The Army Integrates
The integration of the United States Army was not accomplished by
executive fiat or at the demand of the electorate. Nor was it the
result of any particular victory of the civil rights advocates over
the racists. It came about primarily because the definition of
military efficiency spelled out by the Fahy Committee and demonstrated
by troops in the heat of battle was finally accepted by Army leaders.
The Army justified its policy changes in the name of efficiency, as
indeed it had always, but this time efficiency led the service
unmistakably toward integration.
_Race and Efficiency: 1950_
The Army's postwar planners based their low estimate of the black
soldier's ability on the collective performance of the segregated
black units in World War II and assumed that social unrest would
result from mixing the races. The Army thus accepted an economically
and administratively inefficient segregated force in peacetime to
preserve what it considered to be a more dependable fighting machine
for war. Insistence on the need for segregation in the name of
military efficiency was also useful in rationalizing the prejudice and
thoughtless adherence to traditional practice which obviously played a
part in the Army's tenacious defense of its policy.
An entirely different conclusion, however, could be drawn from the
same set of propositions. The Fahy Committee, for example, had clearly
demonstrated the inefficiency of segregation, and more to the point,
some senior Army officials, in particular Secretary Gray and Chief of
Staff Collins, had come to question the conventional pattern.
Explaining later why he favored integration ahead of many of his
contemporaries, Collins drew on his World War II experience. The major
black ground units in World War II, and to a lesser degree the 99th
Pursuit Squadron, he declared, "did not work out." Nor, he concluded,
did the smaller independent black units, even those commanded by black
officers, who were burdened with problems of discipline and
inefficiency. On the other hand, the integrated infantry platoons in
Europe, with which Collins had personal experience, worked well. His
observations had convinced him that it was "pointless" to support
segregated black units, and while the matter had "nothing to do with
sociology itself," he reasoned that if integration worked at the
platoon level "why not on down the line?" The best plan, he believed,
was to assign two Negroes to each squad in the Army, always assuming
that the quota limiting the total number of black soldiers would be
preserved.[17-1]
[Footnote 17-1: Interv, author with Collins.]
But the Army had promised the Fahy Committee in April 1950 it (p. 429)
would abolish the quota. If carried out, such an agreement would
complicate an orderly and controlled integration, and Collins's desire
for change was clearly tempered by his concern for order and control.
So long as peacetime manpower levels remained low and inductions
through the draft limited, a program such as the one contemplated by
the Chief of Staff was feasible, but any sudden wartime expansion
would change all that. Fear of such a sudden change combined with the
strong opposition to integration still shared by most Army officials
to keep the staff from any initiative toward integration in the period
immediately after the Fahy Committee adjourned.
Even before Gray and Collins completed their negotiations with the
Fahy Committee, they were treated by the Chamberlin Board to yet
another indication of the scope of Army staff opposition to
integration. Gray had appointed a panel of senior officers under Lt.
Gen. Stephen J. Chamberlin on 18 September 1949 in fulfillment of his
promise to review the Army's racial policy periodically "in the light
of changing conditions and experiences of this day and time."[17-2]
After sitting four months and consulting more than sixty major Army
officials and some 280 officers and men, the board produced a
comprehensive summary of the Army's racial status based on test
scores, enlistment rates, school figures, venereal disease rates,
opinion surveys, and the like.
[Footnote 17-2: Memo, SA for Lt Gen Stephen J.
Chamberlin, 30 Nov 49, sub: Utilization of Negro
Manpower in the Army, CSGPA 291.2. See also Dir,
P&A, Summary Sheet to CofS, 2 Nov 49, sub: Board to
Study the Utilization of Negro Manpower in
Peacetime Army, CSGPA 291.2, and TAG to Chamberlin,
18 Nov 49, same sub, AG 334 (17 Nov 49). In
addition to Chamberlin, the board included Maj.
Gen. Withers A. Buress, commanding general of the
Infantry Center; Maj. Gen. John M. Divine,
commanding general of 9th Infantry Division, Fort
Dix; and Col. M. VanVoorst, Personnel and
Administration Division, as recorder without vote.]
The conclusions and recommendations of the Chamberlin Board represent
perhaps the most careful and certainly the last apologia for a
segregated Army.[17-3] The Army's postwar racial policy and related
directives, the board assured Secretary Gray, were sound, were proving
effective, and should be continued in force. It saw only one objection
to segregated units: black units had an unduly high proportion of men
with low classification test scores, a situation, it believed, that
could be altered by raising the entrance level and improving training
and leadership. At any rate, the board declared, this disadvantage was
a minor one compared to the advantages of an organization that did not
force Negroes into competition they were unprepared to face, did not
provoke the resentment of white soldiers with the consequent risk of
lowered combat effectiveness, and avoided placing black officers and
noncommissioned officers in command of white troops, "a position which
only the exceptional Negro could successfully fill."
[Footnote 17-3: Memo, Gen Chamberlin et al. for SA, 9
Feb 50, sub: Report of Board of Officers on
Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army, AG 291.2
(6 Dec 49). A copy of the report and many of the
related and supporting documents are in CMH.]
A decision on these matters, the board stated, had to be based on
combat effectiveness, not the use of black manpower, and what
constituted maximum effectiveness was best left to the judgment of
war-tested combat leaders. These men, "almost without exception,"
vigorously opposed integration. Ignoring the Army's continuing (p. 430)
negotiations with the Fahy Committee on the matter, the board called
for retaining the 10 percent quota. To remove the quota without
imposing a higher entrance standard, it argued, would result in an
influx of Negroes "with a corresponding deterioration of combat
efficiency." In short, ignoring the political and budgetary realities
of the day, the board called on Secretary Gray to repudiate the
findings of the Fahy Committee and the stipulations of Executive Order
9981 and to maintain a rigidly segregated service with a carefully
regulated percentage of black members.
While Gray and Collins let the recommendations of the Chamberlin Board
go unanswered, they did very little to change the Army's racial
practices in the year following their agreements with the Fahy
Committee. The periodic increase in the number of critical specialties
for which Negroes were to be trained and freely assigned did not
materialize. The number of trained black specialists increased, and
some were assigned to white units, but this practice, while
substantially different from the Gillem Board's idea of limiting such
integration to overhead spaces, nevertheless produced similar results.
Black specialists continued to be assigned to segregated units in the
majority of cases, and in the minds of most commanders such assignment
automatically limited black soldiers to certain jobs and schools no
matter what their qualifications. Kenworthy's blunt conclusion in May
1951 was that the Army had not carried out the policy it had agreed
to.[17-4] Certainly the Army staff had failed to develop a successful
mechanism for gauging its commanders' compliance with its new policy.
Despite the generally progressive sentiments of General Collins and
Secretary Gray's agreement with the Fahy Committee, much of the Army
clung to old sentiments and practices for the same old reasons.
[Footnote 17-4: Kenworthy, "The Case Against Army
Segregation," p. 32.]
The catalyst for the sudden shift away from these sentiments and
practices was the Korean War. Ranking among the nation's major
conflicts, the war caused the Army to double in size in five months.
By June 1951 it numbered 1.6 million, with 230,000 men serving in
Korea in the Eighth Army. This vast expansion of manpower and combat
commitment severely tested the Army's racial policy and immediately
affected the racial balance of the quota-free Army. When the quota was
lifted in April 1950, Negroes accounted for 10.2 percent of the total
enlisted strength; by August this figure reached 11.4 percent. On 1
January 1951, Negroes comprised 11.7 percent of the Army, and in
December 1952 the ratio was 13.2 percent. The cause of this striking
rise in black strength was the large number of Negroes among wartime
enlistments. The percentage of Negroes among those enlisting in the
Army for the first time jumped from 8.2 in March 1950 to 25.2 in
August, averaging 18 percent of all first-term enlistments during the
first nine months of the war. Black reenlistment increased from 8.5 to
12.9 percent of the total reenlistment during the same period, and the
percentage of black draftees in the total number of draftees supplied
by Selective Service averaged 13 percent.[17-5]
[Footnote 17-5: Memo, G-1 for VCofS, sub: Negro
Statistics, 16 Jun 50-6 Oct 50, CS 291.2 Negro;
idem for G-3, 18 Apr 51, sub: Training Spaces for
Negro Personnel, OPS 291.2; Memo, Chief, Mil Opers
Management Branch, G-1, for G-1, 1 Feb 51, sub:
Distribution of Negro Manpower in the Army, G-1
291.2, and Memo, Chief, Procurement and
Distribution Div, G-1, for G-1, 20 Oct 53, same sub
and file.]
[Illustration: MOVING UP. _25th Division infantrymen head for the
front, Korea, July 1950._]
The effect of these increases on a segregated army was tremendous. (p. 431)
By April 1951, black units throughout the Army were reporting large
overstrengths, some as much as 60 percent over their authorized
organization tables. Overstrength was particularly evident in the
combat arms because of the steady increase in the number of black
soldiers with combat occupational specialties. Largely assigned to
service units during World War II--only 22 percent, about half the
white percentage, were in combat units--Negroes after the war were
assigned in ever-increasing numbers to combat occupational specialties
in keeping with the Gillem Board recommendation that they be trained
in all branches of the service. By 1950 some 30 percent of all black
soldiers were in combat units, and by June 1951 they were being
assigned to the combat branches in approximately the same percentage
as white soldiers, 41 percent.[17-6]
[Footnote 17-6: STM-30, Strength of the Army, Sep 50,
Mar 51, and Jul 51.]
The Chief of Staff's concern with the Army's segregation policy went
beyond immediate problems connected with the sudden manpower increases.
Speaking to Maj. Gen. Lewis A. Craig, the Inspector General, in August
1950, Collins declared that the Army's social policy was unrealistic
and did not represent the views of younger Americans whose attitudes
were much more relaxed than those of the senior officers who (p. 432)
established policy. Reporting Collins's comment to the staff, Craig
went on to say the situation in Korea confirmed his own observations
that mixing whites and blacks "in reasonable proportions" did not
cause friction. Continued segregation, on the other hand, would force
the Army to reinstate the old division-size black unit, with its
ineffectiveness and frustrations, to answer the Negro's demand for
equitable promotions and job opportunities. In short, both Collins and
Craig agreed that the Army must eventually integrate, and they wanted
the use of black servicemen restudied.[17-7]
[Footnote 17-7: IG Summary Sheet for CofS, 7 Dec 50,
sub: Policy Regarding Negro Segregation, CS 291.2
(7 Dec 50).]
Their view was at considerable variance with the attitude displayed by
most officers on the Army staff and in the major commands in December
1950. His rank notwithstanding, Collins still had to persuade these
men of the validity of his views before they would accept the
necessity for integration. Moreover, with his concept of orderly and
controlled social change threatened by the rapid rise in the number of
black soldiers, Collins himself would need to assess the effects of
racial mixing in a fluid manpower situation. These necessities explain
the plethora of staff papers, special boards, and field investigations
pertaining to the employment of black troops that characterized the
next six months, a period during which every effort was made to
convince senior officers of the practical necessity for integration.
The Chief of Staff's exchange of views with the Inspector General was
not circulated within the staff until December 1950. At that time the
personnel chief, Lt. Gen. Edward H. Brooks, recommended reconvening
the Chamberlin Board to reexamine the Army's racial policy in light of
the Korean experience. Brooks wanted to hold off the review until
February 1951 by which time he thought adequate data would be
available from the Far East Command. His recommendation was approved,
and the matter was returned to the same group which had so firmly
rejected integration less than a year before.[17-8]
[Footnote 17-8: G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 18 Dec 50,
sub: Policy Regarding Negro Segregation, G-1
291.2.]
Even as the Chamberlin Board was reconvening, another voice was added
to those calling for integration. Viewing the critical overstrength in
black units, Assistant Secretary Earl D. Johnson recommended
distributing excess black soldiers among other units of the
Army.[17-9] The response to his proposal was yet another attempt to
avoid the dictates of the draft law and black enlistments. Maj. Gen.
Anthony C. McAuliffe, the G-1, advised against integrating the
organized white units on the grounds that experience gained thus far
on the social impact of integration was inadequate to predict its
effect on "overall Army efficiency." Since the Army could not continue
assigning more men to the overstrength black units, McAuliffe wanted
to organize additional black units to accommodate the excess, and he
asked Maj. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, the G-3, to activate the necessary
units.[17-10]
[Footnote 17-9: Memo, ASA for SA, 3 Apr 51, sub:
Present Overstrength in Segregated Units, G-1
291.2.]
[Footnote 17-10: Memo, G-1 for CofS, 26 May 51, sub:
Present Overstrength in Segregated Units; DF, G-1
for G-3, 16 Apr 51, sub: Training Spaces for Negro
Personnel; both in G-1 291.2.]
The chief of the Army Field Forces was even more direct. Integration
was untimely, General Mark W. Clark advised, and the Army should
instead reimpose the quota and push for speedy implementation of the
Secretary of Defense's directive on the qualitative distribution (p. 433)
of manpower.[17-11] Clark's plea for a new quota was one of many
circulating in the staff since black enlistment percentages started to
rise. But time had run out on the quota as a solution to overstrength
black units. Although the Army staff continued to discuss the need for
the quota, and senior officials considered asking the President for
permission to reinstitute it, the Secretary of Defense's acceptance of
parity of enlistment standards had robbed the Army of any excuse for
special treatment on manpower allotments.[17-12]
[Footnote 17-11: Memo, CG, AFF, for G-1, 8 May 51,
sub: Negro Strength in the Army, G-1 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-12: Memo, ASA for SA, 1 Jul 51, and Draft
Memo, SA for President (not sent), both in SA
291.2.]
[Illustration: MEN OF BATTERY A, _159th Field Artillery Battalion,
fire 105-mm. howitzer, Korea, August 1950_.]
McAuliffe's recommendation for additional black units ran into serious
opposition and was not approved. Taylor's staff, concerned with the
practical problems of Army organization, objected to the proposal,
citing budget limitations that precluded the creation of additional
units and policy restrictions that forbade the creation of new units
merely to accommodate black recruits. The operations staff recommended
instead that black soldiers in excess of unit strength be shipped
directly from training centers to overseas commands as replacements
without regard for specific assignment. McAuliffe's personnel staff,
in turn, warned that on the basis of a monthly average dispatch of
25,000 replacements to the Far East Command, the portion of Negroes in
those shipments would be 15 percent for May 1951, 21 percent for June,
22 percent for July, and 16 percent for August. McAuliffe listed the
familiar problems that would accrue to the Far East commanders from
this decision, but he was unable to break the impasse in Washington.
Thus the problem of excess black manpower was passed on to the
overseas commanders for resolution.[17-13]
[Footnote 17-13: CMT 2 (Brig Gen D. A. Ogden, Chief,
Orgn & Tng Div, G-3), 3 May 51, CMT 3 (Brig Gen W.
E. Dunkelberg, Chief, Manpower Control Div, G-1),
21 May 51, and CMT 4 (Ogden), 24 May 51, to G-1
Summary Sheet for CofS, 18 Apr 51, sub: Negro
Overstrengths, G-1 291.2.]
Commanders in Korea had already begun to apply the only practical
remedy. Confronted with battle losses in white units and a growing
surplus of black replacements arriving in Japan, the Eighth Army began
assigning individual black soldiers just as it had been assigning
individual Korean soldiers to understrength units.[17-14] In August
1950, for example, initial replacements for battle casualties in (p. 434)
the 9th Infantry of the U.S. 2d Infantry Division included two black
officers and eighty-nine black enlisted men. The commander assigned
them to units in his severely undermanned all-white 1st and 2d
Battalions. In September sixty more soldiers from the regiment's
all-black 3d Battalion returned to the regiment for duty. They were
first attached but later, with the agreement of the officers and men
involved, assigned to units of the 1st and 2d Battalions.
Subsequently, 225 black replacements were routinely assigned wherever
needed throughout the regiment.[17-15] By December the 9th Infantry
had absorbed Negroes to about their proportion of the national
population, 11 percent. Of six black officers among them, one
commanded Company C and another was temporarily in command of Company
B when that unit fought in November on the Ch'ongch'on River line. S.
L. A. Marshall later described Company B as "possibly the bravest"
unit in that action.[17-16]
[Footnote 17-14: The Korean Augmentation to the United
States Army, known as KATUSA, a program for
integrating Korean soldiers in American units, was
substantially different from the integration of
black Americans in terms of official authorization
and management; see CMH study by David C. Skaggs,
"The Katusa Program," in CMH.]
[Footnote 17-15: Memo, CO, 9th Inf, for TIG, 29 Oct
50, attached to IG Summary Sheet for CofS, 7 Dec
50, sub: Policy Regarding Negro Segregation, CS
291.2 (7 Dec 50); FEC, "G-1 Command Report, 1
January-31 October 1950."]
[Footnote 17-16: S. L. A. Marshall, "Integration,"
Detroit _News_, May 13, 1956.]
The practice of assigning individual blacks throughout white units in
Korea accelerated during early 1951 and figured in the manpower
rotation program which began in Korea during May. By this time the
practice had so spread that 9.4 percent of all Negroes in the theater
were serving in some forty-one newly and unofficially integrated
units.[17-17] Another 9.3 percent were in integrated but predominantly
black units. The other 81 percent continued to serve in segregated
units: in March 1951 these numbered 1 black regiment, 10 battalions,
66 separate companies, and 7 separate detachments. Looked at another
way, by May 1951 some 61 percent of the Eighth Army's infantry
companies were at least partially integrated.
[Footnote 17-17: ORO Technical Memorandum T-99, A
Preliminary Report on the Utilization of Negro
Manpower, 30 Jun 51, p. 34, copy in CMH.]
Though still limited, the conversion to integrated units was
permanent. The Korean expedient, adopted out of battlefield necessity,
carried out haphazardly, and based on such imponderables as casualties
and the draft, passed the ultimate test of traditional American
pragmatism: it worked. And according to reports from Korea, it worked
well. The performance of integrated troops was praiseworthy with no
report of racial friction.[17-18] It was a test that could not fail to
impress field commanders desperate for manpower.
[Footnote 17-18: Ibid., p. 35. For a popular report on
the success of this partial integration, see Harold
H. Martin, "How Do Our Negro Troops Measure Up?,"
_Saturday Evening Post_ 223 (June 16, 1951):30-31.]
_Training_
Training units in the United States were subject to many of the
stresses suffered by the Eighth Army, and without fanfare they too
began to integrate. There was little precedent for the change. True,
the Army had integrated officer training in World War II and basic
training at the Women's Army Corps Training Center at Fort Lee,
Virginia, in April 1950. But beyond that only the rare black trainee
designated for specialist service was assigned to a white training
unit. Until 1950 there was no effort to mix black and white trainees
because the Army's manpower experts always predicted a "social (p. 435)
problem," a euphemism for the racial conflict they feared would follow
integration at large bases in the United States.
Not that demands for integration ever really ceased. Civil rights
organizations and progressive lawmakers continued to press the Army,
and the Selective Service System itself complained that black draftees
were being discriminated against even before induction.[17-19] Because
so many protests had focused on the induction process, James Evans,
the Civilian Aide to the Secretary of Defense, recommended that the
traditional segregation be abandoned, at least during the period
between induction and first assignment.[17-20] Congressman Jacob
Javits, always a critic of the Army's segregation policy, was
particularly disturbed by the segregation of black trainees at Fort
Dix, New Jersey. His request that training units be integrated was
politely rejected in the fall of 1950 by General Marshall, who implied
that the subject was an unnecessary intrusion, an attitude
characteristic of the Defense Department's war-distracted feelings
toward integration.[17-21]
[Footnote 17-19: Ltr, Lewis B. Hershey to SA, 21 Sep
50, SA 291.2; Memo, Col W. Preston Corderman, Exec,
Office of ASA, for CofS, 8 Sep 50, sub: Racial
Complaints, CS 291.2. For an example of complaints
by a civil rights organization, see Telg, J. L.
LeFore, Mobile, Ala., NAACP, to President, 18 Sep
50, and Ltr, A. Philip Randolph to SecDef, 30 Oct
50, both in SD 291.2 Neg.]
[Footnote 17-20: Memo, Evans for Leva, ASD, 5 Oct 50,
sub: Racial Complaint From the Mobile Area, SD
291.2 Neg (18 Sep 50).]
[Footnote 17-21: Ltrs, Javits to SecDef, 6 Sep and 2
Oct 50; Ltrs, SecDef to Javits, 19 Sep and 10 Oct
50. All in SD 291.2 Neg.]
Again, the change in Army policy came not because the staff ordered
it, but because local commanders found it necessary. The commanders of
the nine training divisions in the continental United States were hard
pressed because the number of black and white inductees in any monthly
draft call, as well as their designated training centers, depended on
Selective Service and was therefore unpredictable. It was impossible
for commanders to arrange for the proper number of separate white and
black training units and instructors to receive the inductees when no
one knew whether a large contingent of black soldiers or a large group
of whites would get off the train. A white unit could be undermanned
and its instructors idle while a black unit was overcrowded and its
instructors overworked. This inefficient use of their valuable
training instructors led commanders, first at Fort Ord and then at the
other training divisions and replacement centers throughout the United
States, to adopt the expedient of mixing black and white inductees in
the same units for messing, housing, and training. As the commander of
Fort Jackson, South Carolina, put it, sorting out the rapidly arriving
inductees was "ridiculous," and he proceeded to assign new men to
units without regard to color. He did, however, divert black inductees
from time to time "to hold the Negro population down to a workable
basis."[17-22]
[Footnote 17-22: G-1 Summary Sheet for VCofS, 22 Apr
52, sub: Information for the G-1 Information Book,
G-1 291.2; Memo, ASA (M&PR) for ASD (M&PR), 22 Aug
52, sub: Progress Report on Elimination of
Segregation in the Army, SD 291.2; Memo, VCofS for
SA, 18 Jun 51, sub: Assimilation of Negroes at Ft.
Jackson, S.C., SA 291.2. See also Lt Col William M.
Nichols, "The DOD Program to Ensure Civil Rights
Within the Services and Between the Services and
the Community," Rpt 116, 1966, Industrial College
of the Armed Forces, p. 24.]
The commanding general of the 9th Infantry Division at Fort Dix raised
another question about integrating trainees. He had integrated all
white units other than reserve units at his station, he explained (p. 436)
to the First Army commander in January 1951, but since he was receiving
many more white trainees than black he would soon be forced to
integrate his two black training regiments as well by the unprecedented
assignment of white soldiers to black units with black officers and
noncommissioned officers.[17-23] Actually, such reverse integration
was becoming commonplace in Korea, and in the case of Fort Dix the
Army G-1 solved the commander's dilemma by simply removing the
asterisk, which meant black, from the names of the 364th and 365th
Infantry Regiments.[17-24]
[Footnote 17-23: Ltr, Maj Gen W. K. Harrison, CG, 9th
Inf Div, Ft. Dix, N.J., to CG, First Army, 19 Jan
51, sub: Request for an Additional Training
Regiment, G-1 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-24: Memo, DA, G-1 for CGIA, for 9th Inf
Div, 28 Feb 51, G-1 291.2; AGAO-I, 3 Mar 51, AG
322.]
The nine training divisions were integrated by March 1951, with Fort
Dix, New Jersey, and Fort Knox, Kentucky, the last to complete the
process. Conversion proved trouble-free and permanent; no racial
incidents were reported. In June Assistant Secretary of the Army
Johnson assured the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and
Personnel, Anna Rosenberg, that current expansion of training
divisions would allow the Army to avoid in the future even the
occasional funneling of some inductees into temporarily segregated
units in times of troop overstrengths.[17-25] Logic dictated that
those who trained together would serve together, but despite
integrated training, the plethora of Negroes in overseas replacement
pipelines, and the increasing amount of integrated fighting in Korea,
98 percent of the Army's black soldiers still served in segregated
units in April 1951, almost three years after President Truman issued
his order.
[Footnote 17-25: Memo, ASA for ASD (M&P), 5 Jun 51;
Memo, SA for ASD (M&P), 3 Sep 52; both in SD
291.2.]
_Performance of Segregated Units_
Another factor leading to a change in racial policy was the
performance of segregated units in Korea. Despite "acts of heroism and
capable performance of duty" by some individuals, the famous old 24th
Infantry Regiment as a whole performed poorly. Its instability was
especially evident during the fighting on Battle Mountain in August
1950, and by September the regiment had clearly become a "weak link in
the 25th Division line," and in the Eighth Army as well.[17-26] On 9
September the division commander recommended that the regiment be
removed from combat. "It is my considered opinion," Maj. Gen. William
B. Kean told the Eighth Army commander, that the 24th Infantry has
demonstrated in combat that
it is untrustworthy and incapable of carrying out missions
expected of an Infantry Regiment. In making this statement, I am
fully cognizant of the seriousness of the charges that I am
making, and the implications involved.... The continued use of
this Regiment in combat will jeopardize the United Nations war
effort in Korea.[17-27]
[Footnote 17-26: Roy E. Appleman, _South to the
Naktong, North to the Yalu_ (Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1961), pp. 485-86. For a detailed
account of the battlefield performance of the 24th
and other segregated units, see ibid., passim.]
[Footnote 17-27: Ltr, Maj Gen W. B. Kean to CG, Eighth
Army, 9 Sep 50, sub: Combat Effectiveness of the
24th Infantry Regiment, AG 330.1 (A).]
Kean went on to spell out his charges. The regiment was unreliable (p. 437)
in combat, particularly on the defensive and at night; it abandoned
positions without warning to troops on its flanks; it wasted
equipment; it was prone to panic and hysteria; and some of its members
were guilty of malingering. The general made clear that his charges
were directed at the unit as an organization and not at individual
soldiers, but he wanted the unit removed and its men reassigned as
replacements on a percentage basis in the other units of the Eighth
Army.
General Kean also claimed to have assigned unusually able officers to
the regiment, but to no avail. In attempting to lead their men in
battle, all the unit's commanders had become casualties. Concluding
that segregated units would not work in a combat situation, the
general believed that the combat value of black soldiers would never
be realized unless they were integrated into white units at a rate of
not more than 10 percent.[17-28]
[Footnote 17-28: Observer Report, Lt Col J. D.
Stevens, Plans Div, G-3, 25 Oct 50, G-3 333 PAC
(Sec I-D), Case 18, Tab G.]
The 25th Division commander's charges were supported by the Eighth
Army inspector general, who investigated the 24th Infantry at length
but concluded that the inactivation of the 24th was unfeasible.
Instead he suggested integrating Negroes in all Eighth Army units up
to 15 percent of their strength by means of the replacement process.
The Far East Command's inspector general, Brig. Gen. Edwin A. Zundel,
concurred, stating that the rotation process would provide a good
opportunity to accomplish integration and expressing hope that the
theater would observe the "spirit" of the Army's latest racial
regulations.[17-29]
[Footnote 17-29: FECOM Check Sheet, IG to G-1, FEC, 27
May 51, sub: Report of Investigation; Memo, FEC G-1
for CofS, FEC, 30 Apr 51, sub: G-1 Topics Which
CINC May Discuss With Gen Taylor; both are quoted
in FECOM Mil Hist Section, "History of the Korean
War," III (pt. 2): 151-52, in CMH.]
Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker, the Eighth Army commander, accepted the
inspector general's report, and the 24th Infantry remained on duty in
Korea through the winter. Zundel meanwhile continued the investigation
and in March 1951 offered a more comprehensive assessment of the 24th.
It was a fact, for example, that 62 percent of the unit's troops were
in categories IV and V as against 41 percent of the troops in the 35th
Infantry and 46 percent in the 27th, the 25th Division's white
regiments. The Gillem Board had recommended supplying all such units
with 25 percent more officers in the company grades, something not
done for the 24th Infantry. Some observers also reported evidence in
the regiment of the lack of leadership and lack of close relationships
between officers and men; absence of unit _esprit de corps_;
discrimination against black officers; and poor quality of
replacements.
Whatever the cause of the unit's poor performance, the unanimous
recommendation in the Eighth Army, its inspector general reported, was
integration. Yet he perceived serious difficulty in integration. To
mix the troops of the eighty-four major segregated units in the Eighth
Army under wartime conditions would create an intolerable
administrative burden and would be difficult for the individuals
involved. If integration was limited to the 24th Infantry alone, on
the other hand, its members, indeed even its former members, would
share the onus of its failure. The inspector general therefore (p. 438)
again recommended retaining the 24th, assigning additional officers
and noncommissioned officers to black units with low test averages,
and continuing the integration of the Eighth Army.[17-30]
[Footnote 17-30: Ltr, EUSAK IG to CG, EUSAK, 15 Mar
51, sub: Report of Investigation Concerning 24th
Infantry Regiment and Negro Soldiers in Combat,
EUSAK IG Report.]
[Illustration: SURVIVORS OF AN INTELLIGENCE AND RECONNAISSANCE
PLATOON, _24th Infantry, Korea, May 1951_.]
The Eighth Army was not alone in investigating the 24th Infantry. The
NAACP was also concerned with reports of the regiment's performance,
in particular with figures on the large number of courts-martial.
Thirty-six of the men convicted, many for violation of Article 75 of
the Articles of War (misbehavior before the enemy), had appealed to
the association for assistance, and Thurgood Marshall, then one of its
celebrated attorneys, went to the Far East to investigate. Granted
_carte blanche_ by the Far East commander, General Douglas MacArthur,
Marshall traveled extensively in Korea and Japan reviewing the record
and interviewing the men. His conclusions: "the men were tried in an
atmosphere making justice impossible," and the NAACP had the evidence
to clear most of them.[17-31] Contrasting the Army's experiences
with those of the Navy and the Air Force, Marshall attributed (p. 439)
discrimination in the military justice system to the Army's
segregation policy. He blamed MacArthur for failing to carry out
Truman's order in the Far East and pointed out that no Negroes served
in the command's headquarters. As long as racial segregation
continued, the civil rights veteran concluded, the Army would dispense
the kind of injustice typical of the courts-martial he reviewed.
[Footnote 17-31: Thurgood Marshall, _Report on Korea:
The Shameful Story of the Courts Martial of Negro
GIs_ (New York: NAACP, 1951).]
It would be hard to refute Marshall's contention that discrimination
was a handmaiden of segregation. Not so Walter White's contention that
the reports of the 24th Infantry's poor performance constituted an
attempt to discredit the combat ability of black soldiers and return
them to labor duties. The association's executive secretary had fought
racial injustice for many decades, and, considering his World War II
experiences with the breakup of the 2d Cavalry Division into labor
units, his acceptance of a conspiracy theory in Korea was
understandable. But it was inaccurate. The Army operated under a
different social order in 1951, and many combat leaders in the Eighth
Army were advocating integration. The number of black service units in
the Eighth Army, some ninety in March 1951, was comparable to the
number in other similar Army commands. Nor, for that matter, was the
number of black combat units in the Eighth Army unusual. In March 1951
the Eighth Army had eighty-four such units ranging in size from
regiment to detachment. Far from planning the conversion of black
combat troops to service troops, most commanders were recommending
their assignment to integrated combat units throughout Korea.
Apprised of these various conclusions, MacArthur ordered his staff to
investigate the problem of segregation in the command.[17-32] The Far
East Command G-1 staff incorporated the inspector general's report in
its study of the problem, adding that "Negro soldiers can and do fight
well when integrated." The staff went on to dismiss the importance of
leadership as a particular factor in the case of black troops by
observing that "no race has a monopoly on stupidity."[17-33]
[Footnote 17-32: Ltr, Lt Gen Edward Almond, CofS,
FECOM, to TIG, 15 Mar 51, IG 333.9.]
[Footnote 17-33: FECOM Check Sheet, IG to G-1, FEC, 27
May 51, sub: Report of Investigation; Memo, FEC G-1
for CofS FEC, 30 Apr 51, sub: G-1 Topics Which CINC
May Discuss With Gen Taylor.]
Before the staff could finish its investigation, General Matthew B.
Ridgway replaced MacArthur as Far East commander. Fresh from duty as
Eighth Army commander, Ridgway had had close-hand experience with the
24th Infantry's problems; from both a military and a human viewpoint
he had concluded that segregation was "wholly inefficient, not to say
improper." He considered integration the only way to assure _esprit de
corps_ in any large segment of the Army. As for segregation, Ridgway
concluded, "it has always seemed to me both un-American and
un-Christian for free citizens to be taught to downgrade themselves
this way as if they were unfit to associate with their fellows or to
accept leadership themselves."[17-34] He had planned to seek
authorization to integrate the major black units of the Eighth Army in
mid-March, but battlefield preoccupations and his sudden elevation to
theater command interfered. Once he became commander in chief, however,
he quickly concurred in his inspector general's recommendation, adding
that "integration in white combat units in Korea is a practical (p. 440)
solution to the optimum utilization of Negro manpower provided the
overall theater level of Negroes does not exceed 15 percent of troop
level and does not exceed over 12 percent in any combat unit."[17-35]
[Footnote 17-34: Matthew B. Ridgway, _The Korean War_
(New York: Doubleday, 1967), pp. 192-93.]
[Footnote 17-35: Memorandum for File, FECOM IG, 2 May
51, copy in AG 330.1.]
The 24th Infantry's experiences struck yet another blow at the Army's
race policy. Reduce the size of black units, the Gillem Board had
reasoned, and you will reduce inefficiency and discrimination. Such a
course had not worked. The same troubles that befell the 92d Division
in Italy were now being visited in Korea on the 24th Infantry, a unit
rich with honors extending back to the Indian fighting after the Civil
War, the War with Spain, and the Philippine Insurrection. The unit
could also boast among its medal of honor winners the first man to
receive the award in Korea, Pfc. William Thompson of Company M. Before
its inactivation in 1951 the 24th had yet another member so honored,
Sgt. Cornelius H. Carlton of Company H.
_Final Arguments_
To concentrate on the widespread sentiment for integration in the Far
East would misrepresent the general attitude that still prevailed in
the Army in the spring of 1951. This attitude was clearly reflected
again by the Chamberlin Board, which completed its reexamination of
the Army's racial policy in light of the Korean experience in April.
The board recognized the success of integrated units and even cited
evidence indicating that racial friction had decreased in those units
since the men generally accepted any replacement willing to fight. But
in the end the board retreated into the Army's conventional wisdom:
separate units must be retained, and the number of Negroes in the Army
must be regulated.[17-36]
[Footnote 17-36: Report of Board of Officers on
Utilization of Negro Manpower (2d Chamberlin
Report), 3 Apr 51, G-1 334 (8 Nov 51).]
The board's recommendations were not approved. Budgetary limitations
precluded the creation of more segregated units and the evidence of
Korea could not be denied. Yet the board still enjoyed considerable
support in some quarters. The Vice Chief of Staff, General Haislip,
who made no secret of his opposition to integration, considered it
"premature" to rely and act solely on the experience with integration
in Korea and the training divisions, and he told Secretary Pace in May
1951 that "no action should be taken which would lead to the immediate
elimination of segregated units."[17-37] And then there was the
assessment of Lt. Gen. Edward M. Almond, World War II commander of the
92d Division and later X Corps commander in Korea and MacArthur's
chief of staff. Twenty years after the Korean War Almond's attitude
toward integration had not changed.
I do not agree that integration improves military efficiency; I
believe that it weakens it. I believe that integration was and is
a political solution for the composition of our military forces
because those responsible for the procedures either do not
understand the characteristics of the two human elements (p. 441)
concerned, the white man and the Negro as individuals.
The basic characteristics of Negro and White are fundamentally
different and these basic differences must be recognized by those
responsible for integration. By trial and error we must test the
integration in its application. These persons who promulgate and
enforce such policies either have not the understanding of the
problem or they do not have the intestinal fortitude to do what
they think if they do understand it. There is no question in my
mind of the inherent difference in races. This is not racism--it
is common sense and understanding. Those who ignore these
differences merely interfere with the combat effectiveness of
battle units.[17-38]
[Footnote 17-37: Memo, Actg CofS for SA, 31 May 51,
sub: Negro Strength in the Army, CS 291.2 Negroes
(11 Apr 51); see also Interv, author with Haislip,
14 Feb 71, CMH files.]
[Footnote 17-38: Incl to Ltr, Almond to CMH, 1 Apr 72,
CMH files.]
The opinions of senior commanders long identified with segregated
units in combat carried weight with the middle-ranking staff officers
who, lacking such experience, were charged with devising policy.
Behind the opinions expressed by many staff members there seemed to be
a nebulous, often unspoken, conviction that Negroes did not perform
well in combat. The staff officers who saw proof for their convictions
in the troubles of the 24th Infantry ignored the possibility that
segregated units, not individual soldiers, was the problem. Their
attitude explains why the Army continued to delay changes made
imperative by its experience in Korea.
It also explains why at this late date the Army turned to the
scientific community for still another review of its racial policy.
The move originated with the Army's G-3, Maj. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor,
who in February called for the collection of all information on the
Army's experiences with black troops in Korea. If the G-1, General
McAuliffe, did not consider the available data sufficient, General
Taylor added, he would join in sponsoring further investigation in the
Far East.[17-39] The result was two studies. The G-1 sent an Army
personnel research team, which left for Korea in April 1951, to study
the Army's regulations for assigning men under combat conditions and
to consider the performance of integrated units.[17-40] On 29 March,
Maj. Gen. Ward S. Maris, the G-4, requested the Operations Research
Office, a contract agency for the Army, to make a study of how best to
use black manpower in the Army.[17-41] The G-1 investigation,
undertaken by manpower experts drawn from several Army offices,
concentrated on the views of combat commanders; the contract agency
reviewed all available data, including a detailed battlefield survey
by social scientists. Both groups submitted preliminary reports in
July 1951.
[Footnote 17-39: Memo, ACofS, G-3, for ACofS, G-1, 22
Feb 51, WDGPA 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-40: Memo, Chief, Pers Mgmt Div, G-1, for
CofS, G-3, 6 Mar 51, WDGPA 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-41: Ltr, Maj Gen Ward Maris, G-4, for
Dir, ORO, 29 Mar 51, G-4 291.2. The Operations
Research Office, a subsidiary of the Johns Hopkins
University, performed qualitative and quantitative
analyses of strategy, tactics, and materiel. Some
of its assignments were subcontracted to other
research institutions; all were assigned by the
G-4's Research and Development Division and
coordinated with the Department of Defense.]
Their findings complemented each other. The G-1 team reported that
integration of black soldiers into white combat units in Korea had
been accomplished generally "without undue friction and with better
utilization of manpower." Combat commanders, the team added, "almost
unanimously favor integration."[17-42] The individual soldier's own
motivation determined his competence, the team concluded. The (p. 442)
contract agency, whose report was identified by the code name Project
CLEAR,[17-43] observed that large black units were, on average, less
reliable than large white units, but the effectiveness of small black
units varied widely. The performance of individual black soldiers in
integrated units, on the other hand, approximated that of whites. It
found that white officers commanding black units tended to attribute
their problems to race; those commanding integrated units saw their
problems as military ones. The contract team also confirmed previous
Army findings that efficient officers and noncommissioned officers,
regardless of race, were accepted by soldiers of both races.
Integration, it decided, had not lowered white morale, but it had
raised black morale. Virtually all black soldiers supported
integration, while white soldiers, whatever their private sentiments,
were not overtly hostile. In most situations, white attitudes toward
integration became more favorable with firsthand experience. Although
opinions varied, most combat commanders with integration experience
believed that a squad should contain not more than two Negroes. In
sum, the Project CLEAR group concluded that segregation hampered the
Army's effectiveness while integration increased it. Ironically, this
conclusion practically duplicated the verdict of the Army's surveys of
the integration of black and white units in Europe at the end of World
War II.
[Footnote 17-42: DA Personnel Research Team, "A
Preliminary Report on Personnel Research Data" (ca.
28 Jul 51), AG 333.3.]
[Footnote 17-43: ORO-T-99, "A Preliminary Report on
the Utilization of Negro Manpower," 30 Jun 51,
S4-S6, copy in CMH. A draft version of a more
comprehensive study on the same subject was
prepared in seven volumes (ORO-R-11) in November
1951. These several documents are usually referred
to as Project CLEAR, the code name for the complete
version. The declassification and eventual
publication of this very important social document
had a long and interesting history; see, for
example, Memo, Howard Sacks, Office of the General
Counsel, SA, for James C. Evans, 3 Nov 55, in CMH.
For over a decade a "sanitized" version of Project
CLEAR remained For Official Use Only. The study was
finally cleared and published under the title
_Social Research and the Desegregation of the U.S.
Army_, ed. Leo Bogart (Chicago: Markham, 1969).]
General Collins immediately accepted the Project CLEAR conclusions
when presented to him verbally on 23 July 1951.[17-44] His endorsement
and the subsequent announcement that the Army would integrate its
forces in the Far East implied a connection which did not exist.
Actually, the decision to integrate in Korea was made before Project
CLEAR or the G-1 study appeared. This is not to denigrate the
importance of these documents. Their justification of integration in
objective, scientific terms later helped convince Army traditionalists
of the need for worldwide change and absolved the Secretary of the
Army, his Chief of Staff, and his theater commander of the charge of
having made a political and social rather than a military
decision.[17-45]
[Footnote 17-44: ORO, "Utilization of Negro Manpower
in the Army: A 1951 Study" (advance draft), pp.
viii-ix, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 17-45: Ltr, Dir, ORO, to G-3, 20 Nov 52, G-3
291.2; see also Interv, Nichols with Davis.]
_Integration of the Eighth Army_
On 14 May 1951 General Ridgway forced the issue of integration by
formally requesting authority to abolish segregation in his command.
He would begin with the 24th Infantry, which he wanted to replace
after reassigning its men to white units in Korea. He would then
integrate the other combat units and, finally, the service units. (p. 443)
Where special skills were not a factor Ridgway wanted to assign his
black troops throughout the theater to a maximum of 12 percent of any
unit. To do this he needed permission to integrate the 40th and 45th
Divisions, the federalized National Guard units then stationed in
Japan. He based his proposals on the need to maintain the combat
effectiveness of his command where segregated units had proved
ineffective and integrated units acceptable.[17-46]
[Footnote 17-46: Msg, CINCFE to DA, DA IN 12483, 14
May 51, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the
FEC; ibid., DA IN 13036, 15 May 51, same sub. See
also Ltrs, CG, Eighth Army, to CINCFE, 7 May 51,
sub: Redesignation of Negro Combat Units, and
Ridgway to author, 3 Dec 73, both in CMH.]
When it finally arrived, the proposal for wide-scale integration of
combat units encountered no real opposition from the Army staff.
General Ridgway had rehearsed his proposal with the G-3 when the
latter visited the Far East in April. Taylor "heartily approved,"
calling the times auspicious for such a move.[17-47] Of course his
office quickly approved the plan, and McAuliffe in G-1 and the rest of
the staff followed suit. There was some sentiment on the staff,
eventually suppressed, for retaining the 24th Infantry as an
integrated unit since the statutory requirement for the four black
regiments had been repealed in 1950.[17-48] The staff did insist, over
the G-1's objections, on postponing the integration of the two
National Guard divisions until their arrival in Korea, where the
change could be accomplished through normal replacement-rotation
procedures.[17-49] There were other minor complications and
misunderstandings between the Far East Command and the Army staff over
the timing of the order, but they were easily ironed out.[17-50]
Collins discussed the plan with the appropriate congressional
chairmen, Ridgway further briefed the Secretary of Defense during
General Marshall's 1951 visit to Japan, and Secretary of the Army Pace
kept the President informed.[17-51]
[Footnote 17-47: Ridgway, _The Korean War_, p. 192.]
[Footnote 17-48: Section 401, Army Organization Act of
1950 (PL 581, 81st Cong.), published in DA Bull 9,
6 Jul 50. See also Msg, DA to CINCFE, DA 92561, 28
May 51; G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS and SA, 14 May
51, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower; Memo for
Rcd, G-1 (ca. 14 May 51). All in G-1 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-49: G-1 Summary Sheets for CofS, 18 and
23 May 51, sub: Utilization of Negro Troops in
FECOM, G-1 291.2. See also Elva Stillwaugh's study,
"Personnel Problems in the Korean Conflict," pp.
26-29, in CMH.]
[Footnote 17-50: See, for example, Msg, DA to CINCFE,
DA 92561, 28 May 51; Msg, CINCFE to DA, C6444, 8
Jun 51.]
[Footnote 17-51: Memo, Actg CofS for SA, 28 May 51,
sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, CS 291.2.]
Pace had succeeded Gordon Gray as secretary in April 1950 and
participated in the decisions leading to integration. A
Harvard-trained lawyer with impressive managerial skills, Pace did not
originate any of the Army's racial programs, but he fully supported
the views of his Chief of Staff, General Collins.[17-52] Meeting with
his senior civilian assistants, the G-1 and G-3 of the Army, and
Assistant Secretary of Defense Rosenberg on 9 June, Pace admitted that
their discussions were being conducted "probably with a view to
achieving complete integration in the Army." Nevertheless, he stressed
a cautionary approach because "once a step was taken it was very much
harder to retract." He was particularly worried about the high
percentage of black soldiers, 12.5 percent of the Army's total,
compared with the percentage of Negroes in the other services. He
summarized the three options still under discussion in the Department
of the Army: Ridgway's call for complete integration in Korea, followed
by integration of Army elements in Japan, with a 10 percent limit (p. 444)
on black replacements; Mark Clark's proposal to ship black combat
battalions to Korea to be used at the division commanders' discretion,
with integration limited to combat-tested individuals and then only in
support units; and, finally, the Army staff's decision to continue
sending replacements for use as the Far East Command saw fit.
[Footnote 17-52: Interv, author with Collins.]
[Illustration: GENERAL RIDGWAY.]
Commenting on the Ridgway proposal, one participant pointed out that a
10 percent limit on black replacements, even if integration spread to
the European Command, would mean that the majority of the Army's
Negroes would remain in the United States. Rosenberg, however,
preferred the Ridgway plan. Stressing that it was an Army decision and
that she was "no crusader," she nevertheless reminded Secretary Pace
that the Army needed to show some progress. Rosenberg mentioned the
threat of a Congress which might force more drastic measures upon the
Army and pointedly offered to defer answering her many congressional
inquisitors until the Army reached a decision.[17-53]
[Footnote 17-53: Memo for Rcd, Col James F. Collins,
Asst to ASD (M&P), 9 Jun 51, SD 291.2.]
The decision was finally announced on 1 July 1951. A message went out
to General Ridgway approving "deactivation of the 24th Infantry and
your general plan for integration of Negroes into all units (with the
temporary exception of the 40th and 45th Divisions)."[17-54] The staff
wanted the move to be gradual, progressive, and secret to avoid any
possible friction in the Eighth Army and to win general acceptance for
integration. But it did not remain secret for long. In the face of
renewed public criticism for its segregated units and after lengthy
staff discussion, the Army announced the integration of the Far East
Command on 26 July, the third anniversary of the Truman order.[17-55]
Prominent among the critics of the Army's delay was General MacArthur,
who publicly blamed President Truman for the continued segregation of
his former command. The charge, following as it did the general's
dismissal, was much discussed in the press and the Department of
Defense. Easily disputed, it was eventually overtaken by the fact of
integration.
[Footnote 17-54: Msg, DA to CINCFE, DA 95359, 1 Jul
51.]
[Footnote 17-55: Memo, Chief, Public Info Div, CINFO,
for Dir, Office of Public Info, DOD, 26 Jul 51; DOD
Press Release, 26 Jul 51. For last-minute criticism
of the continued segregation see, for example, Ltr,
Sens. Herbert Lehman and Hubert Humphrey to SecDef,
25 Jul 51; Memo, ASA for ASD (M&P), 19 Jul 51, sub:
Racial Segregation in FECOM; Telg, Elmer W.
Henderson, Dir, American Council on Human Rights,
to George C. Marshall, SecDef, 31 May 51. All in
SecDef 291.2.]
Three problems had to be solved in carrying out the integration (p. 445)
order. The first, inactivation of the 24th Infantry and the choice of
a replacement, was quickly overcome. From the replacements suggested,
Ridgway decided on the 14th Infantry, which had been recently assigned,
minus men and equipment, to the Far East Command. It was filled with
troops and equipment from the 34th Infantry, then training replacements
in Japan. On 1 October it was assigned to the 24th's zone of
responsibility in the 25th Division's line. The 24th Infantry, its men
and equipment transferred to other infantry units in Korea, was
inactivated on 1 October and "transferred to the control of the
Department of the Army."[17-56]
[Footnote 17-56: Per Ltr, TAG to CINCFE, 9 Aug 51,
AGAO-I 322 (26 Jul 51), implemented by Eighth Army
GO 717, 22 Sep 51.]
The second problem, integration of units throughout the command,
proved more difficult and time-consuming. Ridgway considered the need
most urgent in the infantry units and wanted their integration to take
precedence. The 3d Battalion of the 9th Infantry was reorganized
first, many of its black members scattered throughout other infantry
units in the 2d Division. But then things got out of phase. To speed
the process the Army staff dropped its plan for inactivating all
segregated units and decided simply to remove the designation
"segregated" and assign white soldiers to formerly all-black units.
Before this form of integration could take place in the 3d Battalion,
15th Infantry, the last major black infantry unit, the 64th Tank
Battalion and the 58th Armored Field Artillery Battalion began the
process of shifting their black troops to nearby white units. The 77th
Engineer Combat Company was the last combat unit to lose the asterisk,
the Army's way of designating a unit black.[17-57] The command was
originally committed to an Army contingency plan that would transfer
black combat troops found superfluous to the newly integrated units to
service units, but this proved unnecessary. All segregated combat
troops were eventually assigned to integrated combat units.[17-58]
[Footnote 17-57: Msg, DA 81846, 19 Sep 51; Eighth Army
GO 774, 16 Oct 51.]
[Footnote 17-58: FECOM Mil Hist Section, "History of
the Korean War," III (pt. 2):153-57.]
To soften the emotional aspects of the change, troop transfers were
scheduled as part of the individual soldier's normal rotation. By the
end of October 1951 the Eighth Army had integrated some 75 percent of
its infantry units. The process was scheduled for completion by
December, but integration of the rest of its combat units and the
great number of service units dragged on for another half year. It was
not until May 1952 that the last divisional and nondivisional
organizations were integrated.[17-59]
[Footnote 17-59: Memo, ASA (M&RF) for ASD (M&P), 22
Aug 52, sub: Integration of Negro Manpower, SD
291.2.]
The third and greatest problem in the integration of the Far East
Command was how to achieve a proportionate distribution of black
troops throughout the command. Ridgway was under orders to maintain
black strength at a maximum 12 percent except in combat infantry
units, where the maximum was 10 percent. The temporary restriction on
integrating the 40th and 45th Divisions and the lack of specially
trained Negroes eligible for assignment to the Japan Logistical
Command added to the difficulty of achieving this goal, but the basic
cause of delay was the continued shipment of black troops to the (p. 446)
Far East in excess of the prescribed percentage. During the integration
period the percentage of black replacements averaged between 12.6 and
15 percent and occasionally rose above 15 percent.[17-60] Ridgway
finally got permission from Washington to raise the ratio of black
soldiers in his combat infantry units to 12 percent, and further
relief could be expected in the coming months when the two National
Guard divisions began integrating.[17-61] Still, in October 1951 the
proportion of Negroes in the Eighth Army had risen to 17.6 percent,
and the flow of black troops to the Far East continued unabated,
threatening the success of the integration program. Ridgway repeatedly
appealed for relief, having been warned by his G-1 that future black
replacements must not exceed 10 percent if the integration program was
to continue successfully.[17-62]
[Footnote 17-60: Ibid.; Stillwaugh, "Personnel
Problems in the Korean Conflict," pp. 33-35.]
[Footnote 17-61: Msg, CSA to CINCFE, DA 96489, 18 Jul
51.]
[Footnote 17-62: Journal Files, G-1, FEC, Oct 51,
Annex 2.]
[Illustration: MACHINE GUNNERS OF COMPANY L, 14TH INFANTRY, _Hill 931,
Korea, September 1952_.]
Ridgway was particularly concerned with the strain on his program
caused by the excessive number of black combat replacements swelling
the percentage of Negroes in his combat units. By September black
combat strength reached 14.2 percent, far above the limits set by
the Army staff. Ridgway wanted combat replacements limited to 12 (p. 447)
percent. He also proposed that his command be allowed to request
replacements by race and occupational specialty in order to provide
Army headquarters with a sound basis for allotting black enlisted men
to the Far East. While the Army staff promised to try to limit the
number of black combat troops, it rejected the requisition scheme.
Selection for occupational specialist training was not made by race,
the G-1 explained, and the Army could not control the racial
proportions of any particular specialty. Since the Army staff had no
control over the number of Negroes in the Army, their specialties or
the replacement needs of the command, no purpose would be served by
granting such a request.[17-63]
[Footnote 17-63: Rad, CINCFE for DA, DA IN 182547, 11
Sep 52, sub: Negro Personnel; Msg, DA to CINCFE, 23
Sep 52, G-1 291.2.]
Yet Ridgway's advice could not be ignored, because by year's end the
whole Army had developed a vested interest in the success of
integration in the Far East. The service was enjoying the praise of
civil rights congressmen, much of the metropolitan press, and even
some veterans' groups, such as the Amvets.[17-64] Secretary Pace was
moved to call the integration of the Eighth Army a notable advance in
the field of human relations.[17-65] But most of all, the Army began
to experience the fruits of racial harmony. Much of the conflict and
confusion among troops that characterized the first year of the war
disappeared as integration spread, and senior officials commented
publicly on the superior military efficiency of an integrated Army in
Korea.[17-66] As for the men themselves, their attitudes were in sharp
contrast to those predicted by the Army traditionalists. The
conclusion of some white enlisted men, wounded and returned from
Korea, were typical:
Far as I'm concerned it [integration] worked pretty good.... When
it comes to life or death, race does not mean any difference....
It's like one big family.... Got a colored guy on our machine gun
crew--after a while I wouldn't do without him.... Concerning
combat, what I've seen, an American is an American. When we have
to do something we're all the same.... Each guy is like your own
brother--we treated all the same.... Had a colored platoon
leader. They are as good as any people.... We [an integrated
squad] had something great in common, sleeping, guarding each
other--sometimes body against body as we slept in bunkers....
Takes all kinds to fight a war.[17-67]
[Footnote 17-64: See, for example, Press Release by
Senator Herbert H. Lehman, 27 July 1951, which
expressed the praise of nine U.S. senators;
Editorial in the Baltimore Sun, December 21, 1951;
Ltr, National Cmdr, Amvets, to CINCFE, 5 Dec 51,
copies in CMH.]
[Footnote 17-65: _Semiannual Report of the Secretary
of Defense, July 1-December 31, 1951_ (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1952), p. 13.]
[Footnote 17-66: See, for example, Interv, Nichols
with Bradley; Ltr, Ridgway to author, 3 Dec 73;
Mark S. Watson, "Most Combat GI's are
Unsegregated," datelined 15 Dec 51 (probably
prepared for the Baltimore _Sun_). All in CMH
files. See also James C. Evans and David Lane,
"Integration in the Armed Services," _Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Sciences_
304 (March 1956):78.]
[Footnote 17-67: Extracted from a series of interviews
conducted by Lee Nichols with a group of wounded
soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 12
November 1952, in Nichols Collection, CMH.]
Integration was an established fact in Korea, but the question
remained: could an attitude forged in the heat of battle be sustained
on the more tranquil maneuver grounds of central Europe and the
American south?
[Illustration: COLOR GUARD, 160TH INFANTRY, KOREA, 1952.]
_Integration of the European and Continental Commands_ (p. 448)
Since the Army was just 12 percent Negro in September 1951, it should
have been possible to solve Ridgway's problem of black overstrength
simply by distributing black soldiers evenly throughout the Army. But
this solution was frustrated by the segregation still in force in
other commands. Organized black units in the United States were small
and few in number, and black recruits who could not be used in them
were shipped as replacements to the overseas commands, principally in
the Far East and Europe.[17-68] Consequently, Ridgway's problem was
not an isolated one; his European counterpart was operating a largely
segregated command almost 13 percent black. The Army could not prevent
black overstrengths so long as Negroes were ordered into the
quota-free service by color-blind draft boards, but it could equalize
the overstrength by integrating its forces all over the world.
[Footnote 17-68: In 1951 the European Command was the
major Army headquarters in the European theater. It
was, at the same time, a combined command with some
20,000 members of the Air Force and Navy serving
along with 234,000 Army troops. In August 1952 a
separate Army command (U.S. Army, Europe) was
created within the European Command. Discussion of
the European Command and its commander in the
following paragraphs applies only to Army troops.]
This course, along with the knowledge that integration was working in
the Far East and the training camps, was leading senior Army officials
toward full integration. But they wanted certain reassurances.
Believing that integration of the continental commands would create,
in the words of the G-1, "obstacles and difficulties vastly greater
than those in FECOM," the Army staff wanted these problems (p. 449)
thoroughly analyzed before taking additional moves, "experimental or
otherwise," to broaden integration.[17-69] General Collins, although
personally committed to integration, voiced another widespread concern
over extending integration beyond the Far East units. Unlike the Navy
and the Air Force, which were able to secure more highly qualified men
on a volunteer basis, the Army had long been forced to accept anyone
meeting the draft's minimum standards. This circumstance was very
likely to result, he feared, in an army composed to an unprecedented
degree of poorly educated black soldiers, possibly as much as 30
percent in the near future.[17-70]
[Footnote 17-69: Memo, G-1 for DCofS, Admin, 18 Jul
51, G-1 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-70: Ltr, Eli Ginzberg to Lt Col Edward J.
Barta, Hist Div, USAREUR, attached to Ltr, Ginzberg
to Carter Burgess, ASD (M&P), 11 Nov 55, SD 291.2
(11 Nov 55).]
The Army's leaders received the necessary reassurances in the coming
months. The Secretary of Defense laid to rest their fear that the
draft-dependent Army would become a dumping ground for the ignorant
and untrainable when, in April 1951, he directed that troops must be
distributed among the services on a qualitative basis. Assistant
Secretary of the Army Johnson asked Professor Eli Ginzberg, a social
scientist and consultant to the Army, to explain to the Army Policy
Council the need for aggressive action to end segregation.[17-71] And
once again, but this time with considerable scientific detail to
support its recommendations, the Project CLEAR final report told Army
leaders that the service should be integrated worldwide. Again the
researchers found that the Army's problem was not primarily racial,
but a question of how best to use underqualified men. Refining their
earlier figures, they decided that black soldiers were best used in
integrated units at a ratio of 15 to 85. Integration on the job was
conducive to social integration, they discovered, and social
integration, dependent on several variables, was particularly amenable
to firm policy guidance and local control. Finally, the report found
that integration on military posts was accepted by local civilians as
a military policy unlikely to affect their community.[17-72]
[Footnote 17-71: Ltr, Ginzberg to Burgess, 11 Nov 55.]
[Footnote 17-72: ORO-R-11, Rpt, Utilization of Negro
Manpower in the Army, Project CLEAR, vol. 1; G-1
Summary Sheet for CofSA, 5 Jan 52, sub: Evaluation
of ORO-R-11 on Utilization of Negro Manpower in the
Army, CS 291.2 Negroes (5 Jan 52).]
The Chief of Staff approved the Project CLEAR final report, although
his staff had tried to distinguish between the report's view of
on-the-job integration and social integration, accepting the former
with little reservation, but considering the latter to be "weak in
supporting evidence." The personnel staff continued to stress the need
to reimpose a racial quota quickly without waiting for black
enrollment to reach 15 percent as the Project CLEAR report suggested.
It also believed that integration should be limited to the active
federal service, exempting National Guard units under state control.
General McAuliffe agreed to drop racial statistics but warned that
investigation of discrimination charges depended on such statistics.
He also agreed that blacks could be mixed with whites at 10 to 20
percent of the strength of any white unit, but to assign whites in
similar percentages to black units "would undoubtedly present
difficulties and place undue burdens on the assigned white personnel."
Finally, McAuliffe stressed that commanders would have flexibility (p. 450)
in working out the nonoperational aspects of integration so long as
their methods and procedures were consistent with Army policy.[17-73]
[Footnote 17-73: G-1 Summary Sheet for CofSA, 5 Jan
52.]
These reservations aside, McAuliffe concluded that integration was
working in enough varied circumstances to justify its extension to the
entire Army. General Collins agreed, and on 29 December 1951 he
ordered all major commanders to prepare integration programs for their
commands. Integration was the Army's immediate goal, and, he added, it
was to be progressive, in orderly stages, and without publicity.[17-74]
[Footnote 17-74: Ibid., 29 Dec 51, sub: Integration of
Negro Enlisted Personnel, G-1 291.2 Negroes.]
The Chief of Staff's decision was especially timely for the European
Command where General Thomas T. Handy faced manpower problems similar
to if not so critical as those in the Far East. During 1951 Army
strength in Europe had also risen sharply--from 86,000 to 234,000 men.
Black strength had increased even more dramatically, from 8,876 (or 11
percent) to 27,267 (or 13 percent). The majority of black soldiers in
Europe served in segregated units, the number of which more than
doubled because of the Korean War. From sixty-six units in June 1950,
the figure rose to 139 in March 1952. Most of these units were not in
divisions but in service organizations; 113 were service units, of
which fifty-three were transportation units.
Again as in the Far East, some integration in Europe occurred in
response to the influx of new soldiers as well as to Army directives.
Handy integrated his Noncommissioned Officers' Academy in 1950 in an
operation involving thousands of enlisted men. After he closed the
segregated Kitzingen Training Center in February 1951, black troops
were absorbed into other training and replacement centers on an
integrated basis. For some time Army commanders in Europe had also
been assigning certain black soldiers with specialist training to
white units, a practice dramatically accelerated in 1950 when the
command began receiving many Negroes with occupation specialties
unneeded in black units. In March 1951 Handy directed that, while the
assignment of Negroes to black units remained the first priority,
Negroes possessing qualifications unusable or in excess of the needs
of black units would be assigned where they could be used most
effectively.[17-75] Consequently, by the end of 1951 some 7 percent of
all black enlisted men, 17 percent of the black officers, and all
black soldiers of the Women's Army Corps in the command were serving
in integrated units.
[Footnote 17-75: Ltr, EUCOM to Sub Cmds, 16 Mar 51,
sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, USAREUR SGS
291.2. See also EUCOM Hist Div, "Integration of
Negro and White Troops in the U.S. Army, Europe,
1952-1954," p. 4, in CMH. This monograph, prepared
by Ronald Sher, will be cited hereafter as Sher
Monograph.]
In sharp contrast to the Far East Command, there was little support
among senior Army officials in Europe for full integration. Sent by
Assistant Secretary Johnson to brief European commanders on the Army's
decision, Eli Ginzberg met with almost universal skepticism. Most
commanders were unaware of the Army's success with integration in the
Far East and in the training divisions at home; when so informed they
were quick to declare such a move impractical for Europe. They warned
of the social problems that would arise with the all-white civilian
population and predicted that the Army would be forced to abandon (p. 451)
the program in midstream.[17-76]
[Footnote 17-76: Ltr, Ginzberg to Burgess, 11 Nov 55,
CMH files.]
There were exceptions. Lt. Gen. Manton S. Eddy, the commander of the
Seventh Army, described the serious operational problems caused by
segregation in his command. Most of his black units were
unsatisfactory, and without minimizing the difficulties he concluded
in 1951 that integration was desirable not only for the sake of his
own mission but for the Army's efficiency and the nation's world
leadership. Officers at Headquarters, Supreme Allied Powers, Europe,
also recited personnel and training problems caused in their command
by segregation, but here, Ginzberg noted, the attitude was one of
cautious silence, an attitude that made little difference because
General Eisenhower's command was an international organization having
nothing to do with the Army's race policies. It would, however, be of
some interest during the 1952 political campaign when some
commentators made the false claim that Eisenhower had integrated
American units in Europe.[17-77]
[Footnote 17-77: See, for example, _Pathfinder_
Magazine 58 (May 7, 1952):11. See also Ltr, Philleo
Nash to Donald Dawson, 27 May 52, Nash Collection,
Truman Library; Ltr, Brig Gen Charles T. Lanham to
Evans, 7 Aug 51, CMH files; CINFO Summary Sheet, 12
Jun 52, sub: Query Washington Bureau, NAACP, CSA
291.2.]
Obviously it was going to take more than a visit from Ginzberg to move
the European Command's staff, and later in the year Collins took the
matter up personally with Handy. This consultation, and a series of
exchanges between McAuliffe and command officials, led Collins to ask
Handy to submit an integration plan as quickly as possible.[17-78]
Handy complied with a proposal that failed on the whole to conform to
the Army's current plans for worldwide integration and was quickly
amended in Washington. The European Command would not, Collins
decreed, conduct a special screening of its black officers and noncoms
for fitness for combat duty. The command would not retain segregated
service units, although the Army would allow an extension of the
program's timetable to accomplish the integration of these units.
Finally, the command would stage no publicity campaign but would
instead proceed quietly and routinely. The program was to begin in
April 1952.[17-79]
[Footnote 17-78: Msg, CofSA to CINCEUR, 4 Dec 51, DA
88688.]
[Footnote 17-79: Ltr, AG, EUCOM, to CofSA, 14 Dec 51,
sub: Racial Integration in Combat Units; G-1
Summary Sheet, 24 Jan 52, same sub; Ltr, CofSA to
Handy, 15 Feb 52; Msg, CINCEUR to CofSA, 22 Mar 52,
DA IN 119235; Msg, CofSA to CINCEUR, DA 904459, 24
Mar 52. All in CS 291.2.]
Integration of the European Command proceeded without incident, but
the administrative task was complicated and frequently delayed by the
problem of black overstrength. Handy directed that Negroes be assigned
as individuals in a 1 to 10 ratio in all units although he would
tolerate a higher ratio in service and temporary duty units during the
early stages of the program.[17-80] This figure was adjusted upward
the following year to a maximum of 12 percent black for armor and
infantry units, 15 percent for combat engineers and artillery, and
17.5 percent for all other units. During the process of integrating
the units, a 25 percent black strength was authorized.[17-81]
[Footnote 17-80: Memo, CINCEUCOM for Commanding
Generals et al., 1 Apr 52, sub: Racial Integration
of EUCOM Army Units, copy in CS 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-81: Sher Monograph, p. 27.]
The ratios were raised because the percentage of Negroes in the (p. 452)
command continued to exceed the 1 to 10 ratio and was still
increasing. In September 1953 the new commander, General Alfred M.
Gruenther, tried to slow the rate of increase.[17-82] He got
Washington to halt the shipment of black units, and he himself
instituted stricter reenlistment standards in Europe. Finally, he
warned that with fewer segregated units to which black troops might be
assigned, the racial imbalance was becoming more critical, and he
asked for a deferment of the program's completion.[17-83] The Army
staff promised to try to alleviate the racial disproportions in the
replacement stream, but asked Gruenther to proceed as quickly as
possible with integration.[17-84]
[Footnote 17-82: As of 1 August 1952 the major joint
American command in Europe was designated U.S.
European Command (USEUCOM). The U.S. Army element
in this command was designated U.S. Army, Europe
(USAREUR). Gruenther was the commander in chief of
the European Command from July 1953 to November
1956. At the same time he occupied the senior
position in the NATO Command under the title
Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR).]
[Footnote 17-83: Memo, USCINCEUR for TAG, 30 Sep 53,
sub: Racial Integration of USAREUR Units, AG 291.2
(30 Sep 53); see also Sher Monograph, pp. 24-27.]
[Footnote 17-84: Memos, G-1 for TAG, 30 Oct 53, sub:
Negro Overstrength in USAREUR, and TAG for
USCINCEUR, 2 Nov 53, same sub; both in AG 291.2 (30
Oct 53).]
There was little the Army staff could do. The continental commands had
the same overstrength problem, and the staff considered the European
Command an inappropriate place to raise black percentages. By mid-1953
Negroes accounted for some 16 percent of Army personnel in Europe and,
more important to the command, the number of Negroes with combat
occupation specialties continued to increase at the same rate. As an
alternative to the untenable practice of reclassifying combat-trained
men for noncombat assignments purely on account of race, Gruenther
again raised the acceptable ratio of blacks in combat units. At the
same time he directed the Seventh Army commander to treat ratios in
the future merely as guidelines, to be adhered to as circumstances
permitted.[17-85] The percentage of Negroes in the command leveled off
at this time, but not before the black proportion of the command's
transportation units reached 48.8 percent. Summing up his command's
policy on integration, Gruenther concluded: "I cannot permit the
assignment of large numbers of unqualified personnel, regardless of
race, to prejudice the operation readiness of our units in an effort
to attain 100 percent racial integration, however desirable that goal
may be."[17-86] A heavy influx of white replacements with
transportation specialties allowed the European Command to finish
integrating the elements of the Seventh Army in July 1954.[17-87] The
last black unit in the command, the 94th Engineer Battalion, was
inactivated in November.
[Footnote 17-85: Ltr, USCINCEUR to CG, Seventh Army, 8
Jul 53, sub: Racial Integration of USAREUR Units,
USAREUR AG 291.2 (1953).]
[Footnote 17-86: Ltr, CINCUSAREUR to SACEUR, 10 Apr
53, USAREUR SGS 291.2 (1953), quoted in Sher
Monograph, p. 28.]
[Footnote 17-87: Hq USAREUR, "Annual Historical
Report, 1 January 1953-30 June 1954," p. 60, in
CMH.]
Integration of black troops in Europe proved successful on several
counts, with the Army, in Assistant Secretary Fred Korth's words,
"achieving benefits therefrom substantially greater than we
had anticipated at its inception."[17-88] The command's combat (p. 453)
readiness increased, he claimed, while its racial incidents and
disciplinary problems declined. The reaction of the soldiers was,
again in Korth's words, "generally good" with incidents stemming from
integration "fewer and much farther between." Moreover, the program
had been a definite advantage in counteracting Communist propaganda,
with no evidence of problems with civilians arising from social
integration. More eloquent testimony to the program's success appeared
in the enthusiasm of the European Command's senior officials.[17-89]
Their fears and uncertainties eased, they abruptly reversed their
attitudes and some even moved from outright opposition to praise for
the program as one of their principal achievements.
[Footnote 17-88: Memo, ASA (M&RF) for J. C. Evans,
OASD (M), 26 Nov 52, sub: Negro Integration in
Europe, SD 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-89: Ltr, Ginzberg to Burgess, 15 Nov 55,
CMH files; Ernest Leiser, "For Negroes, It's a New
Army Now," _Saturday Evening Post_ 225 (December
13, 1952):26-27, 108-12.]
The smaller overseas commands also submitted plans to Army
headquarters for the breakup of their segregated units in 1951, and
integration of the Alaskan Command and the rest proceeded during 1952
without incident.[17-90] At the same time the continental Army
commands, faced with similar manpower problems, began making
exceptions, albeit considerably more timidly than the great overseas
commands, to the assignment of Negroes to black units. As early as
September 1951 the Army G-1 discovered instances of unauthorized
integration in every Army area,[17-91] the result of either
unrectified administrative errors or the need to find suitable
assignments for black replacements. "The concern shown by you over the
press reaction to integrating these men into white units," the Sixth
Army commander, Lt. Gen. Joseph M. Swing, reported to the Army staff,
"causes me to guess that your people may not realize the extent to
which integration has already progressed--at least in the Sixth
Army."[17-92] Swing concluded that gradual integration had to be the
solution to the Army's race problems everywhere. McAuliffe agreed with
Swing that the continental commands should be gradually integrated,
but, as he put it, "the difficulty is that my superiors are not
prepared to admit that we are already launched on a progressive
integration program" in the United States. The whole problem was a
very touchy one, McAuliffe added.[17-93]
[Footnote 17-90: On the integration of these commands,
see, for example, G-1 Summary Sheet, 4 Sep 52, sub:
Utilization of Negro Personnel; Ltr, CG, USARAL, to
DA, 15 Sep 51; Ltr, G-1 to Maj Gen Julian
Cunningham, 22 Oct 51. All in G-1 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-91: Memo, Chief, Manpower Control Div,
G-1, for Gen Taylor, 6 Sep 51, sub: Negro
Integration, G-1 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-92: Ltr, CG, Sixth Army, to ACofS, G-1,
10 Sep 51, G-1 291.2 Negroes.]
[Footnote 17-93: Ltr, G-1 to CG, Sixth Army, 17 Sep
51, G-1 291.2.]
The Army staff had agreed to halt the further integration of units in
the United States until the results of the overseas changes had been
carefully analyzed. Nevertheless, even while the integration of the
Far East forces was proceeding, General McAuliffe's office prepared a
comprehensive two-phase plan for the integration of the continental
armies. It would consolidate all temporary units then separated into
racial elements, redistributing all Negroes among the organized white
units; then, Negroes assigned to black components of larger white
units would be absorbed into similar white units through normal
attrition or by concentrated levies on the black units. McAuliffe (p. 454)
estimated that the whole process would take two years.[17-94]
[Footnote 17-94: G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 21 Sep
51, sub: G-1 Attitude Toward Integration of Negroes
Into CONUS Units, CS 291.2 Negroes (21 Sep 51). The
staff's decision to halt further integration was
announced in Memo, ACofS, G-1, for ACofS, G-3, 18
Jul 51, G-1 291.2.]
[Illustration: VISIT WITH THE COMMANDER. _Soldiers of the Ordnance
Branch, Berlin Command, meet with Brig. Gen. Charles F. Craig._]
McAuliffe's plan was put into effect when General Collins ordered
worldwide integration in December 1952. The breakdown of the "10
percent Army" proceeded uneventfully, and the old black units
disappeared. The 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments, now converted into
the 509th and 510th Tank Battalions (Negro), received white
replacements and dropped the racial designation. The 25th Infantry,
now broken down into smaller units, was integrated in September 1952.
On 12 October 1953 Assistant Secretary of Defense John Hannah
announced that 95 percent of the Army's Negroes were serving in
integrated units with the rest to be so assigned not later than June
1954.[17-95] His estimate was off by several months. The European (p. 455)
Command's 94th Engineer Battalion, the last major all-black unit, was
inactivated in November 1954, several weeks after the Secretary of
Defense had announced the end of all segregated units.[17-96]
[Footnote 17-95: _U.S. News and World Report_ 35
(October 16, 1953):99-100.]
[Footnote 17-96: Hq USAREUR, "Annual Historical
Report, 1 July 1954-30 June 1955," p. 83.]
[Illustration: BROTHERS UNDER THE SKIN, _inductees at Fort Sam
Houston, Texas, 1953_.]
Like a man who discovers that his profitable deeds are also virtuous,
the Army discussed its new racial policy with considerable pride. From
company commander to general officer the report was that the Army
worked better; integration was desirable, and despite all predictions
to the contrary, it was a success. Military commentators in and out of
uniform stoutly defended the new system against its few
critics.[17-97] Most pointed to Korea as the proving ground for the
new policy. Assistant Secretary of Defense Hannah generalized about
the change to integration: "Official analyses and reports indicate a
definite increase in combat effectiveness in the overseas areas....
From experience in Korea and elsewhere, Army commanders have (p. 456)
determined, also, that more economical and effective results accrue
from the policies which remove duplicate facilities and operations
based upon race."[17-98] The Army, it would seem, had made a complete
about-face in its argument from efficiency.
[Footnote 17-97: See, for example, _Semiannual Report
of the Secretary of Defense, January 1-June 30,
1933_, p. 24; ibid., January 1-June 30, 1954, pp.
21-22; and annual reports of the Secretary of the
Army for same period, as well as CINCUSAREUR's
response to criticisms by General Mark Clark, _Army
Times_, May 19, 1956, and S. L. A. Marshall's
devastating rejoinder to General Almond in the
Detroit _News_, May 13, 1956. Clark's views are
reported in _U.S. News and World Report_ 40 (May
11, 1956). See also Ltr, Lt Col Gordon Hill, CINFO,
to Joan Rosen, WCBS, 17 Apr 64, CMH files; New York
_Herald Tribune_, May 14, 1956; New York _Times_
May 6, 1956.]
[Footnote 17-98: Ltr, Hannah, ASD (M), to Sen. Lyndon
B. Johnson, 27 Feb 53, ASD (M) 291.2.]
But integration did more than demonstrate a new form of military
efficiency. It also stilled several genuine fears long entertained by
military leaders. Many thoughtful officials had feared that the social
mingling that would inevitably accompany integration in the
continental United States might lead to racial incidents and a
breakdown in discipline. The new policy seemed to prove this fear
groundless.[17-99] A 1953 Army-sponsored survey reported that, with
the single major exception of racially separate dances for enlisted
men at post-operated service clubs on southern bases, segregation
involving uniformed men and women now stopped at the gates of the
military reservation.[17-100] Army headquarters, carefully monitoring
the progress of social integration, found it without incident.[17-101]
At the same time the survey revealed that some noncommissioned
officers' clubs and enlisted men's clubs tended to segregate
themselves, but no official notice was taken of this tendency, and not
one such instance was a source of racial complaint in 1953. The survey
also discovered that racial attitudes in adjacent communities had
surprisingly little influence on the relations between white and black
soldiers on post. Nor was there evidence of any appreciable resentment
toward integration on the part of white civilian employees, even when
they worked with or under black officers and enlisted men.
[Footnote 17-99: One exception was the strong
objection in some states to racially mixed
marriages contracted by soldiers. Twenty-seven
states had some form of miscegenation law. The Army
therefore did not assign to stations in those
states soldiers who by reason of their mixed
marriages might be subject to criminal penalties.
See Memo, Chief, Classification and Standards
Branch, DCSPER, for Planning Office, 28 Feb 50,
sub: Assignment of Personnel; DF, DCSPER to TAG, 4
Jun 54; both in DCSPER 291.2. For further
discussion of the matter, see TAGO, Policy Paper,
July 1954; New York _Post_, November 13, 1957.]
[Footnote 17-100: HUMRRO, Integration of Social
Activities on Nine Army Posts, Aug 53. See also
Interv, Nichols with Davis. A DCSPER action
officer, Davis was intimately involved with the
Army's integration program during this period.]
[Footnote 17-101: Interv, author with Evans, 4 Dec 73,
CMH files.]
The on-post dance, a valuable morale builder, was usually restricted
to one race because commanders were afraid of arousing antagonism in
nearby communities. But even here restrictions were not uniform.
Mutual use of dance floors by white and black couples was frequent
though not commonplace and was accepted in officers' clubs, many
noncommissioned officers' clubs, and at special unit affairs. The
rules for social integration were flexible, and many adjustments could
be made to the sentiments of the community if the commander had the
will and the tact. Some commanders, unaware of what was being
accomplished by progressive colleagues, were afraid to establish a
precedent, and often avoided practices that were common elsewhere.
Social scientists reviewing the situation suggested that the Army
should acquaint the commanders with the existing wide range of social
possibilities.
Fear of congressional disapproval, another reason often given for
deferring integration, was exaggerated, as a meeting between Senator
Richard B. Russell and James Evans in early 1952 demonstrated. (p. 457)
At the request of the manpower secretary, Evans went to Capitol Hill
to inform the chairman of the Armed Services Committee that for
reasons of military efficiency the Army was going to integrate.
Senator Russell observed that he had been unable to do some things he
wanted to do "because your people [black voters] weren't strong enough
politically to support me." Tell the secretary, Russell added, "that I
won't help him integrate, but I won't hinder him either--and neither
will anyone else."[17-102] The senator was true to his word. News of
the Army's integration program passed quietly through the halls of
Congress without public or private protest.
[Footnote 17-102: Ibid.]
Much opposition to integration was based on the fear that low-scoring
black soldiers, handicapped by deficiencies in schooling and training,
would weaken integrated units as they had the all-black units. But
integration proved to be the best solution. As one combat commander
put it, "Mix 'um up and you get a strong line all the way; segregate
'um and you have a point of weakness in your line. The enemy hits you
there, and it's bug out."[17-103] Korea taught the Army that an
integrated unit was not as weak as its weakest men, but as strong as
its leadership and training. Integration not only diluted the impact
of the less qualified by distributing them more widely, but also
brought about measurable improvement in the performance and standards
of a large number of black soldiers.
[Footnote 17-103: Quoted in John B. Spore and Robert
F. Cocklin, "Our Negro Soldiers," _Reporter_ 6
(January 22, 1952):6-9.]
Closely related to the concern over the large number of ill-qualified
soldiers was the fear of the impact of integration on a quota-free
Army. The Project CLEAR team concluded that a maximum of 15 to 20
percent black strength "seems to be an effective interim working
level."[17-104] General McAuliffe pointed out in November 1952 that he
was trying to maintain a balanced distribution of black troops, not
only geographically but also according to combat and service
specialties (_see Tables 9 and 10_). Collins decided to retain the
ceiling on black combat troops--no more than 12 percent in any combat
unit--but he agreed that a substantially higher percentage was
acceptable in all other units.[17-105]
[Footnote 17-104: Ltr, Dir, ORO, to ACofS, G-3, 20 Nov
52, G-3 291.2.]
[Footnote 17-105: Memo for Rcd, G-1, 6 Nov 52, ref:
ACofS, G-1, Memo for CofS, sub: Distribution of
Negro Personnel, 14 Oct 52, G-1 291.2.]
Table 9--Worldwide Distribution of Enlisted Personnel by Race,
October 1952
(In Thousands)
European Far East Other Overseas Continental
Category Command Command Commands United Total
States
White 212.1 293.1 96.0 649.2 1,250.5
Black 35.6 41.5 5.8[a] 110.6 193.4
Total 247.7 334.6 101.8 759.8 1,445.9
Percent black 14.4 12.4 5.7 14.6 13.4
[Tablenote a: Restrictions remained in effect on
the assignment of Negroes to certain stations in
USARPAC, TRUST, and USARCARIB.]
_Source_: Memo, Chief, Per and Dist Br, G-1, for ACofS, G-1, 8 Oct 52,
sub: Distribution of Negro Enlisted Personnel, G-1, 291.2.
Table 10--Distribution of Black Enlisted Personnel by Branch and Rank,
31 October 1952
AUS Regular
Branch Total Percent[b] Total Percent[b]
Armor 7,738 13.7 3,565 13.8
Artillery 33,684 16.9 14,854 19.9
Infantry 37,220 14.1 15,713 14.9
Adjutant General's Corps 1,074 8.8 663 10.8
Chemical Corps 1,504 15.5 633 20.1
Corps of Engineers 18,987 16.4 8,315 17.9
Military Police Corps 3,012 8.1 1,751 9.8
Finance Corps 68 2.4 51 5.3
Army Medical Service 9,896 12.2 4,439 12.9
Ordnance Corps 5,683 10.2 2,598 12.0
Quartermaster Corps 9,690 20.8 4,187 20.6
Signal Corps 6,923 8.2 3,192 8.7
Transportation Corps 16,380 31.2 8,765 38.2
Women's Army Corps 1,310 13.1 1,283 13.3
No Branch assignment[a] 42,643 11.4 17,779 11.7
Total 195,812[c] 87,788
[Tablenote a: In training.]
[Tablenote b: Figures show black percentage of
total Army enlistments.]
[Tablenote c: Discrepancy with Table 9, which is
based on September figures.]
_Source_: STM-30, 31 Oct 52.
These percentages were part of a larger concern over the number of
Negroes in the Army as a whole. Based on the evidence of draft-swollen
enlistment statistics, it seemed likely that the 15 to 20 percent
figure would be reached or surpassed in 1953 or 1954, and there was
some discussion in the staff about restoring the quota. But such talk
quickly faded as the Korean War wound down and the percentage
declined. Negroes constituted 14.4 percent of enlisted strength in
December 1952 and leveled off by the summer of 1955 at 11.9 percent.
Statistics for the European Command illustrated the trend. In June
1955, Negroes accounted for 3.6 percent of the command's officer
strength and 11.4 percent of its enlisted strength. The enlisted
figure represents a drop from a high of 16.1 percent in June 1953.
The percentage of black troops was down to 11.2 percent of the (p. 458)
command's total strength--officers, warrant officers, and enlisted
men--by June 1956. The reduction is explained in part by a policy
adopted by all commands in February 1955 of refusing, with certain
exceptions, to reenlist three-year veterans who scored less than
ninety in the classification tests. In Europe alone some 5,300
enlisted men were not permitted to reenlist in 1955. Slightly more
than 25 percent were black.[17-106]
[Footnote 17-106: Hq USAREUR, "Annual Historical
Report, 1 July 1954-30 June 1955," pp. 76-80, 92;
ibid., 1 July 1955-30 June 1956, pp. 65-67.]
The racial quota, in the guise of an "acceptable" percentage of
Negroes in individual units, continued to operate long after the Army
agreed to abandon it. No one, black or white, appears to have voiced
in the early 1950's the logical observation that the establishment of
a racial quota in individual Army units--whatever the percentage and
the grounds for that percentage--was in itself a residual form of
discrimination. Nor did anyone ask how establishing a race quota,
clearly distinct from restricting men according to mental, moral, or
professional standards, could achieve the "effective working (p. 459)
level" posited by the Army's scientific advisers.
These questions would still be pertinent years later because the
alternative to the racial quota--the enlistment and assignment of men
without regard for color--would continue to be unacceptable to many.
They would argue that to abandon the quota, as the services did in the
1960's, was to violate the concept of racial balance, which is yet
another hallmark of an egalitarian society. For example, during the
Vietnam War some black Americans complained that too many Negroes were
serving in the more dangerous combat arms. Since men were assigned
without regard to race, these critics were in effect asking for the
quota again, reminding the service that the population of the United
States was only some 11 percent black. And during discussions of the
all-volunteer Army a decade later, critics would be asking how the
white majority would react to an army 30 or even 50 percent black.
These considerations were clearly beyond the ken of the men who
integrated the Army in the early 1950's. They concentrated instead on
the perplexities of enlisting and assigning vast numbers of segregated
black soldiers during wartime and closely watched the combat
performance of black units in Korea. Integration provided the Army
with a way to fill its depleted combat units quickly. The shortage of
white troops forced local commanders to turn to the growing surplus of
black soldiers awaiting assignment to a limited number of black units.
Manpower restrictions did not permit the formation of new black units
merely to accommodate the excess, and in any case experience with the
24th Infantry had strengthened the Army staff's conviction that black
combat units did not perform well. However commanders may have felt
about the social implications of integration, and whatever they
thought of the fighting ability of black units, the only choice left
to them was integration. When the Chief of Staff ordered the
integration of the Far East Command in 1951, what had begun as a
battlefield expedient became official policy.
Segregation became unworkable when the Army lost its power to limit
the number of black soldiers. Abandonment of the quota on enlistments,
pressed on the Army by the Fahy Committee, proved compatible with
segregated units only so long as the need for fighting men was not
acute. In Korea the need became acute. Ironically, the Gillem Board,
whose work became anathema to the integrationists, accurately
predicted the demise of segregation in its final report, which
declared that in the event of another major war the Army would use its
manpower "without regard to antecedents or race."