Chapter 5

, below.]

[Footnote 2-80: Memo, Secy, Advisory Cmte, for Advisory Cmte on Special Troop Policies, 13 Jun 45, sub: Minutes of Meeting, ASW 291.2 NT.]

[Footnote 2-81: Ltr, Actg SW to Gov. Chauncey Sparks of Alabama, 1 Sep 44, WDCSA 291.2 (26 Aug 44).]

Widely disseminated by the black press as the "anti-Jim Crow law," the directive and its interpretation by senior officials produced the desired result. Although soldiers most often continued to frequent the facilities in their own base areas, in effect maintaining racial separation, they were free to use any facilities, and this knowledge gradually dispelled some of the tensions on posts where restrictions of movement had been a constant threat to good order.

With some pride, Assistant Secretary McCloy claimed on his Advisory Committee's first birthday that the Army had "largely eliminated discrimination against the Negroes within its ranks, going further in this direction than the country itself."[2-82] He was a little premature. Not until the end of 1944 did the Advisory Committee succeed in eliminating the most glaring examples of discrimination within the Army. Even then race remained an issue, and isolated racial incidents continued to occur.

[Footnote 2-82: Ltr, ASW to Herbert B. Elliston, Editor, Washington _Post_, 5 Aug 43, ASW 291.2 NT (Gen).]

_Two Exceptions_

Departmental policy notwithstanding, a certain amount of racial integration was inevitable during a war that mobilized a biracial army of eight million men. Through administrative error or necessity, segregation was ignored on many occasions, and black and white soldiers often worked and lived together in hospitals,[2-83] rest camps, schools, and, more rarely, units. But these were isolated cases, touching relatively few men, and they had no discernible effect on racial policy. Of much more importance was the deliberate integration in officer training schools and in the divisions fighting in the European theater in 1945. McCloy referred to these deviations from policy as experiments "too limited to afford general conclusions."[2-84] But if they set no precedents, they at least challenged the Army's cherished assumptions on segregation and strengthened the postwar demands for change.

[Footnote 2-83: Ltr, USW to Roane Waring, National Cmdr, American Legion, 5 May 43, SW 291.2 NT. Integrated hospitals did not appear until 1943. See Robert J. Parks, "The Development of Segregation in U.S. Army Hospitals, 1940-1942," _Military Affairs_ 37 (December 1973): 145-50.]

[Footnote 2-84: Ltr, ASW to SecNav, 22 Aug 45, ASW 291.2 NT (Gen).]

The Army integrated its officer candidate training in an effort to avoid the mistakes of the World War I program. In 1917 Secretary of War Newton D. Baker had established a separate training school for (p. 047) black officer candidates at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, with disappointing results. To fill its quotas the school had been forced to lower its entrance standards, and each month an arbitrary number of black officer candidates were selected and graduated with little regard for their qualifications. Many World War I commanders agreed that the black officers produced by the school proved inadequate as troop commanders, and postwar staff studies generally opposed the future use of black officers. Should the Army be forced to accept black officers in the future, these commanders generally agreed, they should be trained along with whites.[2-85]

[Footnote 2-85: Ltr, William Hastie to Lee Nichols, 15 Jul 53, in Nichols Collection, CMH; see also Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_ pp. 15-20; Army War College Misc File 127-1 through 127-22, AMHRC.]

[Illustration: GUN CREW OF BATTERY B, 598TH FIELD ARTILLERY, _moving into position near the Arno River, Italy, September 1944_.]

Despite these criticisms, mobilization plans between the wars all assumed that black officers would be trained and commissioned, although, as the 1937 mobilization plan put it, their numbers would be limited to those required to provide officers for organizations authorized to have black officers.[2-86] No detailed plans were drawn up on the nature of this training, but by the eve of World War II a policy had become fixed: Negroes were to be chosen and trained according to the same standards as white officers, preferably in the same schools.[2-87] The War Department ignored the subject of race (p. 048) when it established the officer candidate schools in 1941. "The basic and predominating consideration governing selections to OCS," The Adjutant General announced, would be "outstanding qualities of leadership as demonstrated by actual services in the Army."[2-88] General Davis, who participated in the planning conferences, reasoned that integrated training would be vital for the cooperation that would be necessary in battle. He agreed with the War Department's silence on race, adding, "you can't have Negro, white, or Jewish officers, you've got to have American officers."[2-89]

[Footnote 2-86: As published in Mobilization Regulation 1-2 (1938 and May 1939 versions), par. 11d, and 15 Jul 39 version, par. 13b.]

[Footnote 2-87: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, p. 50.]

[Footnote 2-88: TAG Ltr, 26 Apr 41, AG 352 (4-10-41) M-M-C.]

[Footnote 2-89: Davis, "History of a Special Section Office of the Inspector General."]

[Illustration: TANKERS OF THE 761ST MEDIUM TANK BATTALION _prepare for

## action in the European theater, August 1944_.]

The Army's policy failed to consider one practical problem: if race was ignored in War Department directives, would black candidates ever be nominated and selected for officer training? Early enrollment figures suggested they would not. Between July 1941, when the schools opened, and October 1941, only seventeen out of the 1,997 students enrolled in candidate schools were Negroes. Only six more Negroes entered during the next two months.[2-90]

[Footnote 2-90: Eleven of these were candidates at the Infantry School, 2 at the Field Artillery School, 7 at the Quartermaster School, and 1 each at the Cavalry, Ordnance, and Finance Schools. Memo, TAG for Admin Asst, OSW, 16 Sep 41, sub: Request of the Civ Aide to the SW for Data Relative to Negro Soldiers, AG 291.21 (9-12-41) M; Memo, TAG for Civ Aide to SW, 18 Nov 41, sub: Request for Data Relative to Negro Soldiers Admitted to OCS, AG 291.21 (10-30-41) RB.]

Some civil rights spokesmen argued for the establishment of a (p. 049) quota system, and a few Negroes even asked for a return to segregated schools to insure a more plentiful supply of black officers. Even before the schools opened, Judge Hastie warned Secretary Stimson that any effective integration plan "required a directive to Corps Area Commanders indicating that Negroes are to be selected in numbers exactly or approximately indicated for particular schools."[2-91] But the planners had recommended the integrated schools precisely to avoid a quota system. They were haunted by the Army's 1917 experience, although the chief of the Army staff's Organizations Division did not allude to these misgivings when he answered Judge Hastie. He argued that a quota could not be defended on any grounds "except those of a political nature" and would be "race discrimination against the whites."[2-92]

[Footnote 2-91: Ltr, Hastie to SW, 8 May 41, ASW 291.2 NT.]

[Footnote 2-92: Memo, ACofS, G-3, for CofS, 12 May 41, sub: Negro Officers; Memo, ACofS, G-3, for ACofS, G-1 (ATTN: Col Wharton), 12 Jun 41, same sub. Both in WDGOT 291.2.]

General Marshall agreed that racial parity could not be achieved at the expense of commissioning unqualified men, but he was equally adamant about providing equal opportunity for all qualified candidates, black and white. He won support for his position from some of the civil rights advocates.[2-93] These arguments may not have swayed Hastie, but in the end he dropped the idea of a regular quota system, judging it unworkable in the case of the officer candidate schools. He concluded that many commanders approached the selection of officer candidates with a bias against the Negro, and he recommended that a directive or confidential memorandum be sent to commanders charged with the selection of officer candidates informing them that a certain minimum percentage of black candidates was to be chosen. Hastie's recommendation was ignored, but the widespread refusal of local commanders to approve or transmit applications of Negroes, or even to give them access to appropriate forms, halted when Secretary Stimson and the Army staff made it plain that they expected substantial numbers of Negroes to be sent to the schools.[2-94]

[Footnote 2-93: Pogue, _Organizer of Victory_, p. 96.]

[Footnote 2-94: Memo, Hastie for ASW, 5 Sep 41, G-1/15640-120; Ltr, Hastie to Nichols, 15 Jul 53; Tab C to AG 320.2 (11-24-42).]

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People meanwhile moved quickly to prove that the demand for a return to segregated schools, made by Edgar G. Brown, president of the United States Government Employees, and broadcaster Fulton Lewis, Jr., enjoyed little backing in the black community. "We respectfully submit," Walter White informed Stimson and Roosevelt, "that no leader considered responsible by intelligent Negro or white Americans would make such a request."[2-95] In support of its stand the NAACP issued a statement signed by many influential black leaders.

[Footnote 2-95: Telg, Walter White, NAACP, to SW and President Roosevelt, 23 Oct 41, AG 291.21 (10-23-41) (3); Ltr, Edgar W. Brown to President Roosevelt and SW, 15 Oct 41, AG 291.2 (10-15-41) (1). See also Memo, ACofS, G-3, for CofS, 23 Oct 41, sub: Negro Officer Candidate Schools, G-3/43276.]

[Illustration: WAAC REPLACEMENTS _training at Fort Huachuca, December 1942_.]

The segregationists attacked integration of the officer candidate (p. 050) schools for the obvious reasons. A group of Florida congressmen, for example, protested to the Army against the establishment of an integrated Air Corps school at Miami Beach. The War Department received numerous complaints when living quarters at the schools were integrated. The president of the White Supremacy League complained that young white candidates at Fort Benning "have to eat and sleep with Negro candidates," calling it "the most damnable outrage that was ever perpetrated on the youth of the South." To all such complaints the War Department answered that separation was not always possible because of the small number of Negroes involved.[2-96]

[Footnote 2-96: Ltr, Horace Wilkinson to Rep. John J. Sparkman (Alabama), 24 Aug 43; Ltr, TAG to Rep. John Starnes (Alabama), 15 Sep 43. Both in AG 095 (Wilkinson) (28 Aug 43). See also Interv, Nichols with Ulysses Lee, 1953.]

In answering these complaints the Army developed its ultimate justification for integrated officer schools: integration was necessary on the grounds of efficiency and economy. As one Army spokesman put it, "our objection to separate schools is based (p. 051) primarily on the fact that black officer candidates are eligible from every branch of the Army, including the Armored Force and tank destroyer battalions, and it would be decidedly uneconomical to attempt to gather in one school the materiel and instructor personnel necessary to give training in all these branches."[2-97]

[Footnote 2-97: Ltr, SGS to Sen. Carl Hayden (Arizona), 12 Dec 41, AG 352 (12-12-41). See also Memo, ACofS, G-3, for CofS, 23 Oct 41, sub: Negro Officer Candidate Schools, G-3/43276.]

Officer candidate training was the Army's first formal experiment with integration. Many blacks and whites lived together with a minimum of friction, and, except in flight school, all candidates trained together.[2-98] Yet in some schools the number of black officer candidates made racially separate rooms feasible, and Negroes were usually billeted and messed together. In other instances Army organizations were slow to integrate their officer training. The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, for example, segregated black candidates until late 1942 when Judge Hastie brought the matter to McCloy's attention.[2-99] Nevertheless, the Army's experiment was far more important than its immediate results indicated. It proved that even in the face of considerable opposition the Army was willing to abandon its segregation policy when the issues of economy and efficiency were made sufficiently clear and compelling.

[Footnote 2-98: Dollard and Young, "In the Armed Forces."]

[Footnote 2-99: Memos, Hastie for ASW, 4 Nov 42 and 15 Dec 42; Ltr, Maj Gen A. D. Bruce, Cmdr, Tank Destroyer Center, to ASW, 31 Dec 42. All in ASW 291.2 NT (12-2-42).]

The Army's second experiment with integration came in part from the need for infantry replacements during the Allied advance across Western Europe in the summer and fall of 1944.[2-100] The Ground Force Replacement Command had been for some time converting soldiers from service units to infantry, and even as the Germans launched their counterattack in the Ardennes the command was drawing up plans to release thousands of soldiers in Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee's Communications Zone and train them as infantrymen. These plans left the large reservoir of black manpower in the theater untapped until General Lee suggested that General Dwight D. Eisenhower permit black service troops to volunteer for infantry training and eventual employment as individual replacements. General Eisenhower agreed, and on 26 December Lee issued a call to the black troops for volunteers to share "the privilege of joining our veteran units at the front to deliver the knockout blow." The call was limited to privates in the upper four categories of the Army General Classification Test who had had some infantry training. If noncommissioned officers wanted to apply, they had to accept a reduction in grade. Although patronizing in tone, the plan was a bold departure from War Department policy: "It is planned to assign you without regard to color or race to the units where assistance is most needed, and give you the opportunity of fighting shoulder to shoulder to bring about victory.... Your relatives and friends everywhere have been urging that you be granted this privilege."[2-101]

[Footnote 2-100: For a detailed discussion, see Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_,