African-American soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen

During World War II, the U.S. armed forces were, for the most part, racially segregated. African- American soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen were trained separately. They served in segregated units, usually commanded by white officers, although a small number of African Americans were commissioned during the war. At sea, black sailors were given segregated quarters, although modest experiments in integration were carried out. For the most part, African Americans served in support and labor units rather than in front-line combat units. In December 1942, President Roosevelt issued an executive order calling for African Americans to make up 10 percent of all personnel drafted for the services. ARMY During World War I, some 380,000 African Americans were enlisted or drafted into the army, 89 percent assigned to labor units and only 11 percent committed to combat. After the war, African- American membership in the army fell to just 5,000 enlisted men (2 percent of the service) and five officers. During World War II, black membership in the army rose spectacularly; 900,000 African Americans served by war's end, mostly in support roles, including the famed Red Ball Express truck convoys run during the advance through France following the Normandy landings (Dday). Although black officers were few, there was one African-American brigadier general, Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. ARMY AIR FORCES In 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt opened the United States Army Air Corps in a limited way to black pilots, who were trained and who served in segregated units. The most famous of these were the Tuskegee Airmen, who served with distinction in the North African and Italian theaters but remained segregated throughout the war. Most African Americans served in labor roles. However, after the war, following President Harry S. Truman's 1948 Executive Order 9981, which mandated an end to segregation in the military and a universal policy of equal treatment and opportunity regardless of race, the U.S. Air Force (which had become an independent service in 1947) was far ahead of the other services in implementing the integration policy. MARINES Before World War II, the Marine Corps accepted no black enlistments. On the eve of World War II, President Roosevelt directed the commandant of the Marine Corps to take steps toward incorporating African Americans into the corps. A commission was created to study how black marines could best be used, but actual enlistments were not accepted until after the Battle of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. A short time after this, a segregated training facility, Camp Johnson, was established outside Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in South Carolina. The first recruits arrived at Camp Johnson in August 1942 to make up the 51st Defense Battalion. Initially, they were trained by white drill instructors, but they were eventually replaced by black instructors. The 51st Defense Battalion was brought to a strength of 1,400 and sent to the Pacific, first in the African-American soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen 3 Ellis Islands and then in the Marshalls. They remained posted there throughout the war. A second black unit, the 52nd Defense Battalion, was established in December 1943 and dispatched to Roi-Namur and then to the Marianas. The black marines were used almost exclusively as stewards and laborers, not as combat troops. In all, 19,000 African Americans served in the marines during World War II, most of them having been drafted. No black marine was commissioned an officer during the war. NAVY More than any other service during World War II, the U.S. Navy implemented steps toward racial integration. Black sailors had served in the sail navy during the 18th and 19th centuries, when the labor of handling sails required many hands. After the Civil War, as sails were replaced by steam and the number of hands required diminished, so did naval recruitment of African Americans. Those who did join were typically assigned to service positions, typically as "mess boys," stewards, and orderlies serving white officers. Segregation was enforced aboard ship in eating and sleeping areas. After the United States annexed the Philippines in 1898, black mess, steward, and orderly personnel were increasingly replaced by Filipinos, so that when the United States entered World War I in 1917, Filipinos outnumbered African Americans in the navy. The enlistment of Filipino volunteers declined beginning in the early 1930s, and African American enlistments rose proportionately— although black personnel were still confined to mess and steward positions, and segregation was enforced on board ships as well as in shore accommodations. In 1940, Walter White of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), together with the black labor leader A. Phillip Randolph and activist T. Arnold Hill, wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt protesting the strictures on black employment in the navy. In response, the president approved a plan in support of "fair treatment," but the navy failed to implement it, arguing that morale would suffer if blacks were assigned to nonservice positions. Only after World War II was under way did the NAACP again appeal to the administration, this time to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, to expand the role of African Americans beyond service positions. The conservative Knox declined to act, and the NAACP again appealed directly to the president. In June 1942, FDR personally prevailed on top naval command to adopt an expanded assignment policy. New guidelines were formulated that admitted African-American sailors to service in construction battalions, supply depots, air stations, shore stations, section bases, and yard craft. Although this represented an expansion well beyond mess and steward service, the new positions were overwhelmingly labor assignments and not combat postings. President Roosevelt's December 1942 executive order mandating that African Americans represent 10 percent of the personnel in all the armed services created a dramatic increase in black enlistment in the navy. By July 1943, 12,000 blacks were being inducted monthly. By December 1943, 101,573 African Americans had enlisted, of whom 37,981 (37 percent) served in the Stewards Branch. The rest were boatswains, carpenters, painters, metalsmiths, hospital apprentices, firemen, aviation maintenance personnel, and members of the Shore Patrol. Few nonstewards were assigned sea duty. Nevertheless, by this time, the navy began selecting African Americans for commissioning as officers. The selectees were divided into line and staff officers. In January 1944, the line officers began segregated 10-week training at Naval Training Center Great Lakes. Of these, 12 commissioned officers and one warrant officer were graduated—the first African-American officers in U.S. Navy history. This so-called Golden Thirteen were assigned to recruit training programs and small patrol craft and tugs. The staff officer selectees were trained during the summer of 1944. Of the first class, two graduates were assigned to the Chaplain Corps, two to the Dental Corps, two to the Civil Engineer Corps, three to the Medical Corps, and three to the Supply Corps. By the end of the war, just 58 out of 160,000 4 African-American soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen African-American sailors had been commissioned as officers. As for enlisted personnel, reform accelerated during 1944, after the death of Knox and his replacement as navy secretary by James Forrestal. A political liberal and civil rights activist, Forrestal launched a trial integration program in which black sailors were assigned to general sea duty positions. As for shipboard segregation, the black sailors were placed exclusively on large auxiliary vessels (such as cargo craft and tankers) and constituted no more than 10 percent of the crew of any one ship. Some 25 ships were integrated in this way with no race relation problems reported. Before the war ended, Forrestal assigned African-American personnel to all auxiliary ships of the fleet, and, even more significantly, segregated training was ended. African-American recruits were assigned to the same training centers as whites. See also United States Army; United States Army Air Forces; United States Marine Corps; and United States Navy. Further reading: Belknap, Michael R., ed. Civil Rights, the White House, and the Justice Department, 1945–1968: Integration of the Armed Forces. New York: Garland, 1991; Fletcher, Marvin E. The Black Soldier and Officer in the United States Army, 1891–1917. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974.