Chapter 17: (p. 428) (1)

The Army Integrates

The integration of the United States Army was not accomplished by executive fiat or at the demand of the electorate. Nor was it the result of any particular victory of the civil rights advocates over the racists. It came about primarily because the definition of military efficiency spelled out by the Fahy Committee and demonstrated by troops in the heat of battle was finally accepted by Army leaders. The Army justified its policy changes in the name of efficiency, as indeed it had always, but this time efficiency led the service unmistakably toward integration.

_Race and Efficiency: 1950_

The Army's postwar planners based their low estimate of the black soldier's ability on the collective performance of the segregated black units in World War II and assumed that social unrest would result from mixing the races. The Army thus accepted an economically and administratively inefficient segregated force in peacetime to preserve what it considered to be a more dependable fighting machine for war. Insistence on the need for segregation in the name of military efficiency was also useful in rationalizing the prejudice and thoughtless adherence to traditional practice which obviously played a part in the Army's tenacious defense of its policy.

An entirely different conclusion, however, could be drawn from the same set of propositions. The Fahy Committee, for example, had clearly demonstrated the inefficiency of segregation, and more to the point, some senior Army officials, in particular Secretary Gray and Chief of Staff Collins, had come to question the conventional pattern. Explaining later why he favored integration ahead of many of his contemporaries, Collins drew on his World War II experience. The major black ground units in World War II, and to a lesser degree the 99th Pursuit Squadron, he declared, "did not work out." Nor, he concluded, did the smaller independent black units, even those commanded by black officers, who were burdened with problems of discipline and inefficiency. On the other hand, the integrated infantry platoons in Europe, with which Collins had personal experience, worked well. His observations had convinced him that it was "pointless" to support segregated black units, and while the matter had "nothing to do with sociology itself," he reasoned that if integration worked at the platoon level "why not on down the line?" The best plan, he believed, was to assign two Negroes to each squad in the Army, always assuming that the quota limiting the total number of black soldiers would be preserved.[17-1]

[Footnote 17-1: Interv, author with Collins.]

But the Army had promised the Fahy Committee in April 1950 it (p. 429) would abolish the quota. If carried out, such an agreement would complicate an orderly and controlled integration, and Collins's desire for change was clearly tempered by his concern for order and control. So long as peacetime manpower levels remained low and inductions through the draft limited, a program such as the one contemplated by the Chief of Staff was feasible, but any sudden wartime expansion would change all that. Fear of such a sudden change combined with the strong opposition to integration still shared by most Army officials to keep the staff from any initiative toward integration in the period immediately after the Fahy Committee adjourned.

Even before Gray and Collins completed their negotiations with the Fahy Committee, they were treated by the Chamberlin Board to yet another indication of the scope of Army staff opposition to integration. Gray had appointed a panel of senior officers under Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Chamberlin on 18 September 1949 in fulfillment of his promise to review the Army's racial policy periodically "in the light of changing conditions and experiences of this day and time."[17-2] After sitting four months and consulting more than sixty major Army officials and some 280 officers and men, the board produced a comprehensive summary of the Army's racial status based on test scores, enlistment rates, school figures, venereal disease rates, opinion surveys, and the like.

[Footnote 17-2: Memo, SA for Lt Gen Stephen J.
Chamberlin, 30 Nov 49, sub: Utilization of Negro
Manpower in the Army, CSGPA 291.2. See also Dir,
P&A, Summary Sheet to CofS, 2 Nov 49, sub: Board to
Study the Utilization of Negro Manpower in
Peacetime Army, CSGPA 291.2, and TAG to Chamberlin,
18 Nov 49, same sub, AG 334 (17 Nov 49). In
addition to Chamberlin, the board included Maj.
Gen. Withers A. Buress, commanding general of the
Infantry Center; Maj. Gen. John M. Divine,
commanding general of 9th Infantry Division, Fort
Dix; and Col. M. VanVoorst, Personnel and
Administration Division, as recorder without vote.]

The conclusions and recommendations of the Chamberlin Board represent perhaps the most careful and certainly the last apologia for a segregated Army.[17-3] The Army's postwar racial policy and related directives, the board assured Secretary Gray, were sound, were proving effective, and should be continued in force. It saw only one objection to segregated units: black units had an unduly high proportion of men with low classification test scores, a situation, it believed, that could be altered by raising the entrance level and improving training and leadership. At any rate, the board declared, this disadvantage was a minor one compared to the advantages of an organization that did not force Negroes into competition they were unprepared to face, did not provoke the resentment of white soldiers with the consequent risk of lowered combat effectiveness, and avoided placing black officers and noncommissioned officers in command of white troops, "a position which only the exceptional Negro could successfully fill."

[Footnote 17-3: Memo, Gen Chamberlin et al. for SA, 9
Feb 50, sub: Report of Board of Officers on
Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Army, AG 291.2
(6 Dec 49). A copy of the report and many of the
related and supporting documents are in CMH.]

A decision on these matters, the board stated, had to be based on combat effectiveness, not the use of black manpower, and what constituted maximum effectiveness was best left to the judgment of war-tested combat leaders. These men, "almost without exception," vigorously opposed integration. Ignoring the Army's continuing (p. 430) negotiations with the Fahy Committee on the matter, the board called for retaining the 10 percent quota. To remove the quota without imposing a higher entrance standard, it argued, would result in an influx of Negroes "with a corresponding deterioration of combat efficiency." In short, ignoring the political and budgetary realities of the day, the board called on Secretary Gray to repudiate the findings of the Fahy Committee and the stipulations of Executive Order 9981 and to maintain a rigidly segregated service with a carefully regulated percentage of black members.

While Gray and Collins let the recommendations of the Chamberlin Board go unanswered, they did very little to change the Army's racial practices in the year following their agreements with the Fahy Committee. The periodic increase in the number of critical specialties for which Negroes were to be trained and freely assigned did not materialize. The number of trained black specialists increased, and some were assigned to white units, but this practice, while substantially different from the Gillem Board's idea of limiting such integration to overhead spaces, nevertheless produced similar results. Black specialists continued to be assigned to segregated units in the majority of cases, and in the minds of most commanders such assignment automatically limited black soldiers to certain jobs and schools no matter what their qualifications. Kenworthy's blunt conclusion in May 1951 was that the Army had not carried out the policy it had agreed to.[17-4] Certainly the Army staff had failed to develop a successful mechanism for gauging its commanders' compliance with its new policy. Despite the generally progressive sentiments of General Collins and Secretary Gray's agreement with the Fahy Committee, much of the Army clung to old sentiments and practices for the same old reasons.

[Footnote 17-4: Kenworthy, "The Case Against Army
Segregation," p. 32.]

The catalyst for the sudden shift away from these sentiments and practices was the Korean War. Ranking among the nation's major conflicts, the war caused the Army to double in size in five months. By June 1951 it numbered 1.6 million, with 230,000 men serving in Korea in the Eighth Army. This vast expansion of manpower and combat commitment severely tested the Army's racial policy and immediately affected the racial balance of the quota-free Army. When the quota was lifted in April 1950, Negroes accounted for 10.2 percent of the total enlisted strength; by August this figure reached 11.4 percent. On 1 January 1951, Negroes comprised 11.7 percent of the Army, and in December 1952 the ratio was 13.2 percent. The cause of this striking rise in black strength was the large number of Negroes among wartime enlistments. The percentage of Negroes among those enlisting in the Army for the first time jumped from 8.2 in March 1950 to 25.2 in August, averaging 18 percent of all first-term enlistments during the first nine months of the war. Black reenlistment increased from 8.5 to 12.9 percent of the total reenlistment during the same period, and the percentage of black draftees in the total number of draftees supplied by Selective Service averaged 13 percent.[17-5]

[Footnote 17-5: Memo, G-1 for VCofS, sub: Negro
Statistics, 16 Jun 50-6 Oct 50, CS 291.2 Negro;
idem for G-3, 18 Apr 51, sub: Training Spaces for
Negro Personnel, OPS 291.2; Memo, Chief, Mil Opers
Management Branch, G-1, for G-1, 1 Feb 51, sub:
Distribution of Negro Manpower in the Army, G-1
291.2, and Memo, Chief, Procurement and
Distribution Div, G-1, for G-1, 20 Oct 53, same sub
and file.]

The effect of these increases on a segregated army was tremendous. (p. 431) By April 1951, black units throughout the Army were reporting large overstrengths, some as much as 60 percent over their authorized organization tables. Overstrength was particularly evident in the combat arms because of the steady increase in the number of black soldiers with combat occupational specialties. Largely assigned to service units during World War II--only 22 percent, about half the white percentage, were in combat units--Negroes after the war were assigned in ever-increasing numbers to combat occupational specialties in keeping with the Gillem Board recommendation that they be trained in all branches of the service. By 1950 some 30 percent of all black soldiers were in combat units, and by June 1951 they were being assigned to the combat branches in approximately the same percentage as white soldiers, 41 percent.[17-6]

[Footnote 17-6: STM-30, Strength of the Army, Sep 50,
Mar 51, and Jul 51.]

The Chief of Staff's concern with the Army's segregation policy went beyond immediate problems connected with the sudden manpower increases. Speaking to Maj. Gen. Lewis A. Craig, the Inspector General, in August 1950, Collins declared that the Army's social policy was unrealistic and did not represent the views of younger Americans whose attitudes were much more relaxed than those of the senior officers who (p. 432) established policy. Reporting Collins's comment to the staff, Craig went on to say the situation in Korea confirmed his own observations that mixing whites and blacks "in reasonable proportions" did not cause friction. Continued segregation, on the other hand, would force the Army to reinstate the old division-size black unit, with its ineffectiveness and frustrations, to answer the Negro's demand for equitable promotions and job opportunities. In short, both Collins and Craig agreed that the Army must eventually integrate, and they wanted the use of black servicemen restudied.[17-7]

[Footnote 17-7: IG Summary Sheet for CofS, 7 Dec 50,
sub: Policy Regarding Negro Segregation, CS 291.2
(7 Dec 50).]

Their view was at considerable variance with the attitude displayed by most officers on the Army staff and in the major commands in December 1950. His rank notwithstanding, Collins still had to persuade these men of the validity of his views before they would accept the necessity for integration. Moreover, with his concept of orderly and controlled social change threatened by the rapid rise in the number of black soldiers, Collins himself would need to assess the effects of racial mixing in a fluid manpower situation. These necessities explain the plethora of staff papers, special boards, and field investigations pertaining to the employment of black troops that characterized the next six months, a period during which every effort was made to convince senior officers of the practical necessity for integration. The Chief of Staff's exchange of views with the Inspector General was not circulated within the staff until December 1950. At that time the personnel chief, Lt. Gen. Edward H. Brooks, recommended reconvening the Chamberlin Board to reexamine the Army's racial policy in light of the Korean experience. Brooks wanted to hold off the review until February 1951 by which time he thought adequate data would be available from the Far East Command. His recommendation was approved, and the matter was returned to the same group which had so firmly rejected integration less than a year before.[17-8]

[Footnote 17-8: G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 18 Dec 50,
sub: Policy Regarding Negro Segregation, G-1
291.2.]

Even as the Chamberlin Board was reconvening, another voice was added to those calling for integration. Viewing the critical overstrength in black units, Assistant Secretary Earl D. Johnson recommended distributing excess black soldiers among other units of the Army.[17-9] The response to his proposal was yet another attempt to avoid the dictates of the draft law and black enlistments. Maj. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe, the G-1, advised against integrating the organized white units on the grounds that experience gained thus far on the social impact of integration was inadequate to predict its effect on "overall Army efficiency." Since the Army could not continue assigning more men to the overstrength black units, McAuliffe wanted to organize additional black units to accommodate the excess, and he asked Maj. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, the G-3, to activate the necessary units.[17-10]

[Footnote 17-9: Memo, ASA for SA, 3 Apr 51, sub:
Present Overstrength in Segregated Units, G-1
291.2.]

[Footnote 17-10: Memo, G-1 for CofS, 26 May 51, sub:
Present Overstrength in Segregated Units; DF, G-1
for G-3, 16 Apr 51, sub: Training Spaces for Negro
Personnel; both in G-1 291.2.]

The chief of the Army Field Forces was even more direct. Integration was untimely, General Mark W. Clark advised, and the Army should instead reimpose the quota and push for speedy implementation of the Secretary of Defense's directive on the qualitative distribution (p. 433) of manpower.[17-11] Clark's plea for a new quota was one of many circulating in the staff since black enlistment percentages started to rise. But time had run out on the quota as a solution to overstrength black units. Although the Army staff continued to discuss the need for the quota, and senior officials considered asking the President for permission to reinstitute it, the Secretary of Defense's acceptance of parity of enlistment standards had robbed the Army of any excuse for special treatment on manpower allotments.[17-12]

[Footnote 17-11: Memo, CG, AFF, for G-1, 8 May 51,
sub: Negro Strength in the Army, G-1 291.2.]

[Footnote 17-12: Memo, ASA for SA, 1 Jul 51, and Draft
Memo, SA for President (not sent), both in SA
291.2.]

McAuliffe's recommendation for additional black units ran into serious opposition and was not approved. Taylor's staff, concerned with the practical problems of Army organization, objected to the proposal, citing budget limitations that precluded the creation of additional units and policy restrictions that forbade the creation of new units merely to accommodate black recruits. The operations staff recommended instead that black soldiers in excess of unit strength be shipped directly from training centers to overseas commands as replacements without regard for specific assignment. McAuliffe's personnel staff, in turn, warned that on the basis of a monthly average dispatch of 25,000 replacements to the Far East Command, the portion of Negroes in those shipments would be 15 percent for May 1951, 21 percent for June, 22 percent for July, and 16 percent for August. McAuliffe listed the familiar problems that would accrue to the Far East commanders from this decision, but he was unable to break the impasse in Washington. Thus the problem of excess black manpower was passed on to the overseas commanders for resolution.[17-13]

[Footnote 17-13: CMT 2 (Brig Gen D. A. Ogden, Chief,
Orgn & Tng Div, G-3), 3 May 51, CMT 3 (Brig Gen W.
E. Dunkelberg, Chief, Manpower Control Div, G-1),
21 May 51, and CMT 4 (Ogden), 24 May 51, to G-1
Summary Sheet for CofS, 18 Apr 51, sub: Negro
Overstrengths, G-1 291.2.]

Commanders in Korea had already begun to apply the only practical remedy. Confronted with battle losses in white units and a growing surplus of black replacements arriving in Japan, the Eighth Army began assigning individual black soldiers just as it had been assigning individual Korean soldiers to understrength units.[17-14] In August 1950, for example, initial replacements for battle casualties in (p. 434) the 9th Infantry of the U.S. 2d Infantry Division included two black officers and eighty-nine black enlisted men. The commander assigned them to units in his severely undermanned all-white 1st and 2d Battalions. In September sixty more soldiers from the regiment's all-black 3d Battalion returned to the regiment for duty. They were first attached but later, with the agreement of the officers and men involved, assigned to units of the 1st and 2d Battalions. Subsequently, 225 black replacements were routinely assigned wherever needed throughout the regiment.[17-15] By December the 9th Infantry had absorbed Negroes to about their proportion of the national population, 11 percent. Of six black officers among them, one commanded Company C and another was temporarily in command of Company B when that unit fought in November on the Ch'ongch'on River line. S. L. A. Marshall later described Company B as "possibly the bravest" unit in that action.[17-16]

[Footnote 17-14: The Korean Augmentation to the United
States Army, known as KATUSA, a program for
integrating Korean soldiers in American units, was
substantially different from the integration of
black Americans in terms of official authorization
and management; see CMH study by David C. Skaggs,
"The Katusa Program," in CMH.]

[Footnote 17-15: Memo, CO, 9th Inf, for TIG, 29 Oct
50, attached to IG Summary Sheet for CofS, 7 Dec
50, sub: Policy Regarding Negro Segregation, CS
291.2 (7 Dec 50); FEC, "G-1 Command Report, 1
January-31 October 1950."]

[Footnote 17-16: S. L. A. Marshall, "Integration,"
Detroit _News_, May 13, 1956.]

The practice of assigning individual blacks throughout white units in Korea accelerated during early 1951 and figured in the manpower rotation program which began in Korea during May. By this time the practice had so spread that 9.4 percent of all Negroes in the theater were serving in some forty-one newly and unofficially integrated units.[17-17] Another 9.3 percent were in integrated but predominantly black units. The other 81 percent continued to serve in segregated units: in March 1951 these numbered 1 black regiment, 10 battalions, 66 separate companies, and 7 separate detachments. Looked at another way, by May 1951 some 61 percent of the Eighth Army's infantry companies were at least partially integrated.

[Footnote 17-17: ORO Technical Memorandum T-99, A
Preliminary Report on the Utilization of Negro
Manpower, 30 Jun 51, p. 34, copy in CMH.]

Though still limited, the conversion to integrated units was permanent. The Korean expedient, adopted out of battlefield necessity, carried out haphazardly, and based on such imponderables as casualties and the draft, passed the ultimate test of traditional American pragmatism: it worked. And according to reports from Korea, it worked well. The performance of integrated troops was praiseworthy with no report of racial friction.[17-18] It was a test that could not fail to impress field commanders desperate for manpower.

[Footnote 17-18: Ibid., p. 35. For a popular report on
the success of this partial integration, see Harold
H. Martin, "How Do Our Negro Troops Measure Up?,"
_Saturday Evening Post_ 223 (June 16, 1951):30-31.]

_Training_

Training units in the United States were subject to many of the stresses suffered by the Eighth Army, and without fanfare they too began to integrate. There was little precedent for the change. True, the Army had integrated officer training in World War II and basic training at the Women's Army Corps Training Center at Fort Lee, Virginia, in April 1950. But beyond that only the rare black trainee designated for specialist service was assigned to a white training unit. Until 1950 there was no effort to mix black and white trainees because the Army's manpower experts always predicted a "social (p. 435) problem," a euphemism for the racial conflict they feared would follow integration at large bases in the United States.

Not that demands for integration ever really ceased. Civil rights organizations and progressive lawmakers continued to press the Army, and the Selective Service System itself complained that black draftees were being discriminated against even before induction.[17-19] Because so many protests had focused on the induction process, James Evans, the Civilian Aide to the Secretary of Defense, recommended that the traditional segregation be abandoned, at least during the period between induction and first assignment.[17-20] Congressman Jacob Javits, always a critic of the Army's segregation policy, was particularly disturbed by the segregation of black trainees at Fort Dix, New Jersey. His request that training units be integrated was politely rejected in the fall of 1950 by General Marshall, who implied that the subject was an unnecessary intrusion, an attitude characteristic of the Defense Department's war-distracted feelings toward integration.[17-21]

[Footnote 17-19: Ltr, Lewis B. Hershey to SA, 21 Sep
50, SA 291.2; Memo, Col W. Preston Corderman, Exec,
Office of ASA, for CofS, 8 Sep 50, sub: Racial
Complaints, CS 291.2. For an example of complaints
by a civil rights organization, see Telg, J. L.
LeFore, Mobile, Ala., NAACP, to President, 18 Sep
50, and Ltr, A. Philip Randolph to SecDef, 30 Oct
50, both in SD 291.2 Neg.]

[Footnote 17-20: Memo, Evans for Leva, ASD, 5 Oct 50,
sub: Racial Complaint From the Mobile Area, SD
291.2 Neg (18 Sep 50).]

[Footnote 17-21: Ltrs, Javits to SecDef, 6 Sep and 2
Oct 50; Ltrs, SecDef to Javits, 19 Sep and 10 Oct
50. All in SD 291.2 Neg.]

Again, the change in Army policy came not because the staff ordered it, but because local commanders found it necessary. The commanders of the nine training divisions in the continental United States were hard pressed because the number of black and white inductees in any monthly draft call, as well as their designated training centers, depended on Selective Service and was therefore unpredictable. It was impossible for commanders to arrange for the proper number of separate white and black training units and instructors to receive the inductees when no one knew whether a large contingent of black soldiers or a large group of whites would get off the train. A white unit could be undermanned and its instructors idle while a black unit was overcrowded and its instructors overworked. This inefficient use of their valuable training instructors led commanders, first at Fort Ord and then at the other training divisions and replacement centers throughout the United States, to adopt the expedient of mixing black and white inductees in the same units for messing, housing, and training. As the commander of Fort Jackson, South Carolina, put it, sorting out the rapidly arriving inductees was "ridiculous," and he proceeded to assign new men to units without regard to color. He did, however, divert black inductees from time to time "to hold the Negro population down to a workable basis."[17-22]

[Footnote 17-22: G-1 Summary Sheet for VCofS, 22 Apr
52, sub: Information for the G-1 Information Book,
G-1 291.2; Memo, ASA (M&PR) for ASD (M&PR), 22 Aug
52, sub: Progress Report on Elimination of
Segregation in the Army, SD 291.2; Memo, VCofS for
SA, 18 Jun 51, sub: Assimilation of Negroes at Ft.
Jackson, S.C., SA 291.2. See also Lt Col William M.
Nichols, "The DOD Program to Ensure Civil Rights
Within the Services and Between the Services and
the Community," Rpt 116, 1966, Industrial College
of the Armed Forces, p. 24.]

The commanding general of the 9th Infantry Division at Fort Dix raised another question about integrating trainees. He had integrated all white units other than reserve units at his station, he explained (p. 436) to the First Army commander in January 1951, but since he was receiving many more white trainees than black he would soon be forced to integrate his two black training regiments as well by the unprecedented assignment of white soldiers to black units with black officers and noncommissioned officers.[17-23] Actually, such reverse integration was becoming commonplace in Korea, and in the case of Fort Dix the Army G-1 solved the commander's dilemma by simply removing the asterisk, which meant black, from the names of the 364th and 365th Infantry Regiments.[17-24]

[Footnote 17-23: Ltr, Maj Gen W. K. Harrison, CG, 9th
Inf Div, Ft. Dix, N.J., to CG, First Army, 19 Jan
51, sub: Request for an Additional Training
Regiment, G-1 291.2.]

[Footnote 17-24: Memo, DA, G-1 for CGIA, for 9th Inf
Div, 28 Feb 51, G-1 291.2; AGAO-I, 3 Mar 51, AG
322.]

The nine training divisions were integrated by March 1951, with Fort Dix, New Jersey, and Fort Knox, Kentucky, the last to complete the process. Conversion proved trouble-free and permanent; no racial incidents were reported. In June Assistant Secretary of the Army Johnson assured the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Personnel, Anna Rosenberg, that current expansion of training divisions would allow the Army to avoid in the future even the occasional funneling of some inductees into temporarily segregated units in times of troop overstrengths.[17-25] Logic dictated that those who trained together would serve together, but despite integrated training, the plethora of Negroes in overseas replacement pipelines, and the increasing amount of integrated fighting in Korea, 98 percent of the Army's black soldiers still served in segregated units in April 1951, almost three years after President Truman issued his order.

[Footnote 17-25: Memo, ASA for ASD (M&P), 5 Jun 51;
Memo, SA for ASD (M&P), 3 Sep 52; both in SD
291.2.]

_Performance of Segregated Units_

Another factor leading to a change in racial policy was the performance of segregated units in Korea. Despite "acts of heroism and capable performance of duty" by some individuals, the famous old 24th Infantry Regiment as a whole performed poorly. Its instability was especially evident during the fighting on Battle Mountain in August 1950, and by September the regiment had clearly become a "weak link in the 25th Division line," and in the Eighth Army as well.[17-26] On 9 September the division commander recommended that the regiment be removed from combat. "It is my considered opinion," Maj. Gen. William B. Kean told the Eighth Army commander, that the 24th Infantry has demonstrated in combat that

it is untrustworthy and incapable of carrying out missions
expected of an Infantry Regiment. In making this statement, I am
fully cognizant of the seriousness of the charges that I am
making, and the implications involved.... The continued use of
this Regiment in combat will jeopardize the United Nations war
effort in Korea.[17-27]

[Footnote 17-26: Roy E. Appleman, _South to the
Naktong, North to the Yalu_ (Washington: Government
Printing Office, 1961), pp. 485-86. For a detailed
account of the battlefield performance of the 24th
and other segregated units, see ibid., passim.]

[Footnote 17-27: Ltr, Maj Gen W. B. Kean to CG, Eighth
Army, 9 Sep 50, sub: Combat Effectiveness of the
24th Infantry Regiment, AG 330.1 (A).]

Kean went on to spell out his charges. The regiment was unreliable (p. 437) in combat, particularly on the defensive and at night; it abandoned positions without warning to troops on its flanks; it wasted equipment; it was prone to panic and hysteria; and some of its members were guilty of malingering. The general made clear that his charges were directed at the unit as an organization and not at individual soldiers, but he wanted the unit removed and its men reassigned as replacements on a percentage basis in the other units of the Eighth Army.

General Kean also claimed to have assigned unusually able officers to the regiment, but to no avail. In attempting to lead their men in battle, all the unit's commanders had become casualties. Concluding that segregated units would not work in a combat situation, the general believed that the combat value of black soldiers would never be realized unless they were integrated into white units at a rate of not more than 10 percent.[17-28]

[Footnote 17-28: Observer Report, Lt Col J. D.
Stevens, Plans Div, G-3, 25 Oct 50, G-3 333 PAC
(Sec I-D), Case 18, Tab G.]

The 25th Division commander's charges were supported by the Eighth Army inspector general, who investigated the 24th Infantry at length but concluded that the inactivation of the 24th was unfeasible. Instead he suggested integrating Negroes in all Eighth Army units up to 15 percent of their strength by means of the replacement process. The Far East Command's inspector general, Brig. Gen. Edwin A. Zundel, concurred, stating that the rotation process would provide a good opportunity to accomplish integration and expressing hope that the theater would observe the "spirit" of the Army's latest racial regulations.[17-29]

[Footnote 17-29: FECOM Check Sheet, IG to G-1, FEC, 27
May 51, sub: Report of Investigation; Memo, FEC G-1
for CofS, FEC, 30 Apr 51, sub: G-1 Topics Which
CINC May Discuss With Gen Taylor; both are quoted
in FECOM Mil Hist Section, "History of the Korean
War," III (pt. 2): 151-52, in CMH.]

Lt. Gen. Walton H. Walker, the Eighth Army commander, accepted the inspector general's report, and the 24th Infantry remained on duty in Korea through the winter. Zundel meanwhile continued the investigation and in March 1951 offered a more comprehensive assessment of the 24th. It was a fact, for example, that 62 percent of the unit's troops were in categories IV and V as against 41 percent of the troops in the 35th Infantry and 46 percent in the 27th, the 25th Division's white regiments. The Gillem Board had recommended supplying all such units with 25 percent more officers in the company grades, something not done for the 24th Infantry. Some observers also reported evidence in the regiment of the lack of leadership and lack of close relationships between officers and men; absence of unit _esprit de corps_; discrimination against black officers; and poor quality of replacements.

Whatever the cause of the unit's poor performance, the unanimous recommendation in the Eighth Army, its inspector general reported, was integration. Yet he perceived serious difficulty in integration. To mix the troops of the eighty-four major segregated units in the Eighth Army under wartime conditions would create an intolerable administrative burden and would be difficult for the individuals involved. If integration was limited to the 24th Infantry alone, on the other hand, its members, indeed even its former members, would share the onus of its failure. The inspector general therefore (p. 438) again recommended retaining the 24th, assigning additional officers and noncommissioned officers to black units with low test averages, and continuing the integration of the Eighth Army.[17-30]

[Footnote 17-30: Ltr, EUSAK IG to CG, EUSAK, 15 Mar
51, sub: Report of Investigation Concerning 24th
Infantry Regiment and Negro Soldiers in Combat,
EUSAK IG Report.]

The Eighth Army was not alone in investigating the 24th Infantry. The NAACP was also concerned with reports of the regiment's performance, in particular with figures on the large number of courts-martial. Thirty-six of the men convicted, many for violation of Article 75 of the Articles of War (misbehavior before the enemy), had appealed to the association for assistance, and Thurgood Marshall, then one of its celebrated attorneys, went to the Far East to investigate. Granted _carte blanche_ by the Far East commander, General Douglas MacArthur, Marshall traveled extensively in Korea and Japan reviewing the record and interviewing the men. His conclusions: "the men were tried in an atmosphere making justice impossible," and the NAACP had the evidence to clear most of them.[17-31] Contrasting the Army's experiences with those of the Navy and the Air Force, Marshall attributed (p. 439) discrimination in the military justice system to the Army's segregation policy. He blamed MacArthur for failing to carry out Truman's order in the Far East and pointed out that no Negroes served in the command's headquarters. As long as racial segregation continued, the civil rights veteran concluded, the Army would dispense the kind of injustice typical of the courts-martial he reviewed.

[Footnote 17-31: Thurgood Marshall, _Report on Korea:
The Shameful Story of the Courts Martial of Negro
GIs_ (New York: NAACP, 1951).]

It would be hard to refute Marshall's contention that discrimination was a handmaiden of segregation. Not so Walter White's contention that the reports of the 24th Infantry's poor performance constituted an attempt to discredit the combat ability of black soldiers and return them to labor duties. The association's executive secretary had fought racial injustice for many decades, and, considering his World War II experiences with the breakup of the 2d Cavalry Division into labor units, his acceptance of a conspiracy theory in Korea was understandable. But it was inaccurate. The Army operated under a different social order in 1951, and many combat leaders in the Eighth Army were advocating integration. The number of black service units in the Eighth Army, some ninety in March 1951, was comparable to the number in other similar Army commands. Nor, for that matter, was the number of black combat units in the Eighth Army unusual. In March 1951 the Eighth Army had eighty-four such units ranging in size from regiment to detachment. Far from planning the conversion of black combat troops to service troops, most commanders were recommending their assignment to integrated combat units throughout Korea.

Apprised of these various conclusions, MacArthur ordered his staff to investigate the problem of segregation in the command.[17-32] The Far East Command G-1 staff incorporated the inspector general's report in its study of the problem, adding that "Negro soldiers can and do fight well when integrated." The staff went on to dismiss the importance of leadership as a particular factor in the case of black troops by observing that "no race has a monopoly on stupidity."[17-33]

[Footnote 17-32: Ltr, Lt Gen Edward Almond, CofS,
FECOM, to TIG, 15 Mar 51, IG 333.9.]

[Footnote 17-33: FECOM Check Sheet, IG to G-1, FEC, 27
May 51, sub: Report of Investigation; Memo, FEC G-1
for CofS FEC, 30 Apr 51, sub: G-1 Topics Which CINC
May Discuss With Gen Taylor.]

Before the staff could finish its investigation, General Matthew B. Ridgway replaced MacArthur as Far East commander. Fresh from duty as Eighth Army commander, Ridgway had had close-hand experience with the 24th Infantry's problems; from both a military and a human viewpoint he had concluded that segregation was "wholly inefficient, not to say improper." He considered integration the only way to assure _esprit de corps_ in any large segment of the Army. As for segregation, Ridgway concluded, "it has always seemed to me both un-American and un-Christian for free citizens to be taught to downgrade themselves this way as if they were unfit to associate with their fellows or to accept leadership themselves."[17-34] He had planned to seek authorization to integrate the major black units of the Eighth Army in mid-March, but battlefield preoccupations and his sudden elevation to theater command interfered. Once he became commander in chief, however, he quickly concurred in his inspector general's recommendation, adding that "integration in white combat units in Korea is a practical (p. 440) solution to the optimum utilization of Negro manpower provided the overall theater level of Negroes does not exceed 15 percent of troop level and does not exceed over 12 percent in any combat unit."[17-35]

[Footnote 17-34: Matthew B. Ridgway, _The Korean War_
(New York: Doubleday, 1967), pp. 192-93.]

[Footnote 17-35: Memorandum for File, FECOM IG, 2 May
51, copy in AG 330.1.]

The 24th Infantry's experiences struck yet another blow at the Army's race policy. Reduce the size of black units, the Gillem Board had reasoned, and you will reduce inefficiency and discrimination. Such a course had not worked. The same troubles that befell the 92d Division in Italy were now being visited in Korea on the 24th Infantry, a unit rich with honors extending back to the Indian fighting after the Civil War, the War with Spain, and the Philippine Insurrection. The unit could also boast among its medal of honor winners the first man to receive the award in Korea, Pfc. William Thompson of Company M. Before its inactivation in 1951 the 24th had yet another member so honored, Sgt. Cornelius H. Carlton of Company H.

_Final Arguments_

To concentrate on the widespread sentiment for integration in the Far East would misrepresent the general attitude that still prevailed in the Army in the spring of 1951. This attitude was clearly reflected again by the Chamberlin Board, which completed its reexamination of the Army's racial policy in light of the Korean experience in April. The board recognized the success of integrated units and even cited evidence indicating that racial friction had decreased in those units since the men generally accepted any replacement willing to fight. But in the end the board retreated into the Army's conventional wisdom: separate units must be retained, and the number of Negroes in the Army must be regulated.[17-36]

[Footnote 17-36: Report of Board of Officers on
Utilization of Negro Manpower (2d Chamberlin
Report), 3 Apr 51, G-1 334 (8 Nov 51).]

The board's recommendations were not approved. Budgetary limitations precluded the creation of more segregated units and the evidence of Korea could not be denied. Yet the board still enjoyed considerable support in some quarters. The Vice Chief of Staff, General Haislip, who made no secret of his opposition to integration, considered it "premature" to rely and act solely on the experience with integration in Korea and the training divisions, and he told Secretary Pace in May 1951 that "no action should be taken which would lead to the immediate elimination of segregated units."[17-37] And then there was the assessment of Lt. Gen. Edward M. Almond, World War II commander of the 92d Division and later X Corps commander in Korea and MacArthur's chief of staff. Twenty years after the Korean War Almond's attitude toward integration had not changed.

I do not agree that integration improves military efficiency; I
believe that it weakens it. I believe that integration was and is
a political solution for the composition of our military forces
because those responsible for the procedures either do not
understand the characteristics of the two human elements (p. 441)
concerned, the white man and the Negro as individuals.
The basic characteristics of Negro and White are fundamentally
different and these basic differences must be recognized by those
responsible for integration. By trial and error we must test the
integration in its application. These persons who promulgate and
enforce such policies either have not the understanding of the
problem or they do not have the intestinal fortitude to do what
they think if they do understand it. There is no question in my
mind of the inherent difference in races. This is not racism--it
is common sense and understanding. Those who ignore these
differences merely interfere with the combat effectiveness of
battle units.[17-38]

[Footnote 17-37: Memo, Actg CofS for SA, 31 May 51,
sub: Negro Strength in the Army, CS 291.2 Negroes
(11 Apr 51); see also Interv, author with Haislip,
14 Feb 71, CMH files.]

[Footnote 17-38: Incl to Ltr, Almond to CMH, 1 Apr 72,
CMH files.]

The opinions of senior commanders long identified with segregated units in combat carried weight with the middle-ranking staff officers who, lacking such experience, were charged with devising policy. Behind the opinions expressed by many staff members there seemed to be a nebulous, often unspoken, conviction that Negroes did not perform well in combat. The staff officers who saw proof for their convictions in the troubles of the 24th Infantry ignored the possibility that segregated units, not individual soldiers, was the problem. Their attitude explains why the Army continued to delay changes made imperative by its experience in Korea.

It also explains why at this late date the Army turned to the scientific community for still another review of its racial policy. The move originated with the Army's G-3, Maj. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, who in February called for the collection of all information on the Army's experiences with black troops in Korea. If the G-1, General McAuliffe, did not consider the available data sufficient, General Taylor added, he would join in sponsoring further investigation in the Far East.[17-39] The result was two studies. The G-1 sent an Army personnel research team, which left for Korea in April 1951, to study the Army's regulations for assigning men under combat conditions and to consider the performance of integrated units.[17-40] On 29 March, Maj. Gen. Ward S. Maris, the G-4, requested the Operations Research Office, a contract agency for the Army, to make a study of how best to use black manpower in the Army.[17-41] The G-1 investigation, undertaken by manpower experts drawn from several Army offices, concentrated on the views of combat commanders; the contract agency reviewed all available data, including a detailed battlefield survey by social scientists. Both groups submitted preliminary reports in July 1951.

[Footnote 17-39: Memo, ACofS, G-3, for ACofS, G-1, 22
Feb 51, WDGPA 291.2.]

[Footnote 17-40: Memo, Chief, Pers Mgmt Div, G-1, for
CofS, G-3, 6 Mar 51, WDGPA 291.2.]

[Footnote 17-41: Ltr, Maj Gen Ward Maris, G-4, for
Dir, ORO, 29 Mar 51, G-4 291.2. The Operations
Research Office, a subsidiary of the Johns Hopkins
University, performed qualitative and quantitative
analyses of strategy, tactics, and materiel. Some
of its assignments were subcontracted to other
research institutions; all were assigned by the
G-4's Research and Development Division and
coordinated with the Department of Defense.]

Their findings complemented each other. The G-1 team reported that integration of black soldiers into white combat units in Korea had been accomplished generally "without undue friction and with better utilization of manpower." Combat commanders, the team added, "almost unanimously favor integration."[17-42] The individual soldier's own motivation determined his competence, the team concluded. The (p. 442) contract agency, whose report was identified by the code name Project CLEAR,[17-43] observed that large black units were, on average, less reliable than large white units, but the effectiveness of small black units varied widely. The performance of individual black soldiers in integrated units, on the other hand, approximated that of whites. It found that white officers commanding black units tended to attribute their problems to race; those commanding integrated units saw their problems as military ones. The contract team also confirmed previous Army findings that efficient officers and noncommissioned officers, regardless of race, were accepted by soldiers of both races. Integration, it decided, had not lowered white morale, but it had raised black morale. Virtually all black soldiers supported integration, while white soldiers, whatever their private sentiments, were not overtly hostile. In most situations, white attitudes toward integration became more favorable with firsthand experience. Although opinions varied, most combat commanders with integration experience believed that a squad should contain not more than two Negroes. In sum, the Project CLEAR group concluded that segregation hampered the Army's effectiveness while integration increased it. Ironically, this conclusion practically duplicated the verdict of the Army's surveys of the integration of black and white units in Europe at the end of World War II.

[Footnote 17-42: DA Personnel Research Team, "A
Preliminary Report on Personnel Research Data" (ca.
28 Jul 51), AG 333.3.]

[Footnote 17-43: ORO-T-99, "A Preliminary Report on
the Utilization of Negro Manpower," 30 Jun 51,
S4-S6, copy in CMH. A draft version of a more
comprehensive study on the same subject was
prepared in seven volumes (ORO-R-11) in November
1951. These several documents are usually referred
to as Project CLEAR, the code name for the complete
version. The declassification and eventual
publication of this very important social document
had a long and interesting history; see, for
example, Memo, Howard Sacks, Office of the General
Counsel, SA, for James C. Evans, 3 Nov 55, in CMH.
For over a decade a "sanitized" version of Project
CLEAR remained For Official Use Only. The study was
finally cleared and published under the title
_Social Research and the Desegregation of the U.S.
Army_, ed. Leo Bogart (Chicago: Markham, 1969).]

General Collins immediately accepted the Project CLEAR conclusions when presented to him verbally on 23 July 1951.[17-44] His endorsement and the subsequent announcement that the Army would integrate its forces in the Far East implied a connection which did not exist. Actually, the decision to integrate in Korea was made before Project CLEAR or the G-1 study appeared. This is not to denigrate the importance of these documents. Their justification of integration in objective, scientific terms later helped convince Army traditionalists of the need for worldwide change and absolved the Secretary of the Army, his Chief of Staff, and his theater commander of the charge of having made a political and social rather than a military decision.[17-45]

[Footnote 17-44: ORO, "Utilization of Negro Manpower
in the Army: A 1951 Study" (advance draft), pp.
viii-ix, copy in CMH.]

[Footnote 17-45: Ltr, Dir, ORO, to G-3, 20 Nov 52, G-3
291.2; see also Interv, Nichols with Davis.]

_Integration of the Eighth Army_

On 14 May 1951 General Ridgway forced the issue of integration by formally requesting authority to abolish segregation in his command. He would begin with the 24th Infantry, which he wanted to replace after reassigning its men to white units in Korea. He would then integrate the other combat units and, finally, the service units. (p. 443) Where special skills were not a factor Ridgway wanted to assign his black troops throughout the theater to a maximum of 12 percent of any unit. To do this he needed permission to integrate the 40th and 45th Divisions, the federalized National Guard units then stationed in Japan. He based his proposals on the need to maintain the combat effectiveness of his command where segregated units had proved ineffective and integrated units acceptable.[17-46]

[Footnote 17-46: Msg, CINCFE to DA, DA IN 12483, 14
May 51, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the
FEC; ibid., DA IN 13036, 15 May 51, same sub. See
also Ltrs, CG, Eighth Army, to CINCFE, 7 May 51,
sub: Redesignation of Negro Combat Units, and
Ridgway to author, 3 Dec 73, both in CMH.]

When it finally arrived, the proposal for wide-scale integration of combat units encountered no real opposition from the Army staff. General Ridgway had rehearsed his proposal with the G-3 when the latter visited the Far East in April. Taylor "heartily approved," calling the times auspicious for such a move.[17-47] Of course his office quickly approved the plan, and McAuliffe in G-1 and the rest of the staff followed suit. There was some sentiment on the staff, eventually suppressed, for retaining the 24th Infantry as an integrated unit since the statutory requirement for the four black regiments had been repealed in 1950.[17-48] The staff did insist, over the G-1's objections, on postponing the integration of the two National Guard divisions until their arrival in Korea, where the change could be accomplished through normal replacement-rotation procedures.[17-49] There were other minor complications and misunderstandings between the Far East Command and the Army staff over the timing of the order, but they were easily ironed out.[17-50] Collins discussed the plan with the appropriate congressional chairmen, Ridgway further briefed the Secretary of Defense during General Marshall's 1951 visit to Japan, and Secretary of the Army Pace kept the President informed.[17-51]

[Footnote 17-47: Ridgway, _The Korean War_, p. 192.]

[Footnote 17-48: Section 401, Army Organization Act of
1950 (PL 581, 81st Cong.), published in DA Bull 9,
6 Jul 50. See also Msg, DA to CINCFE, DA 92561, 28
May 51; G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS and SA, 14 May
51, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower; Memo for
Rcd, G-1 (ca. 14 May 51). All in G-1 291.2.]

[Footnote 17-49: G-1 Summary Sheets for CofS, 18 and
23 May 51, sub: Utilization of Negro Troops in
FECOM, G-1 291.2. See also Elva Stillwaugh's study,
"Personnel Problems in the Korean Conflict," pp.
26-29, in CMH.]

[Footnote 17-50: See, for example, Msg, DA to CINCFE,
DA 92561, 28 May 51; Msg, CINCFE to DA, C6444, 8
Jun 51.]

[Footnote 17-51: Memo, Actg CofS for SA, 28 May 51,
sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, CS 291.2.]

Pace had succeeded Gordon Gray as secretary in April 1950 and participated in the decisions leading to integration. A Harvard-trained lawyer with impressive managerial skills, Pace did not originate any of the Army's racial programs, but he fully supported the views of his Chief of Staff, General Collins.[17-52] Meeting with his senior civilian assistants, the G-1 and G-3 of the Army, and Assistant Secretary of Defense Rosenberg on 9 June, Pace admitted that their discussions were being conducted "probably with a view to achieving complete integration in the Army." Nevertheless, he stressed a cautionary approach because "once a step was taken it was very much harder to retract." He was particularly worried about the high percentage of black soldiers, 12.5 percent of the Army's total, compared with the percentage of Negroes in the other services. He summarized the three options still under discussion in the Department of the Army: Ridgway's call for complete integration in Korea, followed by integration of Army elements in Japan, with a 10 percent limit (p. 444) on black replacements; Mark Clark's proposal to ship black combat battalions to Korea to be used at the division commanders' discretion, with integration limited to combat-tested individuals and then only in support units; and, finally, the Army staff's decision to continue sending replacements for use as the Far East Command saw fit.

[Footnote 17-52: Interv, author with Collins.]

Commenting on the Ridgway proposal, one participant pointed out that a 10 percent limit on black replacements, even if integration spread to the European Command, would mean that the majority of the Army's Negroes would remain in the United States. Rosenberg, however, preferred the Ridgway plan. Stressing that it was an Army decision and that she was "no crusader," she nevertheless reminded Secretary Pace that the Army needed to show some progress. Rosenberg mentioned the threat of a Congress which might force more drastic measures upon the Army and pointedly offered to defer answering her many congressional inquisitors until the Army reached a decision.[17-53]

[Footnote 17-53: Memo for Rcd, Col James F. Collins,
Asst to ASD (M&P), 9 Jun 51, SD 291.2.]

The decision was finally announced on 1 July 1951. A message went out to General Ridgway approving "deactivation of the 24th Infantry and your general plan for integration of Negroes into all units (with the temporary exception of the 40th and 45th Divisions)."[17-54] The staff wanted the move to be gradual, progressive, and secret to avoid any possible friction in the Eighth Army and to win general acceptance for integration. But it did not remain secret for long. In the face of renewed public criticism for its segregated units and after lengthy staff discussion, the Army announced the integration of the Far East Command on 26 July, the third anniversary of the Truman order.[17-55] Prominent among the critics of the Army's delay was General MacArthur, who publicly blamed President Truman for the continued segregation of his former command. The charge, following as it did the general's dismissal, was much discussed in the press and the Department of Defense. Easily disputed, it was eventually overtaken by the fact of integration.

[Footnote 17-54: Msg, DA to CINCFE, DA 95359, 1 Jul
51.]

[Footnote 17-55: Memo, Chief, Public Info Div, CINFO,
for Dir, Office of Public Info, DOD, 26 Jul 51; DOD
Press Release, 26 Jul 51. For last-minute criticism
of the continued segregation see, for example, Ltr,
Sens. Herbert Lehman and Hubert Humphrey to SecDef,
25 Jul 51; Memo, ASA for ASD (M&P), 19 Jul 51, sub:
Racial Segregation in FECOM; Telg, Elmer W.
Henderson, Dir, American Council on Human Rights,
to George C. Marshall, SecDef, 31 May 51. All in
SecDef 291.2.]

Three problems had to be solved in carrying out the integration (p. 445) order. The first, inactivation of the 24th Infantry and the choice of a replacement, was quickly overcome. From the replacements suggested, Ridgway decided on the 14th Infantry, which had been recently assigned, minus men and equipment, to the Far East Command. It was filled with troops and equipment from the 34th Infantry, then training replacements in Japan. On 1 October it was assigned to the 24th's zone of responsibility in the 25th Division's line. The 24th Infantry, its men and equipment transferred to other infantry units in Korea, was inactivated on 1 October and "transferred to the control of the Department of the Army."[17-56]

[Footnote 17-56: Per Ltr, TAG to CINCFE, 9 Aug 51,
AGAO-I 322 (26 Jul 51), implemented by Eighth Army
GO 717, 22 Sep 51.]