Part 7 (1/2)

[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.”]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 a.s.st, 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 a.s.sociation 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.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 d.a.m.nable 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 Cla.s.sification 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 a.s.sign you without regard to color or race to the units where a.s.sistance 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]