in the department were aware of this resentment in the black community and pushed for reform in the Steward's Branch. The Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air, John Nicholas Brown, (p. 242) wanted more publicity given both in and outside the service to the fact that the branch was not restricted to any one race and, conversely, that Negroes were welcome in the general service.[9-24] In view of the strong tradition of racial separateness in the stewards rating, such publicity might be considered sheer sophistry, but no more so than the suggestion made by a senior personnel official that the Commissary Branch and Steward's Branch be combined to achieve a racially balanced specialty.[9-25] Lester Granger, now outside the official Navy family but still intimately concerned with the department's racial affairs, also pleaded for a merger of the commissary and steward functions. He reasoned that, since members of the Commissary Branch could advance to true petty officer rating, such a merger would provide a new avenue of advancement for stewards.

[Footnote 9-24: Ltr, Asst SecNav to Lester Granger, 22 Apr 48, QN-MM (2), GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 9-25: Interv, Nichols with Capt George A. Holderness, Jr., USN, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]

But more to the point Granger also pushed for reform in the standards of the Steward's Branch. He recognized that educational and other requirements had been lowered for stewards, but, he told Forrestal's successor, Secretary John L. Sullivan, there was little wisdom in "compounding past error." He also pointed out that not all messmen were in the lower intelligence classifications and recommended that the higher scoring men be replaced with low-scoring whites.[9-26]

[Footnote 9-26: Ltr, Granger to SecNav, 15 Mar 48, SO-3-18-56, SecNav files, GenRecsNav.]

From within the Navy itself Lt. Dennis D. Nelson, one of the first twelve Negroes commissioned and still on active duty, added his voice to the demand for reform of the Steward's Branch. An analogy may be drawn between the Navy career of Nelson and that of the legendary Christopher Sargent. Lacking Sargent's advantages of wealth and family connection, Nelson nevertheless became a familiar of Secretary Sullivan's and, though not primarily assigned to the task, made equal opportunity his preeminent concern. A highly visible member of the Navy's racial minority in Washington, he made himself its spokesman, pressing senior officials to bring the department's manpower practices closer to its stated policy. Once again the Navy experienced the curious phenomenon of a lieutenant firing off memos and letters to senior admirals and buttonholing the Secretary of the Navy.[9-27]

[Footnote 9-27: Interv, Nichols with Sullivan; Intervs, author with Lt Cmdr D. D. Nelson, 17 Sep 69, and with James C. Evans, Counselor to the SecDef, 10 Jan 73; Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70. All in CMH files.]

Nelson had a host of suggestions for the Steward's Branch: eliminate the branch as a racially separate division of labor in the Navy, provide permanent officer supervision for all steward units, develop capable noncommissioned officers in the branch with privileges and responsibilities similar to those of other petty officers, indoctrinate all personnel in the ramifications of the Navy's stated integration policy, and create a committee to work out the details of these changes. On several occasions Nelson tried to show his superiors how nuances in their own behavior toward the stewards reinforced, perhaps as much as separate service itself, the image of discrimination. He recommended that the steward's uniform be changed, eliminating the white jacket and giving the steward a regular (p. 243) seaman's look. He also suggested that petty officer uniforms for stewards be regularized. At one poignant moment this lonely officer took on the whole service, trying to change singlehandedly a thoughtless habit that demeaned both blacks and whites. He admonished the service: "refrain from the use of 'Boy' in addressing Stewards. This has been a constant practice in the Service and is most objectionable, is in bad taste, shows undue familiarity and pins a badge of inferiority, adding little to the dignity and pride of adults."[9-28]

[Footnote 9-28: Memo, Lt Nelson for Capt Dexter, Pub Rels Office, 24 Aug 48, sub: Negro Stewards, Petty Officer Ratings, Status of, PR 221-14003; idem for Dep Dir, Off of Pub Relations, 26 Mar 48, sub: Problems of the Stewards' Branch, PR 221-5393; both in GenRecsNav. The quotation is from the latter document.]

In summing up these recommendations for the Secretary of the Navy in January 1949, Nelson reminded Sullivan that only 37 percent of the Navy's Negroes were in the general service, in contrast to 72 percent of the Negroes in the Marine Corps. He warned that this imbalance perturbed the members of the recently convened National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs and predicted it would interest those involved in the forthcoming presidential inquiry on equality in the armed forces.[9-29]

[Footnote 9-29: Ltr, Nelson to SecNav, 7 Jan 49, SecNav files, GenRecsNav. For discussion of the presidential inquiry, see