Chapter VI: Proposals and Counterproposals

During 1941 and 1942 many papers and studies directed toward a solution of the question of the proper and equitable employment of Negro troops were prepared in War Department agencies. They arrived, with few exceptions, at no new conclusions, except to recommend again that the necessary additional units to absorb Negroes be provided and that each arm and service continue to accept its proportionate share.

The few exceptions in this continuing round of studies appeared at widely separated intervals and under quite different circumstances. In September 1941 the Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War, William H. Hastie, after ten months of "observation, discussion, and action in the War Department and in the field," produced an "overall description of what is happening to the Negro in the Army" and suggested corrective measures. In March 1942 the War Plans Division produced a study calling for a complete reassessment of the basis for the use of Negro manpower. Out of G-3 in October of the same year came a third study suggesting changes in the entire approach to the problem.

Though only a few of the suggestions made in the studies were acted upon, these three studies indicate the range of corrective suggestions made before the pattern of Army racial organization in
wartime had set too firmly for significant changes to be made. They, and the reactions to them, are indexes to the extent of recognition of the problems involved and to the resistance that ideas and new proposals can meet.

The Hastie Survey

Judge Hastie's survey and recommendations, written while the Army was still undergoing its peacetime expansion and training, considered nearly every large question involved in the employment of Negro troops, but it was his recommendation on the organization of units that created most concern within the staff divisions of the War Department.1

The basic contentions of judge Hastie's survey were that the Army could utilize many more Negroes in many more varieties of service than it was currently doing and that Negro troops could be organized more effectively for military service. In an introductory section, headed "The Fundamental Error of Philosophy and Approach," Hastie opened his report:
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The traditional mores of the South have been widely accepted and adopted by the Army as the basis of policy and practice affecting the Negro soldier .... In tactical organization, in physical location, in human contacts, the Negro soldier is separated from the white soldier as completely as possible . . . . The isolation of Negro combat troops, the failure to make many of them parts of large combat teams, the refusal to mingle Negro officers-most of whom have had little opportunity to command and train soldiers in units with experienced officers of the Regular Army, all are retarding the training of Negro soldiers.

Hastie's major premise, thus stated, predisposed certain agencies to react unfavorably to his recommendations out of fear that the results would involve the Army in social as well as military problems.

Hastie's survey of the current status of the Negro soldier in the Army indicated a marked contrast between practice and announced policies. On 30 June 1941, the Army had 74,309 Negro enlisted men out of a total strength of 1,448,500. They represented only 5 percent of the whole. Plans current at that time set a goal of only 6 percent, for though about 10 percent of Selective Service inductees were Negroes, only 3 percent of three-year Regular enlistees and less than 2 percent of National Guard enlisted men were Negroes. Moreover, Hastie added, "The newly enlisted Negro soldiers have been disproportionately concentrated in the Corps of Engineers, the Quartermaster Corps, and Overhead installations." Hastie felt that the imbalance had come about because these were the branches which could use Negroes "most easily in detached units, rather than as an integral part of larger combat teams." The "most glaring disproportion," he continued, was in the overhead installations, which G-3 was considering increasing to 2o percent of all Negroes. The intention was to confine Negroes to small service detachments "performing nonmilitary duties of unskilled and menial character" that should be performed by civilian employees not available for military service. "Where there are both colored and white service detachments in the Overhead of a particular station, the most undesirable duties are assigned to the colored detachment," he continued.

The suggestion that the high proportion of Negroes assigned to labor functions was justified by the proportionately large numbers of Negro selectees in Class V, the lowest class of the Army General Classification Test (AGCT), "must be discounted," Hastie argued, for illiterates were no longer to be accepted, selective service volunteers had higher basic abilities, and college students deferred for the first year of mobilization were rapidly being called to duty. "Finally," Hastie reported, "the evidence of field commanders indicates that a high percentage of the men with little education or acquired skill at the time of their induction, can be used effectively in combat units. Many such men have basic intelligence and are eager to learn for the very reason that opportunity has been denied them in civilian life. And even for men of small intelligence there are many important jobs in Combat organizations." As an illustration, he cited the 77th Coast Artillery, "composed in large measure of Negro Selective Service trainees of low classification," whose training record showed that it had "progressed faster
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than a white artillery regiment which is a component of the same brigade." 2

The growing Selective Service backlogs, failure to use more Negroes in newer types of organizations, poor classification and assignment methods, the location of three-fourths of Negro trainees in the South where they had to accommodate themselves "to humiliation and insult imposed by those who insist upon traditional Southern practices designed to keep the Negro humble and subordinate, when the Army should, on the other hand, insist that every man in uniform be treated as a man and a soldier," and lack of opportunities for the development of capable Negro officers were among the other major matters treated by Hastie in his survey.

The chief difficulties which the Army was experiencing and which, he predicted, would increase, Hastie attributed to the pattern of rigid separation by units within the Army:

Many of the underlying problems of morale and administration discussed in this report are inherent in the fundamental scheme of separate units for colored soldiers. Difficulties begin in Selective Service calls where the requirement of separate units has led to separate calls for white and colored soldiers in violation of the spirit of the Selective Service lottery. It will be remembered that in at least one state local officials refused for a period to honor such racial calls. The danger of such rebellion is again imminent. Many of the problems of placing Negro soldiers according to training and ability result from the necessity for finding a separate Negro unit and a vacancy in such a unit before the soldier can be assigned to duty . . . .

All of this will not be changed over night. The disturbing thing, however, is that there is no apparent disposition to make a beginning or a trial of any different plan. The beginning of the training of Negro pilots for the Army Air Corps offered such an opportunity for a fresh start along sound lines. For example, a substantial portion of the Armored Force is being trained at Pine Camp, New York, in an area where racial tensions are not serious. Integration of highly competent Negroes, selectees and volunteers for 3-year enlistments, into such an organization would be an important first step in the desirable direction. It is strongly recommended that some such beginning be made in the Air Corps, in the Armored Force, or in any organization which in its nature requires carefully selected men of superior intelligence and special competence.

I believe the Military authorities do not comprehend the amount of resentment among soldiers and civilians, white as well as black, over the rigid pattern of racial separation imposed by the Army. Today, soldiers and civilians are more critical than they were 25 years ago in their examination of our professed ideals. Insistence upon an inflexible policy of separating white and black soldiers is probably the most dramatic evidence of hypocrisy in our profession that we are girding ourselves for the preservation of democracy.3

In his specific recommendations for the organization of Negro troops, judge Hastie proposed four points "in order that the progressive integration of Negro soldiers into the Army shall proceed in such manner as to achieve the greatest possible Military advantage." These recommendations were:

1. New organizations must be provided as speedily as possible to accommodate the anticipated excess of Negro selectees.
2. Negro combat regiments should be made components of higher units; isolated single companies and detachments should be eliminated.
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3. Isolated small units which are the only Negro troops at their stations should be transferred to other stations (in order to obviate the need of providing expensive separate recreational facilities for them) .
4. At some place in the armed services a beginning should be made in the employment of soldiers without racial separation.

Judge Hastie's recommendations were submitted to Under Secretary Patterson. Judge Patterson, in sending the paper to General Marshall, asked: "Will you please give this your careful consideration and let me have your views on it? It will probably be best to have an oral discussion of these issues.4 Full replies to the memorandum, with changes, alterations, and comments, were prepared over a period of weeks by the assistant chiefs of staff and by interested agencies to whom the report was sent. In mid-November 1941, judge Patterson reminded General Marshall that he had not yet heard from him and that he still wanted to discuss "at an early date judge Hastie's memorandum of suggestions on Negro troops in the Army, which I sent to you with my memorandum of October 6th." 5 General Bryden, Deputy Chief of Staff, discussed the matter with Under Secretary Patterson on 5 December 1941, two and one-half months after the recommendations had been made and two days before Pearl Harbor, an event which effectively altered the course of discussion of the Hastie recommendations.

No one quarreled seriously with the first three recommendations of judge Hastie. New Negro units, as described above, were activated as rapidly as possible. The possible organization of all-Negro divisions, although Hastie had not urged it, was expected to answer the question of making smaller combat units parts of larger units. The organization of the 2d Cavalry Division, although Hastie was not so told, was considered proof that "the Department is not opposed in principle to the inclusion of negro regiments in higher units." The GHQ tank battalion (the 78th, later 758th) and the 99th Pursuit Squadron were cited as evidence of willingness to activate units in "new type" organizations. More would be activated as qualified men became available, but comparative AGCT scores seemed to indicate that such an event was unlikely.6

Judge Hastie's proposal for a beginning in desegregation and his belief that with carefully selected men of high qualifications such a beginning might safely be made on a small scale, overshadowed his other recommendations in the eyes of most commenting agencies. Hastie himself had assumed that such a beginning should be made in peacetime since in his view, with the country at war, any alteration of existing relationships might be considered as a dangerous experiment for a time of national emergency. He had also assumed that from both the
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point of view of economy in the use of manpower and in military efficiency such a beginning would be desirable. Most of all, he felt that such a step, taken concurrently with his other recommendations, would have tremendous symbolic value:

I sincerely believe that much of the difficulty being experienced in arousing the nation today is traceable to the fact that we have lost that passion for national ideals which a people must have if it is to work and sacrifice for its own survival. We have lost that motivative drive because we have let our own behavior become inconsistent with our wordy professions. Whatever we may think of the ideals of Germany or Russia, fascism on the one hand and communism on the other had to become a national obsession, a driving force revealed in domestic behavior, before these nations could be keyed to a great war effort for the preservation and extension of their ideologies.

Until the men in our Army and civilians at home believe in and work for democracy with similar fervor and determination, we will not be an effective nation in the face of a foreign foe. So long as we condone and appease un-American attitudes and practices within our own military and civilian life, we can never arouse ourselves to the exertion which the present emergency requires.7

The General Staff took the point of view that Hastie wished the Army to carry out a complete social revolution against the will of the nation. An unused memorandum proposed by G-1 with the concurrence of G-3 clearly stated the case for the staff divisions:

It is the opinion of these Divisions that, under no circumstances should the War Department concur in those recommendations which are based largely upon racial and social issues. The immediate task of the Army is the efficient completion of our Defense Program. Nothing should be permitted to divert us from this task. Contrary to the bulk of the recommendations, every effort should be made by the War Department to maintain in the Army the social and racial conditions which exist in civil life in order that the normal customs of the white and colored personnel now in the army may not be suddenly disrupted. The Army can, under no circumstances, adopt a policy which is contrary to the dictates of a majority of the people. To do so would alienate the people from the Army and lower their morale at a time when their support of the Army and high morale are vital to our National needs.8

In the formal memorandum of the Chief of Staff to the Secretary of War on the subject, dated 1 December 1941, General Marshall wrote:

A solution of many of the issues presented by judge Hastie in his memorandum to you on "The Integration of
the Negro Soldier into the Army," dated September 22, would be tantamount to solving a social problem which has perplexed the American people throughout the history of this nation. The Army cannot accomplish such a solution, and should not be charged with the undertaking. The settlement of vexing racial problems cannot be permitted to complicate the tremendous task of the War Department and thereby jeopardize discipline and morale.

The problems presented with reference to utilizing negro personnel in the Army should be faced squarely. In doing so, the following facts must be recognized; first, that the War Department cannot ignore the social relationships between negroes and whites which has been established by the American people through custom and habit; second, that either through lack of educational opportunities or other causes the level of intelligence and occupational skill of the negro population is considerably
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below that of the white; third, that the Army will attain its maximum strength only if its personnel is properly placed in accordance with the capabilities of individuals; and fourth, that experiments within the Army in the solution of social problems are fraught with danger to efficiency, discipline, and morale.9

To all practical intents and purposes, Hastie and the Army's high command had reached an impasse on this particular question before the formal entry of the United States into war.

The Editors' Conference and Its Aftermath

Just at the time that the Chief of Staff's formal reply to the Hastie recommendations was sent to the Secretary, the Bureau of Public Relations and Judge Hastie were arranging a conference of Negro editors and publishers.10 They had scheduled their meeting for 8 December 1941, a date whose significance was to be known only after the Sunday, 7 December, attack on Pearl Harbor. This type of conference, planned to provide the Negro press with factual information concerning the functions of the various War Department agencies and to endeavor to create better relations between the Army and the Negro public, had been used successfully in World War I.11 At round table discussions, the editors were to hear representatives of The Adjutant General's Department, the Bureau of Public Relations, the Morale Branch, The Inspector General's Department, the Provost Marshal General's Office, the Judge Advocate General's Office, and the Civilian Personnel Division. A tour of the Bureau of Public Relations, an exhibition of films, and a demonstration of modern warfare at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, would follow. The conference was to open with remarks by General Marshall.

For General Marshall's address, the G-3 Division prepared two reports. The first contained current statistics on the employment of Negro personnel. It listed the achievement of the Army in activating the 99th Pursuit Squadron and the 758th Tank Battalion, in planning the activation of tank destroyer units, in distributing Negroes "in all our arms and services," in the use of Negro officers, and in general advances in training. The second, "furnished for background purposes, only," contained statements that might be useful in "refuting charges that discrimination is being practiced against negroes." It contained statistics comparing white and Negro AGCT score distributions (at that time, 13.34 percent of the white and .64 percent of the Negro soldiers were in the highest class; 5.51 percent of the whites and 45.05 percent of the Negroes were in the lowest class); comparisons of AGCT scores of white and Negro high school graduates and then of college graduates; racial comparisons of occurrence rates of occupational specialists (44.2 percent white to 5.3 Negro clerks per 1,000; 99.5 white to 118.8 Negro truck drivers; .586 white airplane mechanics to .045 Negro; 8.9 white to 31.5 Negro cooks; .346 white to .011 Negro telegraph operators per 1,000) ; and selected comments of World War I com-
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manders on the combat efficiency of Negro troops as compiled by the Army War College .12
In his talk General Marshall pointed out the progress that had been made and that was in the offing. Here he made the first public announcement that a Negro division was being considered. He made clear his recognition of the problem faced by the War Department and said that the department was not satisfied with the progress it had made. In an aside General Marshall added, "And I am not personally satisfied with it either." Coming as they did in the emotionally charged atmosphere of the morning after Pearl Harbor and just before the Congress of the United States assembled to hear the President's request for a declaration that the nation was in a state of war with Japan, General Marshall's remarks, especially the added comment on his personal feeling in the matter, made a profound impression on the Negro editors. But, an hour later, Col. Eugene R. Householder, of The Adjutant General's Department, read from a prepared paper:

The Army did not create the problem. The Army is made up of individual citizens of the United States who have pronounced views with respect to the Negro just as they have individual ideas with respect to other matters in their daily walk of life. Military orders, fiat, or dicta, will not change their viewpoints. The Army then cannot be made the means of engendering conflict among the mass of people because of a stand with respect to Negroes which is not compatible with the position attained by the Negro in civilian life. This principle must necessarily govern the Army not only with this subject of contention but with respect to other dogma be it religious, political, or economic. The Army is not a sociological laboratory; to be effective it must be organized and trained according to the principles which will insure success. Experiments, to meet the wishes and demands of the champions of every race and creed for the solution of their problems are a danger to efficiency, discipline and morale and would result in ultimate defeat.13

The editors, comparing this presentation with General Marshall's, were appalled. They attacked the position outlined. In their discussions they pointed out that whether it wished to or not, an army carried within itself certain social forces. They took the phrase "The Army is not a sociological laboratory" and used it as a cynical summation of Army policy. They contended that current practices extended segregation and prejudices to sections of the country where such patterns had not formerly existed. They took Colonel Householder's statement to mean that the Army had no intention of modifying its racial practices. They took General Marshall's statement to mean that, on the contrary, change within the Army was not only possible but desirable. General Marshall's, as the more hopeful and more responsible attitude, was the one they chose to accept, though they could not ignore the implication that it might not be shared by all of his subordinates.

The announcement of the new division for Negroes was headlined by most of the Negro papers as the biggest news coming out of the meeting. But the assembled editors interpreted the con-
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ference's main significance to be that more serious consideration of the Negro's position in the Army by its responsible chiefs would bring "steady but slow improvement," as an editor of the Pittsburgh Courier expressed it. He explained:

This does not mean that all desires of the Negro citizen are to be favorably acted upon immediately. It does not mean that segregation in the Army is going to vanish overnight [nor does it mean that the Army has been persuaded that] now is the time to begin planning to abolish segregation .... [General Marshall's statement] means of course, that the directing head of the War Department and the United States Army knows about our problem, is personally interested in it and personally desires that restrictions against the advancement of the Negro soldier be lifted.

I think General Marshall was honest when he made the statement. I think that his present attitude, in the light of the past, represents an improvement due to greater knowledge of our problem and greater understanding. I think that General Marshall's attitude, so far as we're concerned, is growing better and better.14

Or, as the Norfolk Journal and Guide put it:

It was the general consensus of those attending the conference that a surprisingly new outlook was vouchsafed by key men in the War Department setup, that they seem more open-minded to a new deal in relation to the Colored American in the armed forces, and have actually initiated some fundamental changes without a lot of fanfare.15

Not all papers reacted so favorably. The Chicago Defender stated editorially that:

Mr. Hastie, though a very capable gentleman, has no appreciable authority and scarcely any influence with the big wigs of the War Department. He can make no commitments, and he cannot explain away the segregative and discriminatory practices to which the high officials of his own department are clinging. What then is the purpose of this conference? It is an obvious attempt to appease belligerent Negro editors who have taken a critical view of the whole panorama of national defense.16

The conference may "properly be placed in a compartment and marked `File and Forget,' " the Newark, New Jersey, Herald-News commented, for . . . it convinced no one, not already convinced, that racial segregation or color proscriptions have any place in the official policy of a nation dedicated to the defense of democracy and democratic institutions." 17

During the discussions of the assembled editors, Claude A. Barnett, director of the Associated Negro Press, suggested that if the process of integrating Negroes into units as individuals was hampered by personal objections and prejudices of white and Negro soldiers, the Army might open one or more units on a volunteer basis to those Negroes and whites who would prefer service in a non-segregated unit. A few weeks after the conference, Walter White of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, "emboldened . . . by your statement [of] your personal dissatisfaction with the progress made to date with respect to integration of Negroes into the United States Army," took this suggestion and offered the aid of his organization to General Marshall for the formation of a volunteer divi-
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sion "open to all irrespective of race, creed, color or national origin." Citing correspondence received by his organization and others "from all parts of the United States including the South," White stated that authorization for such a unit would "serve as a tremendous lift to the morale of the Negro which at present is at a dangerously low ebb. We are convinced that it also would have tremendous psychological effect upon white Americans and it would give the lie to the attacks made by Nazi Germany and other Axis powers to the effect that the United States talks about democracy but practices racial discrimination and segregation." 18

White's letter was referred in a routine manner to The Adjutant General by an assistant secretary of the General Staff. In the meantime, White wrote a second letter to General Marshall, correcting an erroneous reference to a regiment in his first letter when he had intended to write "division" and suggesting that since he was to be in Washington in January perhaps a conference to discuss his proposal could be arranged.19 The Adjutant General answered in what was essentially a form letter:

The Chief of Staff has requested that I acknowledge receipt of your letter of January 2, 1942, relative to the organization of a volunteer division of the Army open to all without respect to race or color, and requesting a conference with regards to the matter.

The War Department does not contemplate the organization of a division such as suggested, and consequently a conference on the subject is not deemed necessary.20

This reply caused Walter White and the Negro editors to believe that the program presented at the 8 December conference had been another case of the War Department's using a public approach different from the private path it intended to pursue, a path which would not lead to any real change in the status of Negro participation in the war. The Assistant Secretary of War, John J. McCloy, informed of the unfavorable reaction, suggested in a note to Maj. Gen. Emory S. Adams, The Adjutant General:

There have been some repercussions resulting from what has been considered to be the undue curtness of the reply of January 8 to Walter White, Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. I have not the slightest doubt of the unwisdom of having any such unit as was proposed in White's letter to Marshall, but I am inclined to think that in the future it may be advisable to handle these matters by an interview. Of course, it isn't necessary that General Marshall should take part in any such interview but some officer might well do so. I am told that the very good effect which General Marshall's appearance before the negro editors made has been somewhat dissipated by this letter and some failure to act on several other much less objectionable requests put forward by judge Hastie.

I am sending this down to you merely because your name was on the letter. I have no doubt that it was drafted elsewhere and merely sent out by you as a routine matter, but I thought you might be able to trace it.21
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General Adams sent a copy of the McCloy note to Lt. Col. James W. Boyer, Jr., of the Miscellaneous Division, Adjutant General's Office. Colonel Boyer had been in frequent consultation with the Hastie office and with members of the Negro press. He had helped draft many letters to White. In a memorandum for General Adams, Boyer detailed a complex of reactions to the situation representative of the position of many of those administrative officers who had to deal daily with the matter of the employment of Negroes in the Army:

2. I yield to no one in the War Department in the matter of tolerance for the Negro. I have dealt on a most pleasant basis with judge Hastie, not only on the basis of the relationship of his position in the War Department, but on the basis that he himself is a fine and intelligent person. Incidentally, I know of no failure to act on requests put forward by judge Hastie. All of his requests have had expedited service
so far as I know.
3. The War Department is confronted, however, with a condition that bids fair to be insidious, even cancerous. Judge Hastie makes no bones about it that "the time for minorities to make their gains is the time of national emergency." With utmost frankness, then, it is the purpose of judge Hastie and his backers to advance the colored people as a race at the expense of the Army. Not satisfied with any gain, and there have been many, he intends to go from one disputed point to another. When the War Department recedes from an announced position he is prepared to submit some other equally debatable issue. While many of these issues are small in themselves, the cumulative effect is being felt throughout the War Department among those who deal with Negro problems. Incident after incident could be recounted wherein he has demonstrated willful persistence in breaking down the Department's long considered policies.
4. Of course, judge Hastie considers himself a representative of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People first, and a representative of the War Department second. I do not believe that he has helped solve any problem of significance but has created them. I believe that the Secretary of War should know that this is true.
5. With respect to Mr. White, the letters addressed to him may have been curt. His letters to the War Department have been increasingly insolent on subjects which are of no concern to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Should Mr. White be justified in his action, so also could be the Jewish Welfare Board or an association of the Japanese-American, or any other group, social or otherwise, set up to be special pleaders for minority causes. It is inconceivable that any other minority would be treated with such tolerance. Should the National Commander of the American Legion address the Department as White has done, he would receive scant consideration.
6. I can see no useful purpose in any officer dissipating his time to discuss with Mr. White or anyone else the creation of a volunteer division composed of whites and Negroes. There may be some super-tolerant people that would join a Negro outfit but their numbers would be few. Other whites that would join a Negro outfit would be of the same class of whites that would live in a Negro community. This Judge Hastie knows and admits and he does nothing to cut down useless and persistent correspondence on the subject.22

The ideas here expressed were not held by one officer alone. They were a fair reflection of the resentment to Hastie which had grown within the War Department. It had affected many of the objections to attempts to achieve changes in the employment of Negro troops. As early as the spring of
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1941, G-1 observed that judge Hastie, through his personal contacts with War Department officers and through his desire to "extend his activities to corps areas and troop units," 23 had succeeded in securing numerous concessions. "If this action is continued the whole program may get out of hand," the Personnel Division feared. 24

Gradually, during 1941, Hastie began to be left out of consultation on issues affecting Negroes which arose within the department. He was not told, for example, of the decision to establish a separate school for Negro quartermaster trainees at Hampton Institute. When he discovered that this school had been authorized, Hastie objected to it and, finding that he was too late, urged that it as well as all other schools be opened to both Negroes and whites. Nor was he consulted on the removal of the 54th Coast Artillery from Camp Wallace, near Galveston, upon the request of white and over the objections of Negro citizens. Galveston, he observed, was as good a town as any for Negro troops. "I wish again to emphasize the fact," he reminded Under Secretary Patterson, "that the principal usefulness of this office is destroyed if we are not consulted with reference to such matters." 25

At times notations with the force of "Not to be shown to judge Hastie" were attached to papers dealing with phases of Negro troop utilization. A draft letter prepared by several officers of The Adjutant General's Office and of the G-1 Division in September 1941, for example, carried an appended note: "G-1 in passing upon this proposed letter, urged that it not be coordinated with the Office of the Civilian Aide, Judge Hastie . . . ." 26 The draft was in reply to an Office of Civilian Defense request for information on the question of Negro civilian morale as reflected by conditions in the Army, a matter which President Roosevelt wished to discuss with Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia, then Director of Civilian Defense. This request was forwarded to the Civilian Aide by the Morale Branch. In the absence of judge Hastie, Truman K. Gibson, Hastie's assistant, referred it to The Adjutant General's Office, which urged that "no such requests should be complied with unless they are channeled to this office through the Office of the Administrative Assistant." The reply, as drafted, developed a rationale of Negro Army relations based on the idea that subversive activities against the Army were central to the current pressure tactics of Negroes:

It is well known, of course, that the Negro population has been a focal point of subversive agitation. It has appeared that this agitation has crystallized in several instances against War Department policies respecting the non-mingling of Negroes with other troops. Additionally, there has been agitation against sending Negro soldiers to southern camps where undoubtedly there exists a traditional dislike of "black Yankees" . . . .

As you are of course aware, the handling of the Negro in the Army will be, at all times, a problem. There are now in service nearly 8o,000 Negroes, many of whom cannot be profitably employed in the
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service excepting as labor troops. This is due to the low average mentality. However, in response to urgings upon the War Department, they are now represented in every major branch of the Army, including the Air Corps. No effort has been spared to provide equal opportunity and accommodations, for the Negro soldier.

It is doubtful that there will be any simple solution. Many leaders of the Negro race agitate for more and more consideration, far beyond the capabilities of their people. Cleverly, they seek to create problems rather than obviate them, "Why should Negroes be segregated from whites?" "Why should Negro regiments have any white officers?" "Why should the War Department permit enforcement of state laws relative to segregation in southern states?" As one question is disposed of, another takes its place inspired by inflammatory reasoning.

While the events which have so far transpired have been scattered, there appears to be underlying all such events a pattern of centralized stimulation. The fact that to date there has been comparative lack of conflict among the large bulk of 80,000 Negroes in service is because, perhaps, that there has been good common sense used by the Negroes themselves. Commanders of cantonments in the field, it is felt, are zealously endeavoring to meet the situation ....

It should be understood that the Negro is not the only problem confronting the War Department, because there are a variety of other special pleaders who set up specious claims that they too are being discriminated against as a class. Among the latter are those in specialized professions such as chiropracters, osteopaths, naturopaths, pharmacists, male nurses, barbers, etc., who have organized their efforts much after the pattern of the Negro agitators to claim special recognition ....

Those Negro leaders who seek to prove discrimination because of color employ special pleading for a race which as a class, has not as yet the attained mental equipment to be employed in military functions other than those where brawn is prerequisite.

The opportunities for this group have reached a point of saturation.27

The points of view of judge Hastie and his supporters were clearly at variance with those of many of the officers in the War Department who had to deal with policy decisions on the employment of Negro troops. What to Hastie appeared to be a minimal approach to symbolic democracy, became to many of those with whom he was attempting to work a plot to change the existing American social structure and a threat to the Army's system of military discipline. What to officers in the War Department appeared to be a logical and rational solution to a difficult problem, based on civilian precedent backed by years of experience, appeared to Hastie to be a perversion and extension by the Military Establishment of the least desirable features of Negro-white civilian relations and a willful disregard of the more advanced and workable solutions to racial problems being practiced in civilian life.

In the resulting stalemate, the basic organization of Negro troops remained unchanged and untouched, while the questions raised concerning the efficiency of this organization continued to vex the War Department.

Action on the Hastie Proposals

Discussion of the proposals made in the Hastie Survey did not cease with
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the December letter from the Chief of Staff or with the December conference between the Under Secretary of War and the Deputy Chief of Staff. In subsequent conferences, judge Patterson and Judge Hastie continued to explore the possibilities of action on those phases of the proposals which had not been acted upon and upon which agreement might be reached. Among the proposals for further employment of Negroes adopted by January 1942 were the use of Negro military police in areas where there were Negro troops and the constitution of a Negro division, considered a feasible partial solution to the problem of scattered small units. Once the activation of the initial division was confirmed, Hastie favored the formation of additional large units. It was understood that small units would be shifted to posts where more Negro troops and, therefore, better physical and recreational facilities were located. The main questions affecting organization which remained unanswered were those of the continued increase of Negro strength and the employment of Negroes in the Air Forces. "Although the Air Force is advertising for men, Negroes are not taken except for special Negro units which were filled long ago," Judge Patterson wrote to General Bryden. "Perhaps an additional Negro Air squadron should be formed," he suggested.28

On 13 January, Judge Hastie, Judge Patterson, and Secretary Stimson conferred once more. Again the questions of consolidating small detached Negro units, the constitution of additional Air units, and the provision of an increased number of units generally to absorb Selective Service's excess Negroes were discussed. Stimson mentioned the suitability of Negro soldiers for operations in the tropics. Patterson and Hastie urged the announcement of the formation of an additional division or of several regiments. Hastie linked the scarcity of Negro officer candidates, a matter then under discussion by the Negro press and public, to the existence of small detached units which did not regularly receive quotas for officer candidate training. Without getting support from the Secretaries, he again urged the beginning of integration of Negroes and whites, even in the smallest way.29

Action on the matters discussed and agreed upon was slow. Hastie, in the meantime, produced a critical examination of the 1942 Troop Basis. "I have now been permitted," he informed the Under Secretary on 5 February, "to examine so much of the troop unit basis for 1942 as embraces Combat Divisions, Army Troops, Corps Troops, GHQ Reserve Troops, Harbor Defense Units, Military Police Units, and Tank Destroyer Battalions . . . . The Secretary of War, has announced that about 175,000 more Negroes] will be added to the Army in 1942 . . . . A study by G-3 contemplates the addition of some 240,000 Negro soldiers, as contrasted with the number of 175,000 mentioned by The Secretary. But there is no organizational structure yet approved for the 175,000 new men." 30

To Hastie, the "one element of ad-
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vancement" in the 1942 Troop Basis was the inclusion of Negroes in divisions. He considered this "the most effective method for modifying the present pattern of placing Negroes in scattered, small units." He criticized the continued increase of Negroes in the Quartermaster Corps "in which dispersion of small units is most extreme"; the provision of 11 percent Negroes in the Medical Corps, "practically all of them in Sanitary Companies" with "no white Sanitary Companies whatever"; and the concentration of Negroes in engineer general service regiments and in "scattered" ammunition companies. "Certainly," he wrote, "the Negro soldier should do his full share of manual, unskilled labor, but the cited examples represent an unreasonable preponderance, in some places the exclusive assignment of Negroes to functions of this type." Finally, pointing out that the Selective Service backlog of un-inducted Negroes who remained at the top of the selectee lists "invites court action by any white selectee chosen for induction ahead of eligible Negroes whose name precedes his," he urged that provision be made for a larger absorption of Negroes by the Army, by the Navy, or by both services.31

A week later Deputy Chief of Staff Bryden informed Under Secretary Patterson that it was deemed impracticable to assemble small Negro units because of the nature of the functions they performed. "To assemble them would result in an excess of these elements at the places where assembled and would require replacement by similar white service elements," he indicated. A letter to the field on the equal treatment of soldiers, regardless of race; instructions insuring an opportunity for every soldier to apply for officer candidate training; assurance that Negroes equaling the population percentages would be taken into the Army; and assurance that new combat units would be activated were included in General Bryden's report of plans.32

To Hastie's criticisms of the current troop basis, General Bryden later replied that the distribution of Negroes to ground units, to air and air service units, and to miscellaneous categories compared favorably with the white distribution. Of 338,000 Negroes provided for, 177,000 (53 percent) were allocated to ground units; 78,000 (23 percent) to the Army Air Forces and services; 82,000 (24 percent) to miscellaneous categories. These percentages compared favorably with white percentages of 48, 27, and 24. Bryden pointed out that the War Department had endeavored to employ Negro manpower in types of units proved suitable for Negroes and also in other types where they might be expected to develop to desired standards. He added:

In spite of the fact that American battle experience has indicated a battle efficiency of Negro divisions below that required-as well as below that demonstrated by white divisions-the current troop basis includes two complete Negro divisions . . . . It has, however, been found necessary to assign Negroes in considerable numbers to small units in which specialist and intelligence requirements are not exacting. Those small units, generally carried in GHQ Reserve, are necessary for the proper support of divisions in combat. The term "reserve"
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does not mean that they will not be employed in active combat . . . .33

The difficulties of finding locations for large Negro units and the possibility that they might not be useful overseas, the failure of Selective Service deferments to equalize the eligible white and Negro selectees on the basis of population percentages, the failure of the Navy to take its share of Negroes, and the desirability of having the troop basis reflect actual needs were all cited as factors contributing to the department's problem. General Bryden stressed, moreover, that "with the advent of actual War the primary responsibility of the War Department is to conclude the building of an Army which can operate when and where needed at maximum effectiveness. It is obvious, in times as critical as these, the needs of the Nation must transcend the favored consideration of any particular group." 34

The explanations and detailed justifications for War Department policies in the employment of Negro troops, delivered almost ad seriatium and in almost identical terms, were not convincing evidence to Hastie that the Army had done all that it could. He renewed his recommendations from time to time, citing new evidence in support of his resubmissions. Many of Hastie's strictures on current organizational policies as they affected the over-all efficiency of Negro troops came to have obvious foundation in fact as the year wore on. As more and more Negroes entered the Army and as more and more of them appeared destined for units of limited apparent value, discussions of the "Negro problem" became more frequent. No one had as yet made an official statement on the matter, but the attempt to distribute Negroes proportionately was proving considerably more difficult than had been apparent in paper plans; moreover the simple physical problem of the intake of proportionate numbers of Negroes without regard to their proportionate distribution was proving to be an onerous administrative burden.

A War Plans Approach

Seeking a method of employing not only a proportionate but any number of Negroes that might become available, the War Plans Division in March 1942 prepared a study which showed that using Negroes exclusively in certain types of noncombatant units could have increased by 26.2 percent the number of Negroes employed in ground units in the 1942 Troop Basis. Although this study was not sent to the Chief of Staff as originally intended, it presented several arguments for consideration in future planning which were pertinent to what the War Plans Division felt to be "the most effective use of colored manpower above and beyond population percentage." These suggestions were formulated with two ends in view:

1. Release of white manpower from noncombatant units to make available the greatest possible percentage of reliable troops for combat units.
2. To permit the deferment of the maximum number of skilled defense workers consistent with the balanced requirements of an army of any given figure.35
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These considerations were to figure heavily in later discussions and in action taken. But the chief innovation suggested was the proposal to abandon the 10 percent quota in favor of a maximum use of Negroes in the Army by concentrating the employment of Negro troops in the services.

The study, recognizing "the necessity for a certain number of colored tactical units (due to unavoidable reasons) ," proceeded on the assumption that holding Negro combat units to the percentages already set up for 1 942 would allow additional Negroes to be usefully employed in service units to an extent greater than their percentage in the population. The best men, of whom larger numbers would be expected in this increased number of Negroes drafted, could then be placed in the combat units, releasing sub-marginal personnel for the service units. In its emphasis upon highly selected men for combat units the plan had overtones of older "elite unit" suggestions and of later "selective screening" proposals.

The plan envisioned the use of Negroes exclusively in all quartermaster port, bakery, laundry, sterilization and bath, mobile shoe and textile, refrigeration, salvage collecting, service, railhead, gasoline supply, and car units; in all engineer depot, general service, separate, water supply, and air base units; in all medical sanitation units; and in all chemical decontamination, depot, and impregnating companies.36

In addition to advocating the use of these units for Negro personnel, the plan proposed the creation of two new types of units to absorb Negroes: station maintenance companies, to be used for "policing areas now the responsibility of tactical units, for fighting range fires, for landscaping and grading, and for such other duties as would vitiate the tactical training or specialized functions of other units"; and metropolitan service companies, to be used to "move office furnishings, fixtures and supplies around cities and large headquarters, and generally to make Army installations lacking sufficient organic service troops independent of unskilled civilian labor without diverting the time and energies of skilled headquarters personnel." 37

Had the plan been submitted and approved, it would have accomplished more than the stated release of white manpower for combat units and the further deferment of skilled workers. It would have made possible the employment of a larger number of Negroes, estimated at 861,000 by the end of 1943. This number would have been 171,600 over the flat 10 percent figure. It would have provided a partial guarantee of the continuity of the Negro combat units. Under this plan, it would not only have been possible to supply the combat units with higher caliber men from the increased draft but it might also have been unnecessary to strip the combat units for personnel for critically needed service units in 1943, since a large reserve of men available for use in orthodox service units could have been obtained from the proposed "station" and
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"metropolitan" service units. Moreover, the plan would have lessened later difficulties encountered in the deployment of Negro troops overseas, for theater commanders requisitioning needed service units would have had no choice except to take Negro organizations if they were the only ones of their types available in the Army.

The plan had several major drawbacks. It ignored the War Department's public position, still being reiterated, that Negroes would be used more extensively in all arms and services and the corollary policy that no type of unit would be exclusively white or Negro. It violated the principle that the number of Negroes employed by the Army would be proportionate to their numbers in the registered population, a maximum beyond which few in the Army were willing to go and one which the Army was experiencing considerable difficulty in reaching. It assumed that the provision of types of units into which men of relatively lower vocational and educational experience ought to fit would be successful, regardless of the leadership, officer and noncommissioned, that was supplied. But since the plan did not get beyond the War Plans Division, it had no formal effect upon the major department-wide discussions of the employment of Negro troops in 1942. It can nevertheless be considered a straw in the wind for the renewal, in 1943, of proposals that the majority of Negro troops be placed in the services of supply, and for the growing conviction that Negro troops should be employed in ways that would release white troops for combat and technical duties.

The Chamberlain Plan

The third set of suggestions involving major changes in policy-greater than any that judge Hastie or the War Plans Division had suggested-came in the fall of 1942 when the 1943 Troop Basis was taking final form. The chief of the Organization-Mobilization Group of G-3, Col. Edwin W. Chamberlain, proposed an end to the further activation of Negro units.

Accepting the point of view that Negroes in the mass, as shown by classification test scores, were less able and less useful to the Army than whites in the mass, and that the Army in 1943, especially in the face of the refusal of the naval services to take their full share, would be forced to take an even larger proportion of Negroes, Colonel Chamberlain argued that separate units resulted in a considerable waste of manpower, funds, and equipment. Negro selectees, with their poor backgrounds, could not continue to attempt to man needed units effectively. Friction between white and Negro troops, Chamberlain believed, was "aggravated if not caused in its entirety by segregation practices both within and without the Army." The War Department policy of creating units in order to provide assignments for Negro personnel, coupled with the limitations which lower qualifications placed on the number and variety of Negro units, would produce "insurmountable" difficulties in 1943. Then, if the policy was continued and if the Army was required to induct its full proportion of Negroes while the Navy continued to take few, 21 percent of the planned augmentation would be Negro.
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To continue to place these men in special units not vital to the prosecution of the war or in normal units which could not be expected to come up to the highest standards was a waste of manpower. Both the friction and the waste could be avoided if Negroes were placed in otherwise white units in the ratio of one Negro to nine whites. Colonel Chamberlain admitted that his proposal would be "abhorrent to those who view the situation only superficially since it bears the earmarks of the integration of Negroes with whites-a thing to which WD policy has long been opposed," but he felt that closer study would convince "reasonable men" that the solution was "no more integration of the white and colored races than is the employment of Negroes as servants in a white household." 38

If current registration proportions continued, 89 of the average 100 men received from Selective Service in 1943 would be white and l l would be Negro. On the basis of current AGCT performances, Chamberlain
determined the 100 would divide as follows:


The whole number of Negroes below Grade III in the average 100 would be considerably fewer than the whole number of whites. Negro selectees would be assigned to units by normal reception center classification. The eight out of eleven in below average classifications could be used as the cooks, orderlies, chauffeurs, truck drivers, kitchen police, and basics who made up from to to 20 percent of the strength of the average unit. "It should be borne in mind," Chamberlain continued, "that the assignment of the Negro to these lesser tasks comes about wholly through the natural selection-based on his capabilities-incident to the organization of a new unit from 100 men delivered more or less at random from reception centers." 39 The remaining Negroes with demonstrated average and better qualifications could be transferred to existing Negro units. Their abilities could be used to provide a gradual improvement in these units, increasing their employability and, at the same time, providing an outlet for the ambitions and capabilities of the better qualified men.

Negroes who complained of discrimination, Chamberlain felt, could not object to a solution that assigned a soldier wholly on the basis of his capabilities as determined by universally administered tests and that, at the same time, increased the possibility of Negro participation in the war effort. While he conceded that the plan was "radical" and that it would be "difficult to sell both in the WD and to the country at large," Colonel Chamberlain concluded that "either a solution such as the one proposed must be adopted or we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that we face a loss in equivalent manpower in the order of three quarters of a million men."40

This proposal was sent by Brig. Gen.
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Idwal H. Edwards, the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3, to several of the officers and agencies immediately concerned, including the Deputy Chief of Staff, the Operations Division, the new Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies, and the commanding generals of the Air, Ground, and Service Forces. Army Ground Forces was vitally concerned about the matter, since its combat units, seriously under their proportions of Negroes, would be directly affected. Its reactions were therefore a notable gauge both of the range of dissatisfaction with existing troop organization as it affected Negro soldiers and of the force of objections to proposals for the individual integration of Negroes into the Army. These reactions illustrated, as well, the recognition within the Army that there were more desirable methods of organization than the one being pursued.

Aside from the general reaction that cooks, chauffeurs, and truck drivers could not necessarily be provided from low scoring men ("the jobs either require schooling or the passing of an aptitude test, neither of which grade 5 men are capable of doing," Ground G-4 wrote 41) , reactions in the Ground staff ranged from flat refusal to consider the proposals seriously to careful studies of portions of the plan considered useful. Ground G-3 wrote:

There is no more reason why the two races can live closely together in the Army than in the Navy. If white and colored can live together in a company they can live together on a battle ship. The proposal involves a great deal more integration "than does the employment of negroes as servants in a white household." . . . I believe we should state that the proposal is inadvisable due to the certainty that internal strife, dissension, and lowered morale would result.42

Ground G-4 commented further that the time had come to return to the plan of attaching Negro regiments to white divisions: "This will accomplish the same result as is indicated in the basic memo without the integration and will assure a proportionate share of battle casualties." 43 The Ground Plans Division argued that the integration of individuals into white companies would be no more successful than it had been in the Civilian Conservation Corps and that if a new plan were adopted it should be such that it could be used throughout the Army. The Plans Division proposed a scheme based on General Rommel's method for mixing Italian units with German troops. According to this proposal, the following units in each division would have Negro enlisted men and white officers: quartermaster battalions, service companies, and service batteries; one rifle company in each infantry battalion; one firing battery in each artillery battalion; one company in each engineer battalion; one company in each tank battalion of armored divisions. Of non-divisional combat units, go percent could be mixed in the same manner, using all white officers; lo percent of the separate combat battalions could be all Negro except for officers. Thirty percent of the non-technical service units, such as service battalions and truck regiments, could be Negro with Negro officers; all officer candidates for
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these units would be chosen from among noncommissioned officers of the first four grades who had demonstrated their leadership abilities for a period of six months.44

General McNair, in the final answer of Army Ground Forces, limited his acceptance to the idea which he had espoused before: that separate Negro battalions for attachment to other units of similar types should be the solution. In presenting his reaction to the proposal, General McNair restated the major objections to proposals for integration as thoroughly as the War Department staff had done a year before:

2. I agree with you [General Edwards, War Department G-3] that we must treat the problem of utilizing the negro from the purely military viewpoint.
3. I am unalterably opposed to the incorporation of negroes in small units with white soldiers. Inevitably, such action would weaken the unit, since it would introduce men of comparatively low intelligence. We have a sufficiency of such men among white soldiers. A commander in the field disposes his forces principally according to, (1) the task ahead and (2) the capabilities of the units in connection with
such tasks. Decisive operations usually call for specialized units at critical points. Weaker units can be disposed where their weakness will cause no serious ill effects. The introduction of negroes throughout our fighting units would tend to leave a commander with no outstanding units.
4. In this war, shipping is the bottleneck of our military effort. It is entirely likely that we shall not be able to exert our maximum effort on account of shipping. It follows that we must see to it that every shipload of troops has the maximum of fighting power. Shipping should not be wasted on mediocrity.
5. It is appreciated that the negro problem must be solved, since it can not be disregarded. We already are placing negroes in service and auxiliary units to the maximum, and this practice, of course, should be continued. As to combat units, we are forming two infantry divisions wholly of negroes-the 92d and gad divisions. The
basic memorandum proposes a solution diametrically opposed to these two divisions. I agree that a colored division is too great a concentration of negroes to be effective, and feel that an intermediate solution would be better than either of these two extremes.
6. The proposal to eliminate the regimental echelon for all units except the infantry is believed sound. In fact, there is much to recommend the battalion as the fighting unit of infantry; the British Army employs such an organization. If the size of negro combat units were limited to separate battalions they would be fully suitable for
battle employment, yet the organization would permit the maximum of flexibility in such employment. They could be put in here and there where the situation was such that they could be useful and effective. It is
believed that a policy along this line would solve satisfactorily the social problems involved and minimize the military difficulties.
7. I favor:
a. The maximum workable proportion of colored troops in service and auxiliary units.
b. Colored combat units not larger than a battalion, organized so as to be self-administered.45

A variant in the Chamberlain plan was proposed by G-3 in the spring of 1943.46 This proposal was primarily
an attempt to spread Negro laboring personnel over a wider area of usefulness and to overcome the problem of obtaining adequate technical and supervisory
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leadership for Negro service units. White and Negro enlisted men would be combined in units whose battalion headquarters and headquarters companies contained white technical and supervisory personnel-specialists and noncommissioned officers-while the remaining companies used Negro supervisory and laboring personnel. All specialists for these units were to be white; Negro supervisory leadership was to come from men no longer needed in the technical positions in battalion headquarters. General hospitals with Negro sanitary companies and port battalions with white operating companies and Negro stevedore companies were suggested examples of how this plan would work.

Army Ground Forces G-1, in considering this proposal, added another possibility: Negro service companies or battalions could be attached to white units such as engineer general service regiments or quartermaster salvage and repair depots, thus relieving white "laboring" strength for use elsewhere. Other Ground Forces staff divisions, including the Ground G-3, Medical, Ordnance, Signal, Chemical, and Quartermaster sections, did not concur. "The result, if started in Ground Force units, would be amalgamation of the Negro enlisted personnel," Army Ground Forces explained.47

Army Service Forces branches were no happier over the new G-3 proposal. The Corps of Engineers observed that such an experiment might work in its separate battalions but nowhere else. Engineer functions, the corps pointed out, did not require "hand labor" except in those cases where the proper associated services had not furnished enough manpower, thereby causing engineer units to be taken away from construction projects while their equipment stood idle. If anything, the engineer separate battalions, "a relic of I g I 7," should be reorganized to include more equipment and specialists or abolished outright. Where separate battalions were converted to general service regiments, the change had had "a marked effect on the efficiency of the colored units concerned even though a large percentage of the men are in grades IV and V in intelligence rating. It has been possible to select and train machinery operators and other specialists satisfactorily when given the necessary time," the Engineers reported. In no event would the Engineers recommend the assignment of white noncommissioned officers to Negro units. "To do so will make it almost impossible to develop organizational esprit among the colored men since they would have no opportunities for advancement. The matter of discrimination also enters," the corps added.48 The Transportation Corps considered the proposal workable "altho it would destroy the morale of almost any unit if working sections were denied [a] chance for grades and rates in Headquarters." On the other hand, by careful selection, training, and supervision, and by the addition of heavy lift experts from the headquarters and headquarters com-
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pany and from mobile port headquarters, Negro battalions as presently organized would operate as well as white battalions, the Transportation Corps believed 49 With both service and ground combat branches opposed, the proposal was abandoned.

The Advisory Committee

Most subsequent proposals for changes in the organization of Negro troops or other matters of Army-wide policy affecting Negroes were channeled through a new medium, the Advisory Committee on Negro Troop Policies, formed on 27 August 1942 with the Assistant Secretary of War, John J. McCloy, as chairman.50 The appointment of this committee came as a surprise to judge Hastie and to Under Secretary Patterson. Not only was Hastie not appointed to the committee, but nearly a month had passed when he informed judge Patterson that he had heard indirectly that it had been organized. "This was news to me," Patterson told McCloy, "although I have been charged with discussion of matters concerning negroes with judge Hastie. The creation of this board, without notice to him or participation by him, has caused him a good deal of uneasiness, and it is one of the factors that has led him to question his usefulness as Special Aide to the Secretary of War on Negro Affairs. As you know, he has indicated before that he would like to resign and he has again told me that he does not believe he is accomplishing anything of a useful nature." 51 To the War Council, Patterson reported that Hastie had been constructive and helpful and that his resignation would be most unfortunate.52 After discussing the matter with Hastie, Patterson reported to Stimson similarly, saying: "I had not heard of the establishment of the committee until I received Hastie's letter, and I was not in a position to tell him what the purpose of the committee was. I can understand his feeling that his usefulness has been impaired." 53

Of the exact purpose of the committee, Secretary McCloy did not profess to be certain. It was indicated that, since it was made up primarily of military men, including two assistant chiefs of staff, the group would concern itself "strictly with military problems in the use of negro troops and that the broader social problems were only incidentally involved." 54 The committee had been formed as a result of a recommendation made by G-1 in July, approved by the Chief of Staff on 30 July, and by the
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Secretary of War on 25 August 1942.55 The recommendation grew out of the reports of Col. Elliot D. Cooke of The Inspector General's Department, who, in the spring of 1942, made an extensive tour of posts, camps, and bases having Negro troops. Colonel Cooke found varying practices and policies with respect to the command of Negro troops at the many places visited.56 As a result, G-1 proposed the appointment of a permanent War Department committee of officers "who, informed by experience, can evaluate racial incidents, proposed social reforms, and questions involving the training and use of negroes, male and female, in terms of an intimate understanding of War Department policies." 57

The suggested committee was to consist of a representative of each division of the General Staff, the Army Ground Forces, the Army Air Forces, the Services of Supply, the Chief of Engineers, The Quartermaster General, The Surgeon General, and the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. G-1 proposed further that a white man "who is an outstanding leader in the mechanical and industrial education of young negro men, for example, the President of Hampton Institute" be appointed as adviser to this special committee. The committee as proposed was considered too large; the recommendation as approved by the Chief of Staff carried the provision that the committee "be kept small and headed by Mr. McCloy." 58

The chairman of the new committee, reflecting opinion that had grown within the War Department during the past few months, had already expressed his view of the nature of the Army's racial problem. Earlier in the summer, after a discussion of the attitude of the Negro press and organizations toward the war and the Army, Hastie informed Secretary McCloy that he was disturbed "that you seem to have been persuaded (I) that Negroes should not agitate for the elimination of undemocratic practices at home during these critical times; and (2) that the continuation of such agitation would do more harm than good." When these matters were discussed from time to time, Hastie continued, he hoped that the Assistant Secretary would point out "the basic issues of this war and the impossibility of foreclosing those issues at home while we stir people up to fight for them all over the world." 59 To this McCloy replied:

I think I probably ought to state in writing what my attitude is. Of course, there is no group in the country that should not agitate for the elimination of undemocratic practices. Like sin, everyone is against undemocratic practices. What I urge upon the Negro press is to lessen their emphasis upon discriminatory acts and Color incidents irrespective of whether the White or the Colored man is responsible for starting them. Frankly, I do not think that the basic issues of this war are involved in the question of whether Colored troops
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serve in segregated units or in mixed units and I doubt whether you can convince the people of the United States that the basic issues of freedom are involved in such a question. In its policy of playing up the incidents of which I speak, I believe that papers like the Pittsburgh Courier and, perhaps, some others, serve to take the mind of the Negro soldier and the Negroes generally off what you term the basic issue of the war. If the United States does not win this war, the lot of the Negro is going to be far, far worse than it is today. Yet, there is, it seems to me, an alarmingly large percentage of Negroes in and out of the Army who do not seem to be vitally concerned about winning the war. This, to my mind, indicates that some forces are at work misleading the Negroes. I bespeak greater emphasis on the necessity for greater out and out support of the war, particularly by the Negro press, and I feel certain that the objects for which you aim will come closer to achievement if the existing emphasis is shifted than if it is not.60

After the establishment of the Advisory Committee Judge Hastie continued to work on some matters through judge Patterson's office; he presented other suggestions through Assistant Secretary McCloy's office for consideration of the Advisory Committee. The committee made recommendations of its own from time to time. It considered the broad plans originating in the staff divisions, attempted to keep abreast of the developing racial situation in the country, and proposed measures which it hoped would have a beneficial effect upon racial matters within the Army. G-1 and G-3 prepared summaries of existing policies for discussion and, at the second meeting of the committee on 24 October, the Chamberlain plan was presented by G-3, Brig. Gen. Idwal

H. Edwards. Reaction to the plan, and especially to the proposal to experiment with mixed personnel on a small scale, was favorable, "but there was a marked reluctance to recommend such a radical step all at once," one member reported.61

At the same meeting a proposal came from Brig. Gen. Frederick H. Osborn's Special Service Division that segregation in Army motion picture houses be abandoned. This proposal grew out of a conference on segregation in theaters on Massachusetts posts between Hastie; his assistant, Truman K. Gibson, Jr.; Dr. Donald Young of the Joint Army-Navy Committee on Welfare and Recreation and the Special Service Division; and Matthew Bullock. It was agreed that Young would urge the Special Service Division and the Joint Army-Navy Committee to recommend issuance of a policy statement that "colored personnel be neither excluded from nor segregated in any theater located within a military reservation," with the added provision that a local commander could submit to the Commanding General, SOS, recommendations for exceptions to avoid serious trouble. The conferees thought that complete elimination would encounter no serious trouble but that the addition of a modifying provision would increase the chances for success.62 The proposal was discussed at length. It had been approved by Under Secretary Patterson, but Assistant Secretary McCloy had secured a reversal. The Advisory
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Committee agreed to seek more information and, if possible, avoid public announcement of policy on the subject. It would deal with each situation as it came up. 63

In November, Hastie suggested several matters which the Advisory Committee might wish to consider. These
included a renewal of his criticisms of the Troop Basis for 1942, which, he believed, applied to the 1943 Troop Basis as well. He made new recommendations for increasing opportunities for the technical training of Negro enlisted men and officers and he reminded the committee of the need for a definite War Department policy against racial discrimination in Army theaters, post exchanges, and similar facilities.64

Brig. Gen. Benjamin O. Davis, in the meantime, worked out a proposal for the operation of the Advisory Committee.65 Davis proposed that the committee recommend "the breaking down of the so-called `Jim Crow' practices within the War Department and on the military reservations, and the securing of the cooperation of the communities near the reservations to that end." He proposed, as Hastie had done earlier, the issuance of a directive "announcing that military necessity required a closer unity and comradeship among all races constituting our citizenry." In addition, he proposed orientation courses, emphasizing the contribution of Negroes to America and attempting to make white soldiers realize the "great responsibility" resting upon them in achieving unity of aims within the Army. General Davis included a recommendation that the term "colored" instead of "Negro" be used to designate race in official Army materials. Like many other Negroes, Davis believed that many of the internal racial difficulties of the Army and the civilian community at large, sprang from the ill-considered use of epithets such as "nigger." In connection with the original Hastie Survey, a staff discussion of the wisdom of issuing a directive outlawing the use of this and similar terms extended over a period of several months. General Davis, while agreeing that it was desirable to reduce this source of racial friction, felt that general orientation in Army race relations was preferable to a directive outlawing the term.66 Neither set of recommendations submitted by General Davis was dealt with immediately, though features of both proposals were later adopted under other circumstances.

In December, the Advisory Committee, after surveying the field through reports from staff agencies, recommended the use of Negroes in harbor defense units in order to reduce their employment in antiaircraft units; the activation of a Negro parachute battalion "for purposes of enhancing the morale and esprit de corps of the negro people"; the assignment of Negroes to combat engineer units to avoid "what may prove to be a perfectly justifiable charge of discrimination against the negro through his assignment almost exclusively to general service engineer regiments"; and the
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PARATROOPER TRAINEES
in column formation about to board an Army transport at Fort Benning.

use of Negroes in ambulance battalions in lieu of white troops, thus reducing the numbers who otherwise would have been placed in medical sanitary units. On these recommendations General Marshall noted marginally, "Seems O.K." for harbor defense units, "Start a company" for the parachute battalion recommendation, and "excellent" for each of the other two recommendations.67

Because of the difficulty of locating harbor defense units so that they would not cause objections from the towns which they were supposed to protect, and because the need for such units rapidly diminished as the danger of attacks on the American coast lessened, no Negro harbor defense units, as such, were formed. The 555th Parachute Company was constituted on the inactive list in February 1943, activated at the end of the year, and raised to a battalion in November 1944.68 Twelve motor ambulance companies were activated in 1943 and two others were added later. Though the Chief of Engineers and Army Ground Forces continued to object to the activation of combat engineer units other than those necessary to divisions, combat engineer battalions were eventually activated from personnel of converted units of the arms in 1943, 1944, and 1945. Most of these later became construction and general service units.

Throughout its career the Advisory Committee, acting in part as a clearing house for staff ideas on the employment of Negro troops and in part as a channel and consultation board for civilian ideas on the use of Negro troops, continued to exercise a lively interest in and, at times, partial control over the provision and use of Negro units. Its activities gradually extended into an interest in the entire racial pattern within the Army as well as into a concern with Army-civilian relations where racial matters were involved. But, before the end of 1942, the committee had taken no positive action upon either judge Hastie's or General Davis's recommendations on the improvement of race relations within the Army. Hastie's resignation at the beginning of the New Year helped
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galvanize the committee into action on certain of these proposals.

Air Forces Proposals and Hastie's Resignation

Since the establishment of the Air Corps flying school at Tuskegee, Judge Hastie had watched developments in the Air Forces with particular concern. The Tuskegee school had been vigorously opposed by the NAACP and by most of the more influential members of the Negro press. In the first months of its existence, the school was studiously ignored by the larger newspapers. Negro public figures, when referring to the pilots in training there, began to term them "Lonely Eagles," men destined to fly and fight separately from the rest of the Air Forces if at all.

In the summer of 1942, as successive classes of pilots were being graduated, interest in the school rose, and the Negro press covered Tuskegee closely. No longer was the seriousness of the Air Forces training program doubted. Negroes were now concerned about the seriousness of the intentions of the Air Forces to use the units being formed at Tuskegee, about the restriction of Negroes to single-engine pilot training, and about the long lists of eligible applicants awaiting entry to the flying school. Critics of the program pointed out that the percentage of single-engine pilots needed by the Air Corps was limited,69 and therefore that Negroes who did not qualify for single-engine training were automatically deprived of an opportunity to pursue any other type of flying training. The physical size limitations on single-engine trainees-maximum height and weight limitations of five feet, nine inches, and 160 pounds-cut further the number of Negroes eligible for this one type of training.70

The limitation of Negro non-pilot officer training to the few aerial observers and weather, armament, and engineering officers required by units then in being was further questioned and criticized. The Air Forces' refusal to accept applicants for appointment as service pilots and its requirement that Negro medical officers take courses in aviation medicine by correspondence and in local branch schools were cited as evidence that the Air arm had not kept up with the rest of the Army in providing full opportunities for qualified Negroes. The Air Forces denied that it was pursuing restrictive practices. It was filling authorized vacancies and training men according to existing War Department policies and within the limits of available resources.71 The major difficulty seen by the Army Air Forces in carrying out its Negro training program was one of maintaining this training without undue enlargement. "We are pressed on every side," General Arnold declared, "by negro sympathizers to increase the program beyond any bounds of its usefulness. The increase cannot be made until an opportunity has been afforded the 99th Pursuit Squadron to
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prove its worth in actual combat operations." 72

It was on the question of how training for units then in being was to be carried out as well as on developments at Tuskegee that judge Hastie finally resolved to resign. One of the reasons for his original position in 1940, of neither approving nor yet of actively opposing the establishment of the Tuskegee school, was that the immediate gain in Negro utilization outweighed the advantages of continued opposition to the separate training station.73 Flying training would begin at a station where Negro cadets could learn to fly and Negro officers would ultimately have the opportunity of command not only in the projected flying unit but also in the post's staff positions. Hastie was not disposed to support either a diminution of the expected gains or an extension of the separate Tuskegee pattern to other Air Forces-and, by possible precedent, to other Army-training activities.

Having established a logic for the Tuskegee installation, the Air Forces faced the necessity of extending that logic to all training connected with the units at the Tuskegee station. This was at first attempted by trying to confine most of that training to Tuskegee itself, a development involving attendant changes in plans for the control of activities there. When Tuskegee grew too crowded to accommodate further training projects, the extension of the same pattern elsewhere was proposed. The result was the war's most extended and most detailed attempt to define and to apply theories of the benefits of separate training for Negroes.

In the meantime, Hastie became concerned about the intentions of the Air Forces to meet commitments already made. In July 1942, he inquired about the Air Forces progress in training Negroes to replace white administrative officers at Tuskegee.74 General Arnold replied that, since the school actually opened in October 1941, the year required to train replacements was not yet up. "There has been no change in our original plans of the procedure to be followed," he assured Hastie.75

The following fall, Hastie inquired again about plans to replace white officers with Negroes. The question by this time had assumed greater importance, for several Negro officers assigned to Tuskegee, including finance, chemical warfare, medical, and athletic officers, some of them of considerable standing in the Negro peacetime community, had been given subordinate and, in some cases, no actual assignments at all. This time the inquiry was referred to the Southeast Army Air Force Training Command (SEAAFTC) at Maxwell Field, under whose jurisdiction Tuskegee came. The command indicated that it considered it unwise to use Negro officers in post administrative positions at the field. SEAAFTC reminded AAF that the plan which Hastie referred to was a prewar plan. No subsequent direc-
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tive requiring the substitution of Negro for white officers had been issued. In any event the original plan, calling for II white officers, 15 white noncommissioned officers, and a full garrison of only 47 officers and 429 enlisted men, was no longer applicable, since Tuskegee now had 217 officers and 3,000 enlisted men. SEAAFTC argued that considerable effort to locate and develop reliable Negro officers had been made, but that none had been forthcoming. Anyway, the command pointed out, every commanding officer has the prerogative of selecting his own staff officers. "In general, colored officers do not possess the necessary technical background to qualify them to occupy supervisory positions now filled by white officers," SEAAFTC said. "They are definitely lacking in the qualifications essential for leadership and the urgency of the war situation does not justify experimentation." Furthermore, the best qualified Negro officers available to it, the command continued, were assigned to Task Force units at Tuskegee. The remainder would be needed for new fighter and service groups, which, at the time, had almost no personnel. The responsibilities of the Tuskegee commander and of his staff were multiple and the replacement of white by Negro officers would "not only reduce the present efficiency of the station but in all probability tend to defeat the purpose of this effort." The command considered Hastie's interest in the matter "more racial than military. The purpose and function of this command is military training and it has no interest in the racial question .... Unless instructed to the contrary, military efficiency and military expediency will continue to be the determining factors in the selection of training personnel at Tuskegee as is the policy at all other stations under the jurisdiction of this headquarters." 76 The possibility that Tuskegee would become an all-Negro post, as originally planned and as consistent with the objective of complete segregation, was not bright.

But, consistent with the goal of training the Negro squadrons with the least difficulty, the Air Forces continued to add training facilities at Tuskegee, thereby relieving itself of the necessity of training Negro specialists and technicians at its established schools, many of which were in the South. To the addition of technical schools to the Tuskegee program Hastie objected in June 1942. "Thus the Army Air Forces carry one step further a plan of confining as much of the training of Negroes as possible to the Tuskegee project. It must be expensive and uneconomical utilization of personnel and materials thus to duplicate training facilities for relatively small numbers of men," he observed to Robert A. Lovett, the Assistant Secretary of War for Air. Pointing out that technicians and mechanics for the two squadrons already activated had been trained at Chanute Field, Illinois, and that in the rest of the Army Negroes were being trained in existing schools, he predicted that the new plan would develop the same defects as pilot training: it would be slow, expensive, and circumscribed. He hoped that the plan would be reexamined. Secretary Lovett penciled a note to his executive officer: "Col Coiner
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-pls investigate; why was Chanute dropped?" 77

"It appears to me that judge Hastie and his assistant are interested only in having their people trained at the well-known Chanute school-not in the training or the facility thereof," Colonel Coiner observed as he began to investigate the reasons for abandoning Negro training at Chanute.78 After conferring with Col. Luther S. Smith, the Air Forces Director of Individual Training, who as director of Training at the Southeast Air Corps Training Center in 1941 had been responsible for organizing the training program at Tuskegee, Colonel Coiner informed Secretary Lovett that training at Chanute had been dropped because it was only reasonable to expand training for Negroes at the place where their units were located. An additional construction program for Tuskegee to provide facilities for technical training had been authorized some months before and the program was now "either completed or so far along as to be classed completed." 79

Plans for technical training at Tuskegee were nevertheless being changed. The 99th Pursuit Squadron was scheduled to be committed to action by 1 October 1942. Pilots and mechanics for the tooth Pursuit Squadron, which was to be the senior squadron in a planned fighter group, were in training. The full group was to be completed during the fiscal year 1943. Since the group was to be activated and trained at Tuskegee at the same time that the station was carrying on other flying training activities, the Air Forces was considering the establishment of a separate technical school for Negroes at another site to relieve Tuskegee of the responsibility for conducting the two distinctly different types of training at the same time.80 In August the Air Forces informed its Technical Training Command (AAFTTC) that facilities tentatively provided at Tuskegee for technical training would not be used for this purpose. "If deemed advisable by you, you will be authorized to establish a detachment at Tuskegee for the training of negro officer candidates," AAFTTC was told. Contract facilities at a Negro university or similar institution might be obtained for other technical training.81

By autumn the situation had changed further. The Army Air Forces was now expecting to take over the basic training of all its personnel of the arms and services (ASWAAF), including 6,000 Negroes a month for the remainder of 1942 and 9,000 per month for 1943.82 With flying training expanding at Tuskegee, the need for technically trained enlisted and officer personnel was increasing rapidly. The Technical Training Command considered acquiring Prairie View College in Texas for this purpose, and the Third Air Force, seeking a location for the tactical training of units that would be removed from the crowded Tuskegee station, looked over a site at Fort Davis, Alabama, southeast of the
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Tuskegee school on the other side of the town of Tuskegee. This site, previously considered for the flying school location, was abandoned, partly because of protests from the white citizens of Tuskegee who felt that with Tuskegee Institute, a Veterans' Administration Hospital, and one Army and one contract flying installation already existing to the north, east, and west of the town, an additional installation for Negroes to the south would encircle the town completely.83 As yet, there was no over-all plan for the training of Negroes who could not be accommodated at Tuskegee.

On 25 October, the Technical Training Command submitted a plan which called not only for the establishment of a separate technical school for Negroes but also for separate officer training, officer candidate, and clerical schools plus a basic training center, all to be concentrated at Jefferson Barracks, in St. Louis. Thus, all Negro training for the Air Forces would be on a completely segregated basis, concentrated at Tuskegee and at Jefferson Barracks.84

Independent of the remainder of the plan and of geographical considerations, the concentration of all Negro replacement training for the Air Forces at one post had certain advantages, the Air Forces believed. The Air Forces had experienced some difficulty in extracting the desired number of technical trainees from its aviation squadrons. Among their other duties, these squadrons gave basic training to Negro selectees assigned directly from reception centers. On 19 August 1942, the Air Forces sent a circular letter asking aviation squadrons to report qualified enlisted men for technical school training. By 5 October only 44 out of 85,000 men had been reported available. "The results so far obtained from the above referred to letter are of no value whatever," Army Air Forces informed its field commanders. Pointing out its desire to start a large-scale program, the Air Forces again instructed its commands to report qualified enlisted men by number and course, but most reports continued to be negative.85 Concentration of replacement trainees at one post would permit proper classification and assignment of potential technical trainees before units found other jobs for them to do.

There was not complete certainty within the Air Staff of the wisdom of the proposal to concentrate all training for Negroes at separate posts. A policy letter on the subject, addressed to the Technical Training Command, was prepared by the Director of Individual Training on 26 October for the signature of the Chief of the Air Staff. This letter began: "Confirming past verbal directives, the training of negroes will be accomplished through segregation." It directed the commanding general of the Technical Training Command to select "a suitable site or sites" for the basic training of enlisted Negroes of the Air Forces and of the Arms and Services with the Air Forces, for technical training of
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enlisted men and officers, for the administrative training of officers, and for such individual training as the Services of Supply could not provide for Negro ASWAAF personnel. The draft of this letter was submitted to the Air Training Division for approval before submission to the Chief of the Air Staff. Though pointing out that "former training policies regarding negro troops have not favored segregation, however recent developments indicate that it is desirable to accomplish this type of training thru segregation," the Training Division concurred. The office of the Chief of the Air Staff then routed the proposal to the Director of Program Planning (AFDPU) for concurrence. AFDPU did concur but recommended that the directive be given "a very limited distribution and any reference thereto be definitely confined to a limited number of people." The Chief of Air Staff, Maj. Gen. George E. Stratemeyer, then directed that the Assistant Chief of Air Staff, A-1, indicate concurrence or non-concurrence "by his own signature." A-1 concurred.86 But, after a personal conference with Maj. Gen. Walter R. Weaver of the Army Air Forces Technical Training Command, General Stratemeyer recommended that the letter be withdrawn. There was no need for it, since the proposal covered was already projected for Jefferson Barracks. The policy appeared to be settled. All Air Forces training for Negroes would be given at racially separate schools and posts.87

Action was being taken to comply with the Technical Training Command's plan 88 when news of the change at Jefferson Barracks reached St. Louis. Irate white citizens and organizations protested vigorously. "All Hell broke loose out there and the Mayor called me and talked to me for about a half hour last night," General Weaver informed Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Hanley, the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff. "The city of St. Louis is up in arms about this thing, and I thought I'd better tip you fellows off up there," he continued.89 Washington had already heard of the St. Louis reaction. Missouri congressmen had been querying the War Department about the proposal. The Air Forces was advised to discuss the matter with the Advisory Committee, and decision on the full proposal was postponed.

In the meantime, the Individual Training Section of the Air Staff had prepared a justification for providing the Technical Training Command with a policy for carrying out its proposals. This staff section argued that the central, north-south border location of Jefferson Barracks near a metropolitan area with a large Negro civilian population would "absolutely minimize the tremendous problem arising from racial prejudice."
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Jefferson Barracks would reduce the hazards to training arising from racial discrimination. Segregation of Negro troops there was regarded as a safeguard against discrimination:

The problem must be faced candidly and impartially, for the following reasons:
(1) A poorly selected location geographically will irritate and amplify racial prejudices, which seriously hamper individual training. We cannot allow such a consideration to in turn hamper our individual training efforts, which are designed for the sole purpose of producing efficient fighting-fit troops.
(2) We cannot allow racial prejudices to interfere with our administration of present policy, as well as human justice, which dictate that the Army Air Forces will provide training opportunities for colored troops which are equal to those given to white troops.

e. Segregation must be followed, particularly for phases of individual training, as a safeguard against charges of racial discrimination, and to permit of proper inspections in this phase.
f. Jefferson Barracks is one of the best posts of the Army Air Forces, for any types of troops. It is rich in traditions and honorable history, being one of the oldest posts in our Army's history . . . . It is believed that Jefferson Barracks will lend itself admirably to being publicized as the "Colored Miami Beach Schools," in the same manner as we have publicized the flying school at Tuskegee as the "Colored West Point of the Air." 90

Neither Air Personnel nor Air Training concurred in this presentation of the proposal, 91 but the Deputy Chief of Air Staff, General Hanley, did concur and the next day initiated action for the preparation of a formal proposal based on Individual Training's reasoning for presentation to the Chief of Staff and the Advisory Committee. "General Arnold, the Chief of Air Staff and the Deputy Chief of Air Staff concur in the idea that the segregation of negroes, as outlined in this paper, is the best way to train them in the Army Air Forces," Hanley indicated to Col. Aubry L. Moore, of Program Planning, when directing preparation of the necessary papers. There should be no publicity or action toward carrying out the policy until the plans clear through the Advisory Committee, the Deputy Chief of Air Staff added.92 The formal request, dated 13 November, was forwarded to G-3 on 17 November but was returned without action, for in the interval still other changes in the program had occurred.93

The Technical Training Command on 16 November had renewed its request for approval of the concentration of all Negro training at Jefferson Barracks, adding that pending approval or the issuance of other directives the flow of Negro recruits to the command should be stopped. This proposal was returned to the Technical Training Command as not favorably considered,94
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for by the time the request arrived, a new draft, first circulated on 18 November, calling for concentration of most Negro training at Chanute Field, Illinois, was in process of preparation by the Air Staff's Directorate of Individual Training.95

On 30 November the Technical Training Command forwarded a substitute proposal, calling for the use of Jefferson Barracks for officer candidate and cooks and bakers training only, with other training conducted at other schools. The proposal, while its written form was in the mails, was given by phone to Headquarters AAF, coinciding with the completion of the 18 November (Chanute Field) draft. Its features were incorporated into the 18 November draft letter. The new proposal authorized the training of (1) officer candidates at Jefferson Barracks; (2) enlisted specialists at Chanute Field; and (3) the continuation of basic training in aviation squadrons. Permanent party ASWAAF personnel were to be distributed to the various units of their arms and services and the unassigned personnel to "your various basic training centers in exactly the same manner as white personnel of this category." 96 This plan, too, had to be discarded, for Chanute could not handle all specialties. The new formal proposal of the Technical Training Command as originally written was substituted and approved by the Director of Individual Training on 9 December.97 It provided for training sites as follows:



One of the problems involved in Negro officer training, unstated formally in the planning for the separate OCS at Jefferson Barracks, was that ground officer candidate training for the Air Forces was located in luxury hotels at Miami Beach, Florida. At the time, this city normally permitted no Negroes to remain overnight in its precincts; on its behalf, numerous inquiries and protests on the possibility of locating Negro troops in its hotels came in to the War Department. Air Forces agencies had given assurances that no Negro troop or officer candidate training was planned
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for the Miami Beach schools.98 Though the remainder of the Army was training Negro officer candidates in established schools, the AAFTTC, out of all its original plan, retained only the separate Negro OCS. With its enlisted trainees scheduled for regular schools, this persistence in establishing a separate OCS, when coupled with the AAF's insistence upon concentrating all of its Negro flying training at Tuskegee, gave to the Air Forces an appearance of willful adherence to its own plans to keep officer training on a separate basis despite the policies of all other branches of the Army.

It appeared to judge Hastie toward the end of 1942 that the Air Forces was formulating its own policies without reference to his office or to general Army policies. During the planning for Jefferson Barracks, Hastie was neither consulted about nor advised of the discussions. Throughout this planning he was in continuous communication with the Air Forces on the training of Negroes. He had inquired about statistical errors made in the Air Staff on success rates in pilot training at Tuskegee -errors which, when called to the attention of the Air Staff, were then compounded instead of corrected. He had asked about training flight surgeons by correspondence, to which the Air Forces at first replied that with the great bulk of aviation medicine trainees, both Negro and white students were using extension courses and branch schools. When Hastie asked specifically if Negroes were excluded from Randolph Field's medical courses, the answer came back: "It is
not the policy of the Air Corps to exclude Negro officers from training at the School of Aviation Medicine." He had asked about placing washed-out cadets in other types of training and about cadet training for qualified Negroes in meteorology, armament, and engineering.99 But plans for expanding this training, including the difficult problem of concentrated and separate training versus training in established schools, had not been mentioned to him in the Air Forces communications on these subjects.

Late in November, Judge Hastie learned from St. Louis newspapers that the Air Forces had planned to turn Jefferson Barracks into an all-Negro training center. After hearing about questions put to Secretary Stimson at a press conference, he asked Secretary Lovett toward the end of November if there was any truth in the rumors about Jefferson Barracks.100 Three weeks later, the reply came that "present Air Forces plans do not provide for the conversion of Jefferson Barracks into an all-Negro post" and that "the training program ill general contemplates assignment of Negro personnel for training to installations in areas from which procured." Complaints from St. Louis, the communication continued, indicated that "it would be wiser not to effect the reported conversion." 101 The reply was technically correct though no specific mention was made of the latest plan to establish an officer candidate school and a cooks and bakers school at Jefferson Barracks nor
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of the decision to utilize established technical schools for specialist training.

On 1 January Jefferson Barracks issued a press release informing the public that a new officer candidate school for Negroes would open there on 15 January. On 5 January Hastie informed Secretary Stimson and Under Secretary Patterson that in the Air Forces "further retrogression is now so apparent and recent occurrences are so objectionable and inexcusable that I have no alternative but to resign in protest and to give public expression to my views." 102 Despite the "several substantial gains of the past two years in the handling of racial issues and particular problems of Negro military and civilian personnel" and despite the two secretaries' expressed confidence that he could do more within the War Department than out, Hastie began, he did not think that his presence was longer useful:

I have believed that there remain areas in which changes of racial policy should be made but will not be made in response to advocacy within the Department but only as a result of strong and manifest public opinion. I have believed that some of these changes involve questions of the sincerity and depth of our devotion to the basic issues of this war and thus have an important bearing, both on the fighting spirit of our own people and upon our ability as a nation to maintain leadership in the struggle for a free world." 103

So long as he remained in the War Department he could not express himself freely and publicly on these matters. Therefore, he was submitting a formal resignation separately to take effect on 31 January.104

Except for a statement to the press issued on 16 January in which, to quiet growing rumors, he announced that he had submitted his resignation and that he had asked his two assistants, Louis Lautier and Truman K. Gibson, Jr., to stay at their posts, Hastie refrained from any public statement during the remainder of the month. He had, however, outlined in detail his objections to the course of Air Forces policy in his memorandum to the secretaries. He included a sharp denunciation of misleading information given him by the Air Forces as well as criticisms of its policies:

In establishing a separate Officer Candidate School for Negroes at Jefferson Barracks the Air Forces are deliberately rejecting the general practice of un-segregated Officer Candidate Schools which has proved so eminently successful throughout the Army and which has been so hopeful an augury. I did not know that such a school was contemplated until the matter appeared a few days ago in an Army press release. Worse, still, I was given misleading information by the Air Forces at a time when the plan must have been well advanced . . . . In such circumstances the failure of the Air Forces, after written request, to advise this office candidly and fully of a plan so soon to be publicly announced cannot be considered an excusable inadvertence. 105

This latest development had to be placed in its proper setting, Hastie continued. He recalled that "the policy of using Negro personnel in the Air Forces at all was imposed upon a Command, reluctant from the outset. Resistance, bred of that reluctance has been
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encountered repeatedly." He went on to cite the Air Forces' establishment of aviation squadrons; its establishment of a separate clerical school; its refusal to train and use qualified service pilots, weather officer applicants, and other officer specialists which, in national recruiting campaigns, it had said it needed badly; the inadequacy of its training for Negro flight surgeons; its refusal to use Negroes in positions of responsibility at Tuskegee; and its refusal to continue technical training in its established schools in the pattern begun at Chanute Field where "the results were excellent." Moreover, Hastie asserted, the Air Forces was failing to produce results with its methods. While efforts were being made to set up segregated technical training at Tuskegee or elsewhere, "successive classes of pilots were being trained, but no supporting technical schooling of ground crew members was in progress. Thus even the segregated system has gotten badly out of balance in the effort to accomplish its extension. The prospect is that in 1943 Negro pilots will be ready before and faster than adequate members of trained ground crews are available." The situation at Tuskegee, where separate messes, quarters, and washrooms were maintained, Hastie concluded, had reached the point where it might "jeopardize the entire future of the Negro in combat aviation. Men cannot be humiliated over a long period of time without a shattering of morale and a destroying of combat efficiency . . . . If the group of white officers at Tuskegee insist upon this-and I have no evidence that they do-they are psychologically unsuited to train Negroes for combat. If they do not so insist, the racial attitude of the local commander or of higher authority is all the more apparent." 106

Hastie's memorandum was forwarded to the Air Staff, where inquiries began.107 General Stratemeyer called a halt to the preparations for the new school, telling a representative of Individual Training:

I don't want any colored school any place to be conducted as a segregated school. With reference to colored Officer Candidates at Miami Beach, I want them treated just like white Officer Candidates. They will go to the same classes, to the same drills, and eat in mess halls the same as the whites. If there are any questions, tell General Smith to call me.108

General Stratemeyer then had the Hastie paper analyzed for Assistant Secretary McCloy. Judge Hastie was correct about aviation squadrons, the Air Staff said, but he had overlooked the fact that the majority of Negroes with low general classification scores had to be employed somewhere. On everything else, the Staff declared, Hastie was in substantial error. His information about the establishment of a segregated officer candidate school at Jefferson Barracks "had no basis in fact." A plan had been prepared "in an operating division of Headquarters, Army Air Forces but it had neither been referred to nor approved by the Chief of the Air Staff. Negroes with sufficiently high general classification and mechanical aptitude
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scores were being used as noncommissioned officers or were being sent to officer candidate schools and to training courses "throughout the school system of the Technical Training Command." The separate clerical school at Atlanta University was being conducted by the Services of Supply. As for Tuskegee, the location of the school there had been urged by the officials of the Tuskegee Institute and instead of training being harmed there, both Brig. Gen Benjamin O. Davis and the Commanding General, Third Air Force, had found the fighter squadron there to be in a "superior state of training." It was "now ready to be committed to combat." Moreover, the Air Staff's analysis continued, directives would be issued to insure compliance with War Department policies on racial discrimination in the matter of separate messing and toilet facilities for Negro and white officers, though the commanding officer at Tuskegee would be within regulations if he established a regimental mess for the new 332d Fighter Group "providing no racial restrictions were placed on officer messing facilities established for other officer personnel." The policy of placing Negro officers in posts of responsibility at Tuskegee had not changed though "implementation . . . will depend upon the best judgment of the responsible commander." Sufficient weather, armament, communication, engineering, and administrative officers to care for Negro units were being trained, but "excessive numbers of Negro specialists would be wasteful and inadvisable," the Air Forces added, remarking that War Department assignment policies of Negro officers which would limit the usefulness of additional specialists were still in force.
Service pilots would be employed as needed within the limits of War Department policies on the assignment of Negro officers, and directives insuring the training of flight surgeons in resident student status had been issued.109

Hastie observed that perhaps General Stratemeyer was correct about the new school-"I hope, of course, that no such project has been or is going to be inaugurated," he said-but, in addition to the press release, "this office checked informally with the Air Forces Technical Training Command and received verbal confirmation from that office." Moreover, General Stratemeyer's statement did not clearly say whether "the Air Forces are not going to have a segregated Officer Candidate School or merely that the Chief of Air Staff had not approved the proposal at the time my memorandum was written." Hastie declared that he doubted that the four or five thousand Negroes who, according to General Stratemeyer's figures on test scores, had the required aptitude for technical training, were receiving it, that badly needed weather officers could not work anywhere "except at the Tuskegee Base or with a Negro unit in the field," and that the judgment of the Air Staff on what was happening at Tuskegee could be reconciled with conclusions "based on my own observations and on the views of persons living and working there every day." To him, this analysis was only one more example of the Air Forces' lack of candor in facing the issue of its use of Negro troops.110
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Secretary Stimson accepted Hastie's resignation on 29 January.111 As one of his last official acts in the War Department, Hastie forwarded to Assistant Secretary McCloy the next day a memorandum on two additional issues "which seem to be of immediate importance": the placement and promotion of Negro officers, including provisions for the removal of excess officers from the all-Negro units since "field and company officers tend to deteriorate when they seem to be in a blind alley"; and the overseas use of Negro combat organizations, especially those which had been in training for long periods of time. 112 Both of these problems were to engage the attention of the War Department for many months to come.

Gibson and the Aide's Office

A search for a successor to Hastie was already under way. The names of Negro college presidents, federal and state government officials, and, occasionally, of unknown but favored former students of distinguished law professors-sometimes solicited by Assistant Secretary McCloy and sometimes offered by interested persons outside the Department-were suggested during January 1943.113 The Negro press, lauding Hastie for his stand, indulged in its own predictions. The Associated Negro Press reported that "the consensus of opinion as expressed freely and frankly is that he did the right thing in stepping out of a position that was becoming untenable." 114 Typical of editorial opinion was the New Orleans Louisiana Weekly's assertion that Hastie's resignation was

. . . a tribute to the new type of leadership that is coming to the forefront for the Negro masses .... He performed admirably under the difficulties .... He must indeed have been a patient man to have been pushed around and given the "brush off" by the Army "swivel chair corps" who apparently care little for the Negro in the Army other than as a laborer. However, there is a limit to every man's patience, even judge Hastie's. We think by his action he rises in stature and becomes one of our living heroes and leaders whom Pearl Buck says we so desperately need.115

In the meantime, the work of the Civilian Aide's office continued with Hastie's assistant, Truman K. Gibson, Jr., designated Acting Civilian Aide on 5 February,116 pending appointment of a successor to Hastie.

Hastie, in his resignation statement, had indicated that, instead of a consistent policy leading to the useful employment of Negro troops, un-coordinated and often divergent patterns within the Army were leading to supportable charges of a lack of direction in the utilization of Negroes and a potential waste of manpower. Here was a concrete matter
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upon which action could be taken on its practical merits rather than on the ethical grounds from which many of the Hastie proposals, despite their practical aspects, had proceeded. The Advisory Committee, which had previously held few meetings, now came to vigorous life. As already noted, this committee had been set up to "evaluate racial incidents, proposed social reforms, and questions involving the training and use of negroes." 117 How closely the three went together was now clearer than before. The Advisory Committee now realized more fully that its was a continuing problem of evaluation and consideration of multitudinous problems going beyond the technicalities of the distribution of Negroes in the troop basis. Truman Gibson, in discussions with Secretary McCloy, impressed upon him that, with the serial presentation of Hastie's objections in the press 118 and with the steady worsening of Negro troop problems, immediate steps to solve the major questions which Hastie had called to the secretaries' attention should be taken and the public should be so informed.119

Hastie's resignation itself had been followed by certain immediate changes, especially in the Air Forces, which quietly dropped its Jefferson Barracks plan, promoted the commander at Tuskegee and replaced him, made plans to remove the new tactical group from Tuskegee, and ordered flight surgeon trainees to school at Randolph Field. Just before Hastie's resignation took effect, the Air Forces announced publicly that it was expanding its training program for combat fliers and supporting services and that Negroes were being trained "throughout virtually the entire Technical Training Command of the Air Forces as well as at the Air Forces Officers' Training School at Miami." 120 After the first of February, when Hastie announced publicly that Air Forces policies had been the chief cause of his resignation, the Air Forces indicated that it had no intention of making a further reply, since it believed that it had complied fully with the Secretary of War's instructions on Negro troop policies. 121

In the weeks following Hastie's departure, Gibson presented serially, in conferences and memoranda, separate analyses of many of the problems remaining unsolved. The Civilian Aide's main channel of action now shifted definitely from Under Secretary Patterson's office to Assistant Secretary McCloy's, with Gibson working closely with Charles Poletti, ex-lieutenant governor of New York and, at the time, a special assistant to the Secretary, and, later, with Col. William P. Scobey and Lt. Col. Harrison A. Gerhardt, executives to the Assistant Secretary. While he pursued the same objectives as Hastie, Gibson generally approached his problems singly, presenting alternatives for action phrased in terms of their probable effect upon the Army, the public (`white and
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Negro), and the developing military situation.122

To McCloy and to Poletti, Gibson again outlined the problems of both his office and of its relations with the Advisory Committee, enclosing for Poletti a copy of the Hastie Survey containing marginal notes on what had been done and what remained to be accomplished in the Hastie program.123 To the new secretary of the committee, Col. Joseph S. Leonard, formerly commander of the 366th Infantry at Fort Devens, he offered the files of his office so that the committee might become more familiar with the main problems with which the Civilian Aide had been faced. Both Gibson and the Advisory Committee began to give closer attention to the help that they might get from Brig. Gen. Frederick H. Osborn and his Special Service Division in the area of the morale of Negro troops. To General Osborn, Gibson outlined the Air Forces problem for use in a conference to be held with judge Patterson.124

This conference was an outgrowth of one of the many inquiries coming into the War Department after Hastie's resignation. After one of these, involving a meeting of Under Secretary Patterson, Assistant Secretary Lovett, and General Stratemeyer with Wilbur LaRoe and a delegation from the Washington Federation of Churches, Judge Patterson, Assistant Secretary Lovett, Howard Petersen, and General Osborn met to consider developments within the Air Forces. One result was an agreement that Air Forces-Negro relations should be handled by the Advisory Committee and that Patterson would thereafter refer questions on these relations to the committee.125 This agreement ended the Under Secretary's formal concern with Negro troop problems. Another result was that, as a consequence of Patterson's expression of dissatisfaction with the progress and numbers of Negro personnel which the Air Forces was training, Secretary Lovett and General Stratemeyer discussed the entire situation, suggesting that the Air Forces investigate and take action to:

1. Make certain that some Negroes were assigned to the college training program in northern colleges where CPT training was being given, even at the expense of filling quotas set for Tuskegee.
2. Investigate and increase the activities in which Negro pilots might participate, paying particular attention to securing all possible candidates for service pilot ratings, assigning them to liaison units which could work with Negro ground units.
3. Make an attempt to train pilots and navigators as transport crews which could be assigned to Roberts Field in Liberia "for the purpose of flying cargo or ferrying
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airplanes forward to combat theaters from that installation. It is understood that there is a colored U.S. citizen in Canada who has piloted bombers across the North Atlantic four or five times and who is available for, and who has requested assignment to the Army Air Forces. Investigate this through A-1, and see if his services cannot be secured for the purpose of either bringing his entire crew with him to operate for the Air Transport Command in Liberia or to train a colored crew which can be used by the Air Transport Command from Roberts Field."
4. Investigate and prepare plans to start the training of additional colored ground personnel and have them on hand to work with and assist in the training of a medium or light bombardment group "which we must necessarily activate and organize if and when our present experiment with the fighter group is successful." 126

While most of these proposals were not carried out, planning for the increased use of Negroes did begin within the Air Forces and a medium bombardment group did materialize. Moreover, co-operation between the Air Forces headquarters and the Civilian Aide's office gradually improved. After a visit to Tuskegee in April, Gibson informed Secretary Lovett that he had been greatly impressed by "the very able and conscientious manner in which Lieutenant Colonel Noel Parrish, the Commanding Officer, has attacked the many difficult problems with which he has been confronted. There has been a decided upswing in the morale of the Negro officers and men stationed there." Though many of the criticisms of Tuskegee were justifiable, he continued, "the training program has been conducted in a fair and impartial manner. For this, the Air Forces is deserving of credit and has received favorable comment even from some of the most vocal critics of the whole program." He regretted that previous disagreements of his office with various Air Forces policies had resulted in "the development of an attitude that a feeling of hostility exists" preventing "the free discussion of possible solutions for what is admittedly a troublesome and difficult problem" and preventing "adequate discussions on the adoption of some continuing plan for the use of Negroes in the Army Air Forces." He pointed out the dangers of adherence to unchanging formulas and offered the facilities of his office for planning beyond the needs of the fighter units then under way. 127 Secretary Lovett noted on the memorandum: "Copy given to Col. McCormick, Personnel. He is to see Gibson 8e get his cooperation on matters wherever possible before any step is taken."

While Gibson's attempts to obtain a closer working relationship between his office, the Advisory Committee, and the offices of the two assistant secretaries did not always meet with unalloyed success, events and a greater concern on the part of participants to deal adequately with them produced a better machinery for action than had been. Gibson, though he was never given membership on the committee, gained early an advantage closed to Hastie: after March, upon Secretary McCloy's recommendation, he attended Advisory Committee meetings regularly.128 Although the committee had no staff other than its secretary and
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no other full-time member, its meetings provided a forum and clearing house where the chiefs of policy-making branches and the representatives of the major commands of the Army could compare notes and gain perspective on questions affecting the employment of Negro troops. The Civilian Aide was therefore able to present his views on questions as they arose. Though the committee often temporized and deferred action, when a major proposal was agreed upon its movement through the staff divisions was expedited by familiarity with the proposal gained in committee meetings. With the Advisory Committee and the Civilian Aide working more closely than formerly, the War Department began to acquire a more generally agreed upon approach to Negro troop policies, though it still lacked a central co-ordinating body for the collection, evaluation, and dissemination of information upon and decisions made about proposals and counterproposals affecting these policies.

Gibson held his position as acting aide until 21 September 1943, when he was made permanent Civilian Aide.129 Between February and September many of the problems brought to the attention of the War Department by Hastie came to a head. A number of modifications in policy and practice occurred, for many of the difficulties foreseen by Hastie and the staff sections in 1941 and 1942 came to full growth by the spring of 1943. With these, Gibson, McCloy, and the Advisory Committee had to deal. But the pattern of the organization and employment of Negro troops had so set by 1943 that many situations could only be modified and not appreciably altered. In the meantime, the course of policies and problems in the field, met at their high points by reactions and new policies in the War Department, continued to develop.
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Jefferson Barracks	OCS
Grand Rapids	Weather
Yale	Engineer, armament, communications
Boca Raton	Radar (V-1)
Harbard	Statistical

Boca Raton	Radar mechanics
Chanute Field	Machinist, metal work, parachute, welding, link trainer, teletype repair, electrical propeller, and instrument specialist
Scott Field	Radio
Jefferson Barracks	Cooks and bakers
Fort Logan	Clerks
Lincoln	Airplane mechanics
Buckley Field	Armorers
Lowry Field	Bombsight specialist; photographers

Group	White	Negro
Superior (Grade I)	7	0
Above Average (Grade II)	26	1
Average (Grade III)	29	2
Below Average (Grade IV)	19	3
Inferior (Grade V)	8	5
	89	11