Chapter XI
 
Morale
 
Concern with the importance of high morale to training and utilization of troops was more widespread in World War II than in previous wars.1 Increasingly the War Department realized that success in training and employing Negro troops depended as much upon measures to improve morale as upon attempts to improve leadership and methods of training per se. Efforts to improve the conditions and terms of service of Negro troops, with the hope that their morale and motivation would thereby be improved, were assiduously made after the middle of 1942. These efforts constitute a distinct phase in the story of Negro troop employment in World War II.
 
The sources of low morale among Negro troops were many. Some were similar to those affecting all troops; others were unique. For Negroes, conditions changed on given posts as successive post and unit commanders arrived and departed. The fact that rules and practices applying to Negro troops, to their relations with white troops, and to their use of camp facilities varied so widely from post to post and from time to time on the same post was itself a major contribution to low morale.
 
On a new and unfamiliar post, the first few days could be filled with disturbing questions for the Negro soldier who wished to avoid embarrassment and possibly serious entanglements with local rules and customs. Would he be served if he tried to make a purchase at the main post exchange, or was there a special branch exchange for Negro units? Which theater, which bus stop, which barber shop could he use? Where could he place a long distance call? Which prophylactic station could he use? Was he free to enter the main Red Cross office? The gym? The bowling alley? Would the station cleaning and pressing concessionaire accept his soiled clothing? How would he be received in the nearby camp town? To many Negro soldiers the uncertainty of their status was as damaging to morale as the knowledge of definite restrictions. Rumors and attitudes fostering low morale and disaffection throve under the circumstances. With the racial customs of the average post not clearly defined, new men and units took their cues from older men and units. From the mouths of these oracles came much misinformation about local conditions. From the need for basic facts about post life came much of the predisposition to accept as fact the rumor and gossip that more rationally oriented men, under different circumstances, might have rejected.
 
Negro soldiers, finding a maze of
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Photo: WATCHING A BOXING MATCH AT CAMP CLAIBORNE, LA., 1942
WATCHING A BOXING MATCH AT CAMP CLAIBORNE, LA., 1942
 
shaded meanings in the racial rules of conduct as applied from camp to camp and as viewed against the stated war aims of lecturers who described the reasons for America's participation in the war, found it difficult to assign to themselves acceptable roles in the military and social conflict of which they were a part. The larger effects of the situations in which they found themselves were not, however, nearly so obvious either to Negro troops or to the War Department and its agencies as the physical factors in which these effects were partially rooted. The number of physical disadvantages that Negro soldiers could name to support their convictions as to their relatively unfair status in the Army was legion. But a few recreational facilities, camp-town and soldier-civilian relationships, and transportation -were constant in their bid for primary attention as deterrents to high morale. Since they impinged upon so many areas of related concern, physical facilities and arrangements received considerably more attention than all other obstacles to high morale combined. They were the visible, traditional symbols of close attention to the morale and welfare of enlisted men that the men themselves and their commands, as well as individual civilians and public organizations, brought most frequently to the attention of the War Department and its agencies. The continuing attempts of the War Department and of individual commanders to ameliorate or remove conditions pro-
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ductive of low morale and its concomitants were therefore most frequently directed toward the pragmatic solution of the problem of facilities for soldier recreation and entertainment.
 
Recreational Facilities
 
Early in the period of mobilization judge Hastie inquired about provisions for the welfare and morale of Negro soldiers. He was especially concerned about small units and detachments on posts relatively isolated from large centers of Negro population.2 The Adjutant General, in whose office the Morale Division was then located, replied that his Morale Division was responsible only for supplying facilities. Responsibility for morale remained "distinctly a matter of command from which it cannot be separated." The Morale Division planned to secure funds from Congress to purchase athletic equipment, books, magazines, newspapers, and other recreational equipment for furnishing service clubs, and to pay the salaries of librarians and hostesses. Facilities and funds for welfare and recreational purposes were to be based on organization and strength. Within the limits of their strengths, facilities would be allotted to Negro units on the same basis as they were to all other units:
 
. . . welfare and recreational facilities for colored troops which are a part of a composite garrison will be provided on the same basis as if the colored contingent formed the garrison of a separate camp. At stations where the total strength of the negro complement is comparable to that of a company, facilities will be provided which would normally be provided for a company organization, i.e., company day rooms, etc. As the strength of the colored complement increases to that comparable to a battalion, additional facilities will be provided such as E-2 type Exchange, RB-1 type Recreational Building, and separate chapels will be provided on the basis of one (t) for each 2,000 enlisted personnel or major fraction thereof. As stated in paragraph 6 twenty (20) modified guest houses are approved for small colored groups and each camp situation will have to be decided on its individual merits. Small detachments of colored troops are being given facilities not available to White Garrisons of a corresponding size because of the particular situation, but at the present time it cannot be foreseen to what extent this can be carried.3
 
Adequate and satisfactory physical facilities were not a guarantee of high morale, but they were expected to help In view of units, their absence in others could be a ready contribution to a decline in morale. Among Negro troops, even their presence as substitute facilities gauged to the size of the Negro portion of a command often highlighted differentials between Negro and white troops on the same post. These differentials were many. Though not all of them obtained at every post, enough were a part of the military experiences of Negro soldiers at most posts to affect markedly their morale and their approach to the terms of their service.
 
The housing policy had often assigned Negro soldiers the less choice sites on posts, removed them from the center of post activities, and left them far from
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well-stocked exchanges, field houses, post transportation lines, and welfare agencies. On every large post some troops, white and Negro, would normally be at a disadvantage in this respect, but Negro troops sometimes concluded that their removal from proximity to main post areas was a general and approved Army policy, designed to prevent their use of main post facilities and prevent direct contact between them and white troops.
 
Because recreational facilities were provided on the basis of the number of men who would use them, Negro service clubs and recreation halls were often too small to provide for more than a few activities at a time.4 The smaller Negro units, often crowded into areas not planned for such use, frequently lacked normal day room space. The guest house might be identical with the one or more provided for white troops, but nevertheless it might be inadequate for the accommodation of visiting parents, wives, and sweethearts for whom it was provided. For even when camps were located near towns with sizable Negro populations, available private lodgings of a quality approaching that of a camp's guest house were usually limited. Most boarding facilities in nearby towns were already occupied by the resident families of enlisted men, since as late comers in a time of general shortages, few Negroes were able to obtain family quarters on the average post. The guest houses, therefore, were often crowded beyond capacity. The service club hostess, often serving as social director, librarian, and cafeteria manager of the club-in many instances, the club had not been expected to serve enough troops to require more than one or two professional workers-had the additional problem of fitting excess numbers of visitors into the limited space available in the guest house.
 
As the Negro strength of certain posts grew, the provision of planned facilities could not keep pace with the growth of commands. After June 1942, when restrictions were placed on construction not considered necessary to the health and training of a command, it became increasingly difficult to provide additional facilities. Motion picture theaters, recreation halls, and guest houses were the chief sufferers. At Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for example, only six rooms were available for the use of guests of a garrison of 2,500 Negro soldiers. At Camp Wolters, Texas, the guest house was also inadequate. In both instances, The Inspector General recommended additional facilities as morale factors, but neither recommendation could be approved because of the new construction policy.5
 
From the beginning of the program for the construction of recreational facilities, murmurs of protest against the specific designation of facilities by race began to filter into the War Department. The protests came most frequently from residents of those states that had anti-discrimination laws and customs. On 15
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August 1942, the commanding generals of service commands and the Chief of Engineers were directed to cease providing recreational facilities at posts, camps, and stations "where the garrison is preponderantly colored, and both white and colored officers are on duty with the same units," with instructions "explicit or implied" that the facilities were for the exclusive use of either races 6 This directive affected very few stations, primarily Fort Huachuca and Tuskegee Army Flying School, and at those stations affected the local commanders, as distinct from service commanders and the Engineers, could still designate facilities by race at their discretion. The scarcity of facilities for Negroes therefore continued in most camps where specific provisions for Negro troops had not been planned.
 
Separate facilities by race, though not a part of the announced Army policy, were an extension of the announced policy of separate units by race. The Special Service Division, which was charged with the provision and, later, with training and furnishing officers and civilians for the operation of recreational facilities, concluded from surveys made in May and September 1942 that most white soldiers favored some form of segregation policy.7 On the basis of a separate survey in May 1942 of Air Forces enlisted men, members of a service which at that time had barely begun to use Negro manpower in any form, the Special Service Division reported that while only one in ten Air Forces soldiers opposed the idea of training Negroes as pilots, bombardiers, and navigators, "Northerners and Southerners tend to agree that the Negro should be segregated as a matter of Army policy." However, the division pointed out, "They tend to disagree on willingness to work personally alongside the Negro. Two-thirds from the North are willing, two-thirds from the South are not willing." 8
 
For the purposes of support of existing policy, the results of these surveys appeared to be convincing evidence of the need for continuing separate facilities and units. At a meeting in December 1942, of the commanding generals of service commands, with whom control of most posts rested, Brig. Gen. Frederick H. Osborn, director of the Special Service Division, observed:
 
I think that the results of this study are sufficient evidence of the wisdom of the policy of the Army in segregating Negro and white troops. It is perfectly evident this and the following page make it perfectly evident-that if you dropped the general policy of segregation and forced white and Negro troops together in the same units, you would build up friction which you couldn't handle. That would seem to be the meaning of these reports. At the same time, as you see, there is a considerable and very fine recognition of the right of Negroes to be trained in even the highest and most skilled services, such as pilots.9
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A second survey, covering both Negro and white soldier attitudes, was completed in March 1943. This time, 13,000 Negro and white men from 92 organizations were asked differently phrased questions.10 "Do you think it is a good idea or a poor idea for Negro and white soldiers to have separate service clubs in Army camps?" the soldiers were asked. Forty-eight percent of the Negro soldiers and 85 percent of the white soldiers replied that it was a good idea; 13 percent of the Negroes and 6 percent of the whites were undecided; and 39 percent of the Negroes and 9 percent of the whites thought it a poor idea. To the question, "Do you think it is a good idea or a poor idea for white and Negro soldiers to have separate PX's in Army camps?" 40 percent of the Negro and 81 percent of the white soldiers thought it a good idea; 12 percent of the Negroes and 8 percent of the whites were undecided; and 48 percent of the Negro soldiers and 1o percent of the whites thought it a poor idea. To the question, "do you think white and Negro soldiers should be in separate outfits or should they be together in the same outfits?" 38 percent of the Negro and 88 percent of the white soldiers thought that they should be in separate outfits; 26 percent of the Negro and 9 percent of the white soldiers said that it made no difference or they were undecided; while 36 percent of the Negro and 3 percent of the whites checked a preference for the same outfits.
 
As the Special Service Division phrased it, " a minority of Negro soldiers -but a substantial minority, from thirty-eight to forty-eight percent-say they consider some form of separation a good idea." But this time the division added in its published report: "Many of the Negroes and some of the whites who favor separation in the Army indicate by their comments that they are opposed to segregation in Principle. They favor separation in the Army to avoid trouble or unpleasantness arising from race Prejudice. This point is most often made in connection with service clubs, where social relations are most important. Negroes who oppose segregation in the Army indicate most frequently that their reasons are related to the idea that we are fighting for democracy and equality." The report added that the longer a Negro served in the Army, the less likely he was to favor separation of the races, and that Southern Negroes with the least
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education were most likely to favor racial separation in the Army.11
 
While the full significance of these last two statements as a guide to future planning for the employment of Negro troops may have been lost, the validity of the statements was amply demonstrated before the close of the war. To the surprise of some inspectors, Southern Negroes of relatively long service often turned out to be the chief complainants in investigations of charges of discrimination conducted during the last half of the war. Northern Negroes of considerable education were early and continuously credited with being the chief sources of dissatisfaction in many Negro units. Judge Patterson's remark in the War Council that in his opinion the illiterate Negro would probably make a better soldier than the educated Negro 12 was a direct reflection of the feeling, gaining ground as the dissatisfaction of Negro soldiers increased, that better educated Negroes were less likely to adjust well to Army life and that they caused more trouble than their numbers in the nation's manpower warranted.
 
In many instances the desires of Negro troops were not for the more elaborate forms of recreational facilities, though their provision for neighboring white troops and not for Negroes continued to be a source of resentment. Sometimes, lacking any facilities at all, Negro troops simply wished for a place to gather. The noncommissioned officers attending the first classes of the Air Forces' Venereal Disease Control School at Tuskegee Army Flying School in June 1943 expressed an interest in two problems related to but not specifically a part of their course of instruction:
 
One was the undesirable conditions of vice prevailing in many negro civilian communities, and the other was the inadequacy or even complete lack of recreational facilities for negro troops at many Army Air Forces bases. It is of interest to note that these criticisms of recreational facilities stemmed from practically every command represented (Second Air Force, Third Air Force, Air Service Command, Proving Ground Command, School of Applied Tactics, Gulf Coast Training Center and West Coast Training Center) except the Southeast Training Center, which is reported to have a colored recreation center (combined chapel, recreation room and theater, RBCA-T-, one story, 37' x 108') on nearly all its installations. Their desires were not for swimming pools and bowling alleys, but for some building, some center, that might serve as a nucleus of recreational activities. The opinions of this group of intelligent colored men regarding the recreational needs of negro soldiers cannot be overlooked in the consideration of the possible adjuncts to medical measures for venereal disease control.13
 
Less obvious discriminatory items also drew comments from Negro troops. The
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condition and time for the issuance of equipment, the paving or graveling of roads and walks in the Negro areas ("We improve an area and then they move us farther out and we improve that one" was a common complaint of Negro troops in the new camps in the first years of mobilization), and the apportionment of post duties were all additional grounds for complaint at various times and in various places.
 
Negro units with athletic teams or posts with all Negro teams-and organized athletics were encouraged on many posts to reduce the pull of the camp town as well as for physical conditioning and recreation-sometimes found their morale lowered rather than rasied by virtue of having teams. Free time in gymnasiums or on athletic fields that were not used simultaneously by Negro and white soldiers was often at a premium. On posts where sanction for matches between Negro and white teams was not freely given, it was hard to find a team to oppose. Many a Negro athletic team found its opponents among state reform school and penitentiary Negro teams or in distant as well as nearby Negro high school, college, or other Army post teams. The post championship football team might not have played a Negro team at all. As the war went on, this situation changed gradually. Athletic competitions became one of the chief contributions to morale. Posts such as Fort Lewis, Washington, Fort Dix, New Jersey, and Camp Lee, Virginia, organized post-wide leagues and used Negro players on post football, baseball, boxing, and basketball teams. The Army-wide exhibition tour of Joe Louis in 1943 and 1944, in which the heavyweight champion, then a sergeant,
 
boxed not only with members of his own traveling troupe but also with various local and unit champions, white and Negro, helped broaden the base of athletic competition on many posts.
 
In religion and in the arts as well, contrasts unfavorable to Negro troops were sources of irritation. On large, otherwise well-equipped stations, chapel, motion picture house, gymnasium, and recreation hall might be in one building in the Negro section of a camp, complicating the scheduling of activities. Traveling shows from the United Services Organization (Camp Shows, Inc.) , visiting sports celebrities, lecturers, and concert artists might perform for Negroes in mess halls or buildings converted for the purpose while the main body of the post enjoyed them in the central post theater, field house, or chapel. "Special arrangements," usually consisting of a block of reserved seats, were sometimes made for Negro troops in the main post theater on the occasion of performances scheduled by particularly outstanding Negro and sometimes white celebrities, but it is difficult to say whether these arrangements helped or hindered the morale of Negro soldiers. Sometimes word of these special arrangements did not reach Negro troops in time for them to take advantage of them; at other times, troops made no attempt to do so. One Negro celebrity, the singer Lena Horne, concluded a tour of Army posts in anger because arrangements were such at one post that she was scheduled to perform for Negro troops at a noon mess where German prisoners of war, she felt, had better opportunities to hear her than the Negro soldiers, while her scheduled performance at the main post theater had
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had few white and no Negro soldiers present. 14
 
An obvious means of insuring more adequate facilities for Negro troops on posts was to broaden the use of existing facilities. It was hoped that such a procedure would lessen the need for Negro soldiers to frequent neighboring and often unfriendly towns for recreational purposes and thereby reduce opportunities for interracial friction off post. Since much of the morale problem was occasioned by recreational facilities designated "Colored" or "White," one of the difficulties could be solved by directing the removal of such designations and arranging for other methods of use.
 
Accordingly, the 15 August 1942 directive, which had forbidden the construction of racially designated facilities on any post with a majority of Negro soldiers and both white and Negro officers, was rescinded. A new directive, forbidding the designation of any recreational facilities "including theaters and post exchanges" by race, was issued on 10 March 1943. "Where necessary, recreational facilities may be allocated to organizations in whole or in part, permanently or on a rotation basis, provided care is taken that all units and personnel are afforded equal opportunity to enjoy such facilities," the directive read.15
 
This directive required the removal of remaining "White" and "Colored" signs in the designation of facilities and required, if but one recreational facility of its type existed on a post, that arrangements be made for its use by troops of all units, and therefore of both races. It did not, however, abrogate the policy of providing facilities for Negroes as though they constituted a separate post, 16 nor did it alter the policy of separate use of existing facilities.
 
Use of facilities by designated units and areas now took the place of use by designated races. What had been the Colored Service Club now became Service Club No. 2, or whatever other number was assigned it; what had been the Colored Area Exchange now received a branch number or a named area designation. In some cases, the Negro club or theater was designated Number I to avoid the implication of its being a second-class establishment. In others, the theater serving the Negro area received and showed motion pictures first for the same reason, as well as to avoid attendance at the main post theater on the ground that the current movie had not yet been scheduled in the Negro area. On many posts, however, the directive requiring the removal of racial designations from facilities was not honored; for many months inspectors reported unfavorably on the continued use of racial designations for facilities. Moreover, the directive did not succeed in producing sufficient changes in the use of facilities to alter appreciably either the recreational situation or its morale consequences among Negro soldiers. The letter had been phrased in such general
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terms that only the commander who wanted official backing for local changes was influenced by it. But the directive did establish the principle that Negro troops were to be given the opportunity to use all existing facilities provided for the welfare and recreation of soldiers.
 
Camp Towns
 
No such principle could be established by War Department directive in camp towns, where recreational facilities for Negro troops were often far less adequate and more segregated than on posts. Since most Army camps were located in the South and Southwest, most Negro troops were stationed in camps whose neighboring civilian communities had definite laws and customs regulating relations between Negroes and the white civilian population. Except when near the largest towns, most camps of the North and Northwest were in areas that had practically no Negro population. Nearby Negro communities, sometimes small and often economically depressed whether North or South, usually offered little to soldiers in the way of wholesome recreation. Civilians and local law enforcement agencies seldom welcomed Negro soldiers either with open arms or with disinterested forbearance. But the pull of the towns, even when conditions in them were unfavorable, was strong. Not only did the towns mean release from camp discipline and duties, but if they had any Negro population at all, they also meant associations on a social level usually nonexistent in the camps.
 
Except for the well-meaning but often ineffective efforts of church groups, most camp towns made few plans for Negro soldiers before circumstances produced undesirable results. It was often debatable whether what most towns offered was not more detrimental than advantageous to soldiers. Most camp towns, if they had a Negro business or recreational district, had so restricted it that it was either one with or contiguous to the local vice district. Often the Negro USO club, placed in the only available building, was some distance from the Negro business and recreational areas or was otherwise inconveniently located away from main transportation lines. The one or two restaurants and movie houses serving Negroes in the entire town were very likely to be in the heart of a prostitution district. Bars, when they existed legally, were often centers of vice and criminality. In one town, of the five Negro restaurants available, all were judged "Absolutely filthy and insanitary in every respect." 17 In another, practically every place-the Chat & Chew Cafe, Pete's Place, the Life Saver's Cafe, Squeeze Inn, Jean's Tavern, Angamama Restaurant, the Blue Bonnet Hotel, and the Dunbar Hotel turned up constantly as a point of procurement leading to venereal contacts.
 
The difference between facilities in large and small towns was not great in quality, but the small towns had the additional disadvantage of being even more bleak and uninviting than the larger ones. While the large towns had poor facilities, the small ones had virtually none. The only nearby community available to Negro troops stationed
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at one post was described by an inspecting officer:
 
The colored section of the city of Pampa, "The Flats," is approximately five short blocks by two, the population is about 400; this in addition to the 15,000 white persons in the city. The majority of those living in "The Flats" are married. It appears that they would just as soon not have too many of the colored enlisted men "hanging around," especially when the male members of such homes are absent. There is a colored U.S.O. in "The Flats," one room approximately 30 feet by 100 feet. The colored soldiers who take pride in their appearance would hesitate before going through several inches of mud to the USO in inclement weather. There are very few colored girls with whom the colored soldiers may associate. In some instances, the Commanding Officer of Pampa Army Air Field arranged for bus transportation with appropriate chaperons to bring girls from Amarillo and other surrounding towns, in order to attend dances at the colored service club. There is one colored taxicab company, "The Brooks" taxicab company, which is run by the proprietor of the colored hotel (The Brooks). The rate from Pampa, Texas, to Pampa Army Air Field, a distance of 14 miles, is $2.50, one way. There are no motion picture shows in the City of Pampa, for colored persons. In "The Flats" there is one grocery store, and one Cafe, the "Busy Bee." 18
 
To the enlisted men at the field, the town and post recreation situations were part of a continuous pattern. One soldier characterized the spare time activities of the men of the post located near the town described above:
 
The only form of amusement we have on the Field is to go to the theatre. We do have our own service club here on the Field. The club is quite adequate to meet any needs we might have but we have no drawing card. I wouldn't advocate dances because of the fact that being where we are there is nobody to invite. We do not have movies in the service club. We have no cafeteria but on two occasions we have had hot cocoa and doughnuts. On these two occasions we didn't have post support but I understand that all of the equipment is provided by the Post Welfare Fund. The facilities are adequate but in Pampa it is just that we have nobody to invite to the service club. The colored section is small and you don't find the type that would be suitable.
 
The post theatre is about our only form of amusement but attending the movies is good recreation. I think the section that is set aside for our organization is adequate but it is jammed every night because of the way our boys work. Most of our men are assigned to the mess halls. They are off one day and on one day. There are never more than half of our men off at one time. The men get to see all the movies because they usually show two days ....
 
We have a separate USO in town. The building itself is very nice. Very few go there because it is not properly managed. Two civilians from town are in charge. They are colored. They tell the boys to come over and write letters. Why spend thirty-five cents to write a letter? There is no attraction.19
 
Most towns, large and small, had no adequate recreational facilities for Negroes, as they often pointed out in requests to the War Department that Negro soldiers be moved elsewhere.20 Nor were most towns convinced that it was a practical expenditure on their part to help provide such facilities. Often, service groups found it difficult to rent
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acceptable buildings for use as a club for Negro troops. "Civic groups will frequently bestir themselves with 'drives' to provide a Cadet Club, but are not receptive to suggestions for a similar facility for colored troops," the Air Forces found from experience. "Often the only available gathering places for Negro troops in the community adjacent to the bases are juke-joints and taverns, strictly at the 'dive' level. [Illustrating] the acuteness of this situation is the comment of a Negro soldier at one station, when the possibility was suggested of placing two such places in the nearby community off-limits. He remarked that `Then we just wouldn't have no place to go.' " 21
 
The one advantage of the larger towns with a sizable Negro population was that such towns might be better organized to provide for the needs of Negro soldiers. In any event, the Negro population might, through its local leaders, seek to protect soldiers from the abuses that were relatively more common in many of the small towns. The larger towns were more likely to have a sense of the civic need of avoiding racial difficulties growing out of relations between town police and other officials and soldiers on pass; municipal administrations were more likely to attempt correctives when requested by civilian or military agencies. In exceptional instances, the Negro population of the larger towns cooperated to obtain more wholesome recreation for Negro soldiers than the town normally provided. The USO and the Special Services Division, ASF, in co-operation with the Federal Security Agency and the Office of Defense Health and Welfare Services, sought to help such communities in planning activities for Negro troops.
 
While the relations of Negro troops and surrounding communities varied with the size of the towns to which the soldiers had access, a more important factor was the attitude of the towns to the presence of Negroes in uniform. Troops located near cities such as Boston or Tacoma, Washington, without a considerable Negro population, but with a modicum of recreational facilities available and with local authorities and commercial interests that were not particularly inhospitable to Negroes, had few complaints. Troops near cities such as Berkeley and Oakland, California, where the city administration and police were co-operative with the command, had fewer venereal and disciplinary problems. Troops located near cities such as Little Rock, Arkansas, or Savannah, Georgia, with sizable Negro populations but few facilities and strained relations in any of the' many areas of civilian or military racial tension, might abandon many of their complaints upon improvement in facilities or in race relations. But troops located near towns like Spokane, Denver, Battle Creek, or small New England towns in which there were few Negroes and small accommodation to the presence of Negro soldiers, might suffer both from the lack of recreational outlets and from the absence of a congenial Negro population. In these cases morale and discipline might decline as readily as in areas where overt segregation and discrimination were a part of the accustomed pat-
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tern. The primary rules laid down as a guide to the location of Negro troops that they be near centers of Negro population and near towns which already had facilities available to them-were therefore generally adequate, and the absence of one or the other might not be too important, The absence of both usually portended morale difficulties.
 
The All-Negro Posts
 
At times these yardsticks, when applied to what seemed to be nearly ideal situations, were less than accurate. The Site Board for the location of a flying school for Negroes thought it had solved the difficult location problem for an all-Negro post 22 when it recommended a site fifteen miles from Tuskegee, Alabama. Under the heading, "General Suitability for Air Corps Station," it wrote:
 
The close proximity of Tuskegee Institute makes this site ideal for the training of Negroes, since that Institute furnishes many precepts and examples in conduct and attitude. It is a center of Negro learning and culture, and it has temporary accommodations for Negro personnel. Further it is an Institute whose leaders exert great influence in the affairs of the Negro race.
 
The County of Macon in which Tuskegee Institute is situated is predominantly Negro, and a Negro flying field is welcomed by the community.
 
Tuskegee is predominantly white, while the Tuskegee Institute is naturally entirely a Negro community. This condition would assist largely in handling the problem of segregation.
 
But, as the white officer historian of the Tuskegee station observed, these beliefs "may be considered the beginning of the lack of understanding relative to this station." 23
 
While it guaranteed to the infant field the close administrative co-operation of nearby Tuskegee Institute, whose officials had urged the acceptance of a site in the school's vicinity, the location did not come close to producing the ideal environment that the Site Board had envisioned. The very fact that Macon County was predominantly Negro and the site of the institute as well as of a Veterans' Administration hospital militated against the full welcome of yet another Negro installation by the population of Tuskegee and the surrounding countryside. Negro members of the school's staff and residents of the institute area were disturbed by the threatened disruption of their accustomed manner of living. White citizens feared the sudden influx of Negroes- Northern Negroes to be trained in the use of arms at that. Townspeople, Negro and white, resented the spending ability of soldiers crowding into the few shops and restaurants available. Institute authorities soon let it be known that they did not favor enlisted men showing attentions to female students, thus closing off, or at least making more difficult, one of the major expected advantages of the location- the provision of a social outlet for the soldiers of the field. The male students at the institute resented the appearance of the field's soldiers on their campus. Messing on contractual ar-
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rangements with the institute caused further strained relations. The mess hall often closed early, little food was left for the last men, and the food served was poor by Army standards. The expected living accommodations turned out to be twelve apartments, nine houses, and one hotel of forty-three rooms for whites. For Negroes there were nine houses for rent and Dorothy Hall, the school's dormitory for visitors. The rapidly increasing profiteering on rental quarters, indulged in by landlords, mainly Negro, some of whom were no less rapacious than the more widely publicized landlords of urban Negro slum districts and of other unfavorably located Army towns, did not help relations between town and post.
 
Nor was the complete segregation between white and Negro communities of particular aid to the field. The presence of the institute, coupled with the soldiers' knowledge of the part it had played in securing the location of the field in its vicinity, served to alienate further those men at the Flying School, most of them from the North and most of them of better than average education, who saw in the institute a living symbol of entrenched advantage gained from segregation and a subtle supporter of segregation on the airfield itself. The presence of the institute in its relation to segregation and discrimination did not lessen racial friction either on the field or in the town.
 
In some ways, the proximity of the institute heightened racial tensions both among soldiers and among white civilians. The long experience of institute area residents in the latent racial frictions and animosities of the region, when communicated to the soldiers, heightened the apprehensions of men whose contacts with the area were new. Viewing the collaboration of the institute and the air base with alarm arising from the belief that the institute might have found a valuable ally in the soldiers of the airfield, local whites had old fears renewed. The early racial disturbance at Tuskegee was an outgrowth of this interplay of fears and friction.
 
But if the location of the Air Forces' all-Negro post at Tuskegee did not meet all the suitability standards expected, the location of the Ground Forces' all-Negro post at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, was even less inspired from the point of view of camp-town relations. Soldiers from Tuskegee Army Air Field, when they found little in the town of Tuskegee, could go to Montgomery, forty miles away, or to Atlanta, about a hundred miles farther away. Citizens of nearby Tuskegee and of Montgomery, and the staffs of the Negro schools located in the two towns attempted, through USO, social, athletic, and other activities, to ease the difficult recreation problem in the area. Negro colleges and community organizations as far away as Atlanta helped the field solve its recreational problems. But there was no town near Fort Huachuca to care for a garrison that was much larger than Tuskegee's. Distances in Arizona were greater than in the east, and after they were covered soldiers often had arrived at no better a destination than if they had not gone so far. The larger Arizona communities within reach of the post-Tucson, Phoenix, Bisbee- soon tired of the visits of Fort Huachuca soldiers. One by one they became increasingly inhospitable,
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with some of them eventually banned to all Negro soldiers save those whose relatives resided in the towns.24 Fort Huachuca was, moreover, heir to Fry which, as previously described, had little to offer troops aside from prostitution and a large USO club.
 
With the help of Truman Gibson, Jr., assistant to the Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War, Col. Edwin N. Hardy, the post commander, encouraged private Negro capital from Chicago to invest in the improvement of Fry. Thus Colonel Hardy hoped to establish "a large amusement hall which will provide for dancing, drinking (nothing stronger than beer), skating, shooting galleries, restaurants, music, etc. Girls would be available to serve soldiers, dance with them, and put on floor Shows." 25 Eventually, he hoped, private capital would construct a residential district with housing for the fluctuating Negro population, both military and civilian. Fry did acquire its amusement casino, known locally as the Green Top, but it was never "brought up to proper standards of sanitation and genteel conditions in other respects" as the colonel had hoped.
 
The existence of Fry and the absence of a Negro population in surrounding towns were not the only differences between Fort Huachuca and other posts at which Negro troops were located, nor between it and Tuskegee. Tuskegee was a new station where the discomforts inherent in the establishment of a new camp were shared by all personnel stationed there, officers and enlisted men, Negroes and whites alike. Fort Huachuca, on the other hand, was an old, established post for which a new training cantonment alone had to be constructed. Tuskegee was a post constructed primarily for the training of Negroes, while Huachuca, though used for that purpose entirely, could have been transferred at any time to the training of any units other than the two Negro divisions successively located there. At Tuskegee all facilities were constructed and geared to the needs of a small post whose population was, from the beginning, scheduled to become, eventually, almost entirely Negro. Fort Huachuca had no such intimations. At Tuskegee, therefore, there was but one station hospital, one post exchange, one set of officers' quarters, one system of messes, one set of barracks and quarters for civilian employees, one movie, one service club. Though there was some dissatisfaction on the part of Negro personnel that the post exchange restaurant at Tuskegee was divided racially during most of the war and though signs bearing racial designations at one time made their appearance, Negroes at Tuskegee had few immediate reminders of segregation policies. It was clear that whatever was on the post was primarily for their use. The disadvantages of segregation, as it related to the provision of facilities, were almost entirely on the side of the white officer and enlisted personnel at Tuskegee, as that station's intelligence officer continuously pointed out in suc-
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cessive installments of his historical reports.26
 
At Fort Huachuca, on the other hand, duplicate facilities were the rule: two complete station hospitals, one with a full white and the other with a full Negro staff; two sets of civilian quarters; a pair of officers' clubs; and so forth. While white officers and enlisted men at Tuskegee complained of having to travel to Auburn over bad roads in order to find acceptable living quarters, Negro officers and enlisted men had similar complaints at Fort Huachuca about towns as far away as Tucson and Phoenix.
 
Both of the all-Negro posts recognized many of the problems of their isolation, greater in the case of the one than the other but felt in both, and of their relationships with the surrounding civilian communities. Both tried, therefore, to exploit to the fullest the advantages of on-post recreation in order to reduce the pull of the towns. Tuskegee, the first of the wartime flying schools to obtain authorization for a service club, maintained a prodigious schedule of on-post activities, a schedule which often won commendation from inspectors for the post's special service and athletic personnel. Both posts received close attention from the prominent Negro performers of the USO's and Camp Shows' circuits. Often performers and bands playing in nearby cities would make special, unscheduled trips to these posts, both to perform for and to visit with the soldiers there. Fort Huachuca, in addition to a full complement of recreational facilities, had the only full-time Theater (theatrical production) and Education officers assigned to an individual post in the Army.27 If recreation had been the key to morale in relation to training, the Negro soldiers of Fort Huachuca and Tuskegee, who received greater attention in this area than the Negro troops at most other stations, should have had the highest morale in the Army. Actually Negro soldiers at both posts shared more of the problems of other Negro soldiers than they missed by being stationed at their all-Negro posts.
 
Transportation
 
One of these problems, transportation, was administratively more difficult than most for the Army to handle. It involved different modes of travel, varying state and local laws and customs, and, above all, negotiations with commercial firms whose facilities were, at best, heavily taxed by wartime travel and whose patience was equally taxed by local and federal restrictions on the use of equipment and on the extent of services. Here, both on posts and in towns, Negro soldiers came into frequent contact with law enforcement agencies and men who, as bus drivers and train conductors, carried the weight of law enforcement of-
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ficials in the observance of local laws and customs and in the control of the discipline of their passengers while on trips. At loading points conflict between soldiers and civilians was frequent. In addition, the presence of military and civilian policemen on the trains and buses sometimes led to clashes, serious and trivial, verbal and physical, which made transportation a key point of racial tension. Because transportation was a problem of varying proportions, depending largely upon local laws and ordinances, neither its full dimensions nor it solution was readily apparent to the War Department.
 
In rail transportation, there were fewer chances for difficulties than in bus travel, for individual soldiers used trains less frequently than they used the buses that connected posts with nearby towns and cities. Rail transportation was important, however, not only for individual furloughs home but also for the official shipment of troops and individuals transferring from post to post. Its general problems came to the attention of the Army as soon as considerable numbers of troops began to move back and forth across the country on new duty assignments. It became, therefore, in the earlier months of mobilization, one of the more vexing War Department administrative as well as command problems arising out of the increased use of Negro troops.
 
The problem divided itself into two phases: the adequacy of coach facilities and the use of pullman facilities. Dining cars and arrangements for meals en route shared in the latter problem. All were affected by the laws of states through which the trains passed. Administrative decisions therefore depended in large part upon the state of and interpretation of laws affecting the subject of rail travel by Negroes.
 
Rail transportation south of the Missouri-Ohio-Potomac line had long been a major source of complaint from Negroes who had to travel considerable distances. All that the words segregation and discrimination implied was conjured up by the term "Jim Crow car." The Jim Crow cars were not infrequently the least well-kept of a given train's coaches; often a half coach only, occupying part of a baggage or smoking car, was designated for Negro passengers. Since all Negroes riding a given train were expected to use it, the "colored coach" was sometimes crowded while cars immediately behind were less than full. To the Negro soldier one of the more tangible evidences of entrance into the South was the direction to change at Washington to the colored coach at the front of southbound trains .28 One Negro soldier remarked: "I hate Washington even if it is the capital of the country; there you have to change to Jim Crow cars and then you know what kind of country you've got." 29 Negroes generally argued that the Jim Crow car was always "separate" but never "equal."
 
Negro passengers seeking to ride first class were so few before the war that no separate pullman accommodations were made available to them except in cases of group travel when cars might be chartered; to the passenger
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who insisted on purchasing a first class ticket in those larger cities where they were sold to Negroes, the standard practice of the railroads was to assign a room or compartment for the price of a berth.30 With the beginning of mobilization and the tremendous increase of rail traffic, rooms as well as all other space began to acquire premium value at the same time that Negro and white civilian and military requests for first class space on trains rose sharply.
 
Early in the period of mobilization the War Department began to receive requests for directions on the shipment of groups of soldiers by rail. Shipments too small to require the use of troop trains were usually sent on government transportation requests as individuals or as a group under the control of a commissioned or noncommissioned officer. Many post transportation officers were uncertain whether or not to issue to Negroes transportation requests calling for first class travel, despite the fact that Army Regulations provided that noncommissioned officers traveling individually or in parties of nine or less be furnished lower berths at public expense.31 In April 1941, Sgt. Floyd N. Alexander, traveling from Fort Huachuca, Arizona, to Fort Meade, Maryland, under orders as the noncommissioned assistant to the officer in charge of a group of selectees who had been transferred from Meade to Huachuca, was refused pullman accommodations on the way back through Texas. At Seneca, Missouri, Sergeant Alexander was awakened and given a pullman berth. The 1302d Service Unit, the headquarters unit of which Sergeant Alexander was a member, asked for guidance for future situations of a similar nature. 32
 
A few days before Sergeant Alexander departed from Fort Huachuca, the Supreme Court had handed down its decision in the Mitchell case in which the circumstances were similar.33 In this case, involving Congressman Arthur Mitchell of Illinois, the court held that Negroes purchasing first class tickets must be furnished equal comfort and convenience. This decision, plus the Army Regulations concerning official travel of noncommissioned officers of the first three grades, caused the judge Advocate General's Office to rule that "the refusal of the railroad concerned to honor the Government's transportation request for such accommodations in Sergeant Alexander's case constitutes a clear violation of the law as announced in the Mitchell case" and that as long as regulations remained unchanged noncommissioned officers "are entitled to the prescribed accommodations without discrimination and the railroads are bound to furnish such accommodations, when available, without discrimination." 34 The Quartermaster General, whose office was responsible for military travel, then requested the American Association of Railroads to take meas-
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ures to prevent "further unlawful discriminations." 35
 
The matter of railroad transportation of Negro military personnel was not, however, so easily concluded. Before The Quartermaster General's request could be forwarded, Arthur H. Gass, Manager of the Association of American Railroads, Military Transportation Section, received a request from the General Superintendent of the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad Company that another situation be "handled." On 8 July 1941 four Negro second lieutenants, on their way from Fort Ontario, New York, to Fort Eustis, Virginia, for temporary training duty, had been directed to move to the Negro coach at Washington. When the conductor returned to their coach, he found them still seated there. Despite arguments from the conductor and a railroad agent, they continued into Richmond without moving. "We feel these men should comply with the State Law, in moving in regular passenger trains and we would thank you to give it such handling as you deem proper," the railroad's superintendent stated.36 Gass felt that the officers, since they would be returning from Fort Eustis at the completion of their training, should be instructed to comply with the state law. The Office of the Quartermaster General referred the request to The Adjutant General for action and for reference to judge Hastie.37 The Adjutant General sent the case to the judge Advocate General's Office for an opinion.
 
This case, the judge Advocate General's Office decided, differed from the Alexander case. "Upon the assumption that the accommodations provided for these colored passengers were in fact equal to those furnished white persons, the situation presented in this case is one of segregation rather than one of discrimination," the judge Advocate wrote. "As to discrimination, the law is clear that there is a duty of the carrier to provide equality of transportation facilities," the opinion continued, citing the Mitchell case. There was no federal statute in conflict with the laws of Virginia pertaining to segregation, and the railroad was acting within its rights, the judge Advocate concluded. He recommended that the officers be informed of their "obligations in this regard" and concurred in the recommendation that the matter be referred to judge Hastie "as the issue here considered may have been misunderstood in view of recent decisions." 38
 
Hastie did not agree with the judge Advocate's opinion. "The Virginia State Segregation Law," he wrote, "has no valid application to the officers in question because they were traveling in interstate commerce." The principal cases cited by the judge Advocate in support of the constitutionality of the state laws were, he continued, "explicit in limiting their application to travel in
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intrastate commerce." 39 In a further comment, the judge Advocate agreed that there was some judicial authority on both sides of the question of the constitutionality of state segregation laws in interstate commerce, but added that "all are agreed that the carrier may, if it furnishes equal accommodations and does not discriminate therein, establish rules requiring segregation of white and colored passengers." The Judge Advocate concluded that: "Although the validity of the Virginia State segregation law as applied to passengers in interstate commerce may not be free from doubt, nevertheless, until the law is declared by a court of competent jurisdiction to be inoperative when directed to such passengers, officers of the Army traveling without troops should comply with its provisions, and in any event, should comply with such regulations to the same effect as have been adopted by the carrier for the conduct of its passengers." 40
 
Hastie again disagreed. Since there was a "considerable body of authority to the effect that passengers in interstate commerce are not subject to state segregation laws," he wrote, "it is believed that this Department should not acquiesce in the application of such laws to Army personnel travelling in interstate commerce but rather should obtain the opinion of the Attorney General on the issue in question." The Attorney General should also be asked to comment on the circumstances under which military personnel in interstate commerce were subject to the segregation regulations of carriers .41 The Judge Advocate General had also requested that an expression of opinion be obtained from the Attorney General. Accordingly, The Adjutant General wrote a letter of inquiry to the Attorney General for Secretary Stimson's signature.42
 
In the meantime the railroads in the ten states having rail segregation laws had instructed their operating forces, by individual action following the Mitchell decision, that requests for Pullman accommodations from a Negro passenger, either civilian or military, on an interstate journey would be filled if space was available. "In other words," the Association of American Railroads informed its Military Transportation Section, "you may assure the Quartermaster General that there is no intent on the part of the American Railroads to discriminate against members of the Military Forces." 43 Hastie then suggested that, in view of past difficulties and the consequent hesitancy of some stations to authorize pullman travel for Negro soldiers, the situation would be helped if all appropriate officers were informed of the association's action. The Quartermaster General concurring, a circular was prepared for the field on the matter.44
 
On the other question, that of inter-
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state rail segregation in coaches, the Attorney General replied on 19 December 1941, stating that since the Supreme Court had not settled the question and that since there was division of opinion among lower courts, the policy of acceptance of local laws and customs outlined by the judge Advocate General would be satisfactory to the Department of justice "pending final determination of the question by the Supreme Court." 45 Consequently, the official Army interpretation of the responsibilities of troops traveling individually by rail in the Southern states henceforth during the war was that they should abide by local laws and by carriers' regulations.
 
Train travel under crowded wartime conditions was filled with incidents damaging to morale. When jammed trains pulled into stations, many a Negro soldier bound for home on furlough found himself unable to board the coach or coaches reserved for Negroes. At rail stations such as the one at Chehaw, Alabama, the station for the Tuskegee Army Air Field, Negro soldiers often overflowed from the coaches into the baggage car where they rode the forty miles into Montgomery on boxes and trunks while seats were available in the remaining coaches of the train. Even if the white coaches were equally crowded, the reaction was that a greater choice of coaches would have increased the chances of boarding a given train. The new Pullman policy was no great aid to the traveling soldier; even if he had the funds to spare for first class travel, it was virtually impossible to obtain space on short notice except in the larger cities.
 
Irritable, overworked, and often bitter bus and train personnel accounted for a number of clashes, most of which, fortunately, did not develop into full-scale racial disorder. On a train from New Orleans to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in November 1942, for example, a conductor attempted to hurry a Negro soldier who had difficulty finding his ticket. The soldier eventually found his ticket, saying "Here it is, Buddy." The conductor, angered by the soldier's use of the word "Buddy," called the train's military police. The police, after learning what the incident was about, refused to arrest the soldier, whereupon the conductor went to the baggage car and got a pistol. The soldier moved to a smoking car where a first sergeant and several other noncommissioned officers of his regiment were seated. He told them of the incident, indicating that he would point the conductor out when he next came through the train. As the conductor returned from the baggage car, he was identified by the soldier in a low voice, but the conductor nevertheless overheard. As he reached the doorway between the smoking compartment and the coach, he stopped, pulled his pistol out of his pocket, pointed it at the soldiers, and shouted, "If any one of you black sons-of-bitches make another chirp, I will kill every damn one of you." Whatever the psychological effects of the incident, the soldiers did not react as they might have and no physically
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tragic results occurred. Third Army, in reporting the incident to the railroad, observed that such misconduct on the part of the conductor "could have resulted in a tragedy, his own death, or even a race riot. The misconduct of the conductor, directed against these colored soldiers, who are in the state of Mississippi by reason of Military necessity, shows not only an overbearing and cowardly disposition, but an utter disregard of patriotism, and lack of consideration for those in the Military Service, who are patrons of the Southern Railway System." 46
 
At times the tension of travel was increased by the misconduct of soldiers .47 Drinking, resulting in intractable conduct, was a frequent complaint of carriers against both white and Negro soldiers before restrictions on the sale of intoxicants and before the gradual disappearance of club cars brought about by the conversion of those cars to "paying space" reduced the availability of liquor on trains. 48 But in cases of Negro soldiers, the problem was complicated by the growing antagonism between Negro soldiers and white military police 49 and the continuing antagonism between Negroes and train officials as representative of a restricting Jim Crow railway system. Reports of misconduct on trains were not so frequent, however, as reports of the more usual types of individual difficulties growing out of the nature of rail travel for Negroes.50 Nor did rail transportation, despite the extent of negotiations concerning it in the earlier months of mobilization, approach bus transportation in its effect upon individual and group morale. Neither was it so important for local and post administration and discipline, since the bulk of military travel from post to town or from post to major rail points of departure was by bus and not by train.
 
"I think to straighten out the trouble on the bus stop in town would be the cure for a lot of the trouble here," one Negro sergeant told an inspector. Many another Negro soldier and eventually many of those charged with the amelioration of Negro morale difficulties agreed with him.51
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Negro troops, in heavy proportions, traveled back and forth from camps to nearby towns, usually by buses run into the camps on a scheduled commercial or chartered service. In states with segregation laws the practice of restricting Negroes to seats at the rear of buses was usually the rule. Where the local laws left the proportioning of space to the numbers of passengers involved in a given trip, Negroes were seated from the back and whites from the front. At the same time, white passengers were usually loaded first. Wherever buses were crowded or wherever passengers failed to change their seats to accommodate altered racial proportions, arguments over seating and loading, often with disastrous results, were possible.
 
When a bus left a terminal at the center of a post and picked up Negro troops along its route through the post on the way to town, all seats and most standing room were likely to be taken by the time Negro soldiers were reached. Negro troops then waited for the next bus, or crowded into the already filled bus, giving rise to numerous altercations and disturbances.
 
Some posts authorized military policemen to load a particular number of Negro soldiers first-eight or twelve or whatever number could be expected to fill a fair proportion of the seats normally allotted them-in order to eliminate friction arising from the necessity of their pushing through from front to back or from finding their allotted seats already occupied by white passengers. Others arranged separate buses and schedules for Negro soldiers.
 
Neither practice, though both guaranteed a specific number of seats, was satisfactory. The first at times was so construed that the number of Negro soldiers riding a given bus was limited to the number of seats allotted and not to the number of passengers available. In these cases, buses might leave several Negro soldiers behind though some seats were empty. Sometimes instructions to military police about the number of seats to be reserved for Negroes were vague; sometimes they did not include provision for white soldiers standing while Negroes sat; nor did they always include instructions covering cases where white soldiers, in contravention of local laws insisted that "it was all right" for Negro soldiers to share seats with them.52 Any or all of these possibilities could be and were productive of arguments, arrests, and, occasionally, violence.
 
When separate buses were provided, they usually ran on less frequent schedules, for there were usually fewer Negro soldiers to be accommodated on a given post. But because they were on a less frequent schedule, the separate buses were often as crowded as the main line buses had been. Negro soldiers awaiting the arrival of the "Colored" bus watched with envious and resentful eyes whenever the more frequently scheduled "white" buses passed, especially if they contained empty seats or standing room.
 
Transportation jams at terminals and camp gates were often tremendous, with long lines of men waiting to be loaded on buses. These waiting, irritable crowds often provided fertile ground for racial incidents. A few posts used divided waiting rooms for Negro and white troops. At least one post, seeking to ease the bottleneck at its main gate,
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near which the Negro area was located, cut special entrances for Negro troops going on pass and built a new waiting station at the bus stop.53
 
In towns, the bus problem for the soldier attempting to get back to camp was the same, except that the direction of travel was reversed and the pressure of loading was increased. Often the Negro AWOL's excuse that "the bus left me" or that "the bus was too crowded to get on" was perfectly accurate. In some commands the problem was alleviated by the use of government vehicles, usually trucks, but with vehicle and gas shortages and with restrictions on the use of vehicles this was seldom possible as a continuing practice. Many Negro soldiers found the difficulty of getting to and from town too great to be worth the effort, especially in light of the deficient facilities in many camp towns.
 
By 1944, the prominent role that bus transportation difficulties played in racial friction and low morale among Negro soldiers was generally recognized. Inspector after inspector alluded to the problem. Cases of racial friction involving buses had appeared frequently enough in the civilian press to make it a major symbol of racial difficulties in Army camps. But one camp solved its problem and, through a newspaper account inserted in the Congressional Record by Representative Herman P. Eberharter of Pennsylvania, helped to solve the problem elsewhere. The article, "How One General Solved Bus Problem for Negroes by Deal with Company," 54 was reproduced by Army Service Forces and sent "for your information" to all post, camp, and station commanders in Virginia and in the Fourth and Eighth Service Commands.55
 
The article itself was a reporter's survey of bus transportation problems of Negro soldiers in a number of southern camps. He found two camps, Camp Shelby, Mississippi, and Camp Lee, Virginia, in which "direct, intelligent effort" to solve the bus problem had been made. Of the two, the solution reached at Camp Lee was the one that had done most for morale. "Now things are different," lie wrote. "Any Negro soldier who is in town can always get a bus back -with no Jim Crowism and no more than ordinary delay, such as happens on buses everywhere." He outlined what he considered to be the reasons that "Negro soldiers at Camp Lee were high in morale, proud and snappy":
 
The "revolution" was accomplished by white-haired Brig. Gen. George Horkan, a West Pointer, a Georgian and a man whose name will be treasured in the hearts of many northern Negroes all their lives.
 
General Horkan, within a few days after he took command, learned about the intolerable bus service-that Negro soldiers were jammed into inadequate Jim Crow seats, or passed up altogether and forced to walk to and from camp. There had been a few minor fracases on busses, the general told me . . . the kind of thing that leads to deep resentment, if not to race riots.
 
"I knew something had to be done," the general said, "also, I knew I couldn't do anything about the State (Jim Crow) law." So, he simply made an agreement with
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the Petersburg-Camp Lee bus company under which an adequate number of vehicles were operated between town and camp exclusively for soldiers. He established a depot in the Petersburg business section, equally convenient for white and Negro soldiers.
 
There is no segregation on the buses. The rule is first come, first served-and there has been no trouble.56
 
A few weeks after this account had been circulated to post commanders, a new general letter on facilities for Negroes was published by the Army. General Horkan's solution to the bus problem, arrived at independently, was directed for all government owned or operated motor transportation:
 
4. Transportation.- Buses, trucks, or other transportation owned and operated either by the Government or by a governmental instrumentality will be available to all military personnel regardless of race. Restricting personnel to certain sections of such transportation because of race will not be permitted either on or off post, camp, or station, regardless of local civilian custom.57
 
Those camps affected by this directive saw a marked decrease in racial friction on buses. No serious case of such friction was reported from any bus line operated in this manner during the remainder of the war.
 
The Impact of Intangibles
 
Physical facilities provided, from the beginning, visible, tangible items whose contribution to the low state of morale among Negro soldiers could be observed and evaluated with relative ease; but they were only the more obvious deterrents to high morale and motivation. More significant blocks to high morale in Negro units often occurred on different, less easily apprehended levels. It was on the level of belief in the importance of the job assigned to the individual soldier and to his unit that morale foundered in many Negro units. It was on the level of belief in the Army's and in their commanders' good faith and good intentions that Negro soldiers' morale often met important tests. It was on the level of belief in the ultimate significance of their roles in the Army's and in the country's eyes that motivation for superior efforts and performance fell short in many units. Where these blocks to high morale were demolished, units flourished despite deficiencies in physical facilities. Where they continued to exist, units and individuals felt the full force of their destructive power.
 
Early in the period of expansion, both judge Hastie and General Davis wished the War Department to take a firm stand on one of the critical immediate causes of friction and disillusionment among Negro troops-the use of offensive epithets applied to Negroes.58 After much discussion of the value of direct orders barring the use of epithets such as "nigger," G-3 prepared a letter for commanders which reminded them of the provisions of Army Regulations on the matter:
 
1. Organization commanders of Negro troops have found that emphasis on the
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substance of the following provisions of paragraph 3, Army Regulations, 600-10, is especially applicable in sustaining and improving morale:
 
"Superiors are forbidden to injure those under their authority by tyrannical or capricious conduct or by abusive language. While maintaining discipline and the thorough and prompt performance of military duty, all officers, in dealing with enlisted men, will bear in mind the absolute necessity of so treating them as to preserve their self-respect. A grave duty rests on all officers and particularly upon organization commanders in this respect."
2. In this connection the use of any epithet deemed insulting to a racial group should be carefully avoided. Similarly, commanders should avoid all practices tending to give the colored soldier cause to feel that the Army makes any differentiation between him and any other soldier.
3. As the Army expands and new and relatively inexperienced officers assume and share functions of command, it will be increasingly important that all officers have a full realization of the significance of such factors as are discussed herein for the maintenance of discipline and high morale.59
 
All commanders of subordinate units and exempted stations were to be informed of this War Department view.60
Some subordinate commands issued their own directives. These, as in the following example, were often general warrants of good intentions:
 
1. NEGRO TROOPS
1. The following directives on the above subject apply to all personnel of this Training Center:
a. The treatment of colored personnel will be in all respects fair and impartial; it will be characterized by a kindly, sympathetic attitude, and by a sincere desire to assist them in every way possible toward a high morale and toward a full and effective part in our war effort.
b. Station commanders are responsible that officers assigned to duty with colored units are qualified by character, temperament and
training to achieve the objectives stated, or implied, in paragraph a above.
c. The use, in speaking to or referring to colored units or individuals, of any degrading or insulting term is forbidden.
d. As soon as possible, separate and adequate Post Exchange, recreational and welfare facilities will be provided for colored personnel at each station. Station commanders will immediately report to this Headquarters deficiencies in this respect which cannot be met locally.
e. The establishment by proper agencies of suitable recreational facilities and activities in nearby communities will be encouraged and assisted.
f. On all inspections of stations of this command, Inspectors General assigned to this Headquarters will examine into and report upon the fulfillment of the above directives.61
 
Other commands were at times more direct and blunt in their admonitions. The commanding general of the 28th Infantry Division, when stationed at Camp Livingston, Louisiana, directed his men that:
 
1. There is sufficient possibility of difficulties between white and colored soldiers in this area that every effort must be made by white soldiers to avoid provocation of trouble.
2. The word "nigger" is a provocative word when used in speaking to or about colored soldiers.
3. This word will not be used in this Division at any time; all officers will be emphatically so instructed and they will
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use every effort, in a quiet and discreet manner, to see that the word is not used.62
 
Admonitory directives such as these did not necessarily improve morale in Negro units. "Kindly, sympathetic" attitudes were no substitutes for a sense of military usefulness, lacking in many an aviation squadron or sanitary company from the beginning. "Separate and adequate" facilities provided constant jolts to attempts to develop self-esteem in Negro troops. They did little to assure the Negro soldier that the Army made no "differentiation between him and any other soldier." Directives alone could not erase the conviction of Negro troops that they were not wanted by the Army to the same extent and degree as white soldiers.
 
Military usages with reference to them were critical to Negro soldiers. They, like the Negro public at large, naturally expected fairness and impartiality from the federal government and its agencies toward all citizens. Civilian customs and practices in areas surrounding training camps could be galling and morale damaging, but most Negro soldiers, anticipating no rapid changes in civilian attitudes toward them, looked to military authorities for at least nominal protection against the more flagrant abuses possible in camp towns. They considered the military reservation, ideally, to be an island refuge from local legal and custom-supported discriminations. Their morale was bound to suffer with the adoption and extension of civilian practices in military installations where Negro soldiers expected that, even within the framework of separate military units, equal treatment for men in training for a common effort would prevail. In many instances, the realization that the post offered little more than the town-and in some areas of the country, particularly the Northeast and Northwest, it offered less-contributed heavily to the morale difficulties of Negro units.
 
Matters of race and problems connected with race often came to outweigh most other problems in the minds of many Negro soldiers. To inspectors and investigators this development carne to be described as "racial sensitivity." When, in an Army-wide survey conducted in the spring of 1943, soldiers were invited to answer the question, "If you could talk with the President of the United States, what are the three most important questions you would want to ask him about the war and your part ill it?" half of the Negro soldiers asked questions relating to racial discrimination.63 Fewer than 0.5 percent of white troops thought the matter of racial discrimination worth asking the President about. The four items of most concern to white soldiers were questions and complaints about Army life (31 percent) , conditions in the postwar United States (29 percent), the length of the war (24 percent) , and questions and criticisms about the conduct of the war (23 percent).64 No single category, except racial discrimination, even approached these in importance for the Negro soldier. Only 17 percent of Negro soldiers asked about the length of the war, and a goodly number of the 13 percent who
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had questions and complaints about the Army asked them in racial terms.
 
That many of the conditions which produced deep concern among Negro soldiers lay outside the purely military sphere was indicated in their questions. Over a quarter of Negro soldiers (29 percent) asked questions about the racial pattern after the war: "Will I as a Negro share this so-called democracy after the war?" "Will it [the war] make things better for the Negro?" "Will colored people be continued [sic] subjected to the humiliating law of Jim Crow and segregation as before the war?" Fifteen percent protested against current and past discrimination and civil violence: "Why are Negroes barred from certain defense jobs they are capable of doing?" "Why don't he stop so much lynching?" "Our life is worth as much to us as the White's life is to them." "Why don't they make the people in the South treat the Negro right and then try to make the people in other countries do right?"
 
When Negro soldiers' questions revolved about conditions within the Army they were extensions, a fortiori, of their civilian experiences phrased in terms of their Army experiences: "Why aren't Negro troops allowed to fight in combat as well as white troops?" "If white and colored soldiers are fighting and dying for the same thing, why can't they train together?" "Why is there discrimination even in the Army?" "Why can't Negroes have fine things like the white boys in the Army?" Army practices, though generally less stringent than civilian practices which most Negro soldiers had experienced, acquired added meaning simply because they were Army practices, carried out in the midst of wartime hortatives on teamwork and national unity for a common goal. They therefore assumed greater significance as Negro soldiers compared them with what they conceived to be ideal practices consonant with the nation's stated war aims.
 
Though Negro soldiers, as a whole, never abandoned the hope that their status, military and civilian, would improve- many of them agreed fully with the statement attributed to Joe Louis: "There may be a whole lot wrong with America, but there's nothing that Hitler can fix" 65 -the continued presence of questions such as these, voiced and unvoiced, for which the Army had no answers acceptable to the questioners, affected adversely the development of high motivation and morale. The construction put upon events and situations, all subject to variable interpretations, depended largely upon the full setting in which they occurred. With a civilian born and nourished predisposition to expect the worst in any situation involving a competition of racial interests, the morale of Negro troops could be ruptured and destroyed while officers were reading the latest directive on morale and discipline.
 
Evidence of their officers' good faith and good intentions was a critical item in morale. "The greatest thing I have noted to improve efficiency and morale in Negro troops," one commander who had been training Negro troops since the
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beginning of mobilization said near the end of the war, "is to sell them in the beginning and keep on selling them on how interested you and your officers are in them and their welfare, and to convince them someway or somehow by any means available that you and your officers are the biggest hearted and fairest minded men in the United States." 66 In many cases, however, officers were too far removed from their troops to be able to judge with accuracy what the temper of their morale was. In many cases, officers who thought that morale was good, that minor differences had been ironed out, discovered suddenly and with surprise that morale had been badly undermined or destroyed, sometimes unwittingly, by the actions of the officers themselves. Others found that they had wholly misinterpreted both their abilities as "salesmen" and the meaning placed on events by their men.
 
There were many types of distance and symbol-based difficulties between command and men which blocked easy recognition of morale problems. These included:
 
(1) Lack of Belief in Officers' Personal Integrity. In one unit whose men accused their officers of discriminatory treatment, including an attempt to bring "the segregation and prejudice from Mississippi to a place [the desert that knows no segregation," one officer explained, "They said they thought they should be allowed to go where they wanted as they were up north but I got the Chaplain to come up and explain  the situation and they are all right now." The men of the unit, on the other hand, insisted that things were not "all right now." Though they had been told to stay away from all but a few places by their officers, they discovered that they were welcomed by townsfolk in other shops and business houses. "When we first came here," one soldier stated, "we had places set aside where we could go. We were told we could go to other places to make purchases but had to leave the store as soon as we made our purchase and that we could not hang around in the white section occupied by the white people. The colored places out here are dirty and most of us have gone to the other places and been treated swell. The people seemed glad to have us come in." Another said: "We have been told to go north of the tracks for our entertainment but a S/Sgt. and myself on our own hook went over south of the tracks; they received us very pleasantly, they seemed glad to have the colored soldiers." The soldiers therefore concluded that their officers had deliberately and unnecessarily sought to keep them away from town establishments and that they could not be trusted further as custodians of the unit's welfare.67
 
(2) Ignorance of Effects of Language and Action. Not only were the officers of this same unit unaware of how the experience described above had undermined morale and faith in their integrity, but they were also unaware of the general effects which other aspects of their behavior toward their men had produced. One officer, charged by the
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men with having ordered noncommissioned officers to strike soldiers and with having cursed and nagged his men, replied that though he knew it was improper, he had ordered beatings but that he had done no more. "As far as I know," he told the investigating officer, "I have not cussed or nagged any of the soldiers. You know how Niggers are, if you don't keep after them they simply lie down on the job. If I cussed any of them at any time it was done unconsciously, however I do not believe I ever did." In the record of this case there is no indication that either the officer or the inspector was aware that both the officer's actions and his language were sufficient to alienate his troops and that both offenses were contrary to regulations and to customs of the service. The inspector recommended the officer's transfer, observing laconically, "Once this race turns against one it is seldom that they will work for one afterwards." 68
 
(3) Inability to Gauge Depth of Morale Problems. When asked whether or not he knew anything beforehand about a petition of grievances presented to him by the noncommissioned officers of his battalion, a unit commander professed that "Prior to the receipt of the petitioning letter I had no knowledge or no suspicion that anything was amiss with the morale of the battalion. Of course, I was generally aware of conditions governing the normal routine of negroes, both civilian and soldier, in the vicinity of Louisville and Fort Knox, Kentucky. That did not occur to me to be of any importance or to have any connection with the petitioning letter, because I had been aware of those conditions all my life and subconsciously assumed that the members of the colored race were aware of it as an existing fact over which neither they nor I had any control." 69
 
(4) Ignorance of Temper of Command Based on Insulation from Enlisted Men. When at morning roll call, nearly all enlisted men present in an aviation squadron shouted in unison "We want a new CO!" the action came "like a bolt out of the blue" to the squadron commander. Two first lieutenants in the unit had been aware of brewing troubles but had not informed the commander. The commander asked two of the enlisted men for reasons, which they gave. After agreeing to meet with his top noncommissioned officers, the commander, instead, dismissed the squadron and preferred charges of creating and failing to suppress a mutiny against those who spoke up. He later admitted that he "did not understand the colored race, did not know how to handle them, and that that was, in all probability, the reason for his failure to click as a Commanding Officer." Investigation revealed, however, that in addition to using language offensive to his men, the commander had failed to secure for his unit privileges and equipment equal to that of neighboring units and was considered by his noncommissioned officers to have placed too little reliance upon them, with the result that co-operation between the commander, his junior
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officers, and his noncommissioned officers was lacking.70
 
(5) Excessive Faith in Effectiveness of Hortatives. Faced with disorder and threatened disturbances in a Negro unit on his base, a colonel on the post commander's staff, who afterward said that he himself would have "ordered that outfit up with packs, and I would have hiked them until they had a little bit of that out of their system, and then I would have found some place to bivouac for a while and they would do a little more hiking," was certain that he had straightened out all difficulties when, "as one soldier to another," he addressed the assembled men of the unit:
 
I told them that there were certain things that weren't available for them on the base, and due to certain conditions in the South, they were just to bear with its until we could get these things built. I asked their 1st sergeant, and the 1st sergeant of the 456th- I started off with an orientation talk. Some of my activities overseas, and then asked for questions from the group, and at that time one of the men had appeared with a clipping out of a Northern negro newspaper in which the Secretary of War was supposed to have said that he didn't want colored men to salute the flag. And there was some talk about that. And we thought the best thing to do was to get them to the theater and straighten them out on the right angles right away. I told them about having served joint guard duty with the 9th cavalry, and where I served in France where we had a colored labor battalion and that many times they helped to get my trucks out of the mud, and that I had seen negro troops overseas, and that I sat on the Awards and Decorations Committee of the 8th Overseas Air Force Service Command and that I helped recommend many colored boys for bravery, and about the soldiers who went into a fire and unloaded 1,000 pound bombs. I gathered at that time that they had the impression that because they were an aviation squadron, that they were just a highly advertised labor battalion. I told them that when we went into Africa in the invasion, that all the different branches were unloading material on the docks, regardless of whether you had been trained to operate a telegraph key, a typewriter, or whatnot, everybody worked. It didn't make any difference whether you were white, yellow, black or whether you were a Jew, Protestant, Catholic or what. It had nothing to do with the theater of operations. I asked for questions, and this was brought up about the[ir] saluting the flag, and something was said about officers not saluting, or returning a salute, and I said any time I didn't return a salute of theirs, I wanted it brought to my attention through my commanding officer. I told them I was the oldest soldier on the field and I didn't see any difference between a colored soldier and a white soldier; we were all in this thing for the same thing, and what was good for one was good for the other. I got a big hand from them- and the next day they had their sit-down strike.71
 
In these cases, little by way of improved morale could be expected so long as the major questions posed went
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unanswered. Command and men were operating upon assumptions that had no common meeting ground-the distance between them was too great for easy bridging. In what may not have been a majority, but in what was certainly all too many cases, the realization of command that all was not as it appeared on the surface came too late for effective corrective measures to be taken.
 
Symbols and Apprehensions
 
Events in areas which might not directly touch them physically sometimes heightened the belief of troops that training for military duties was not to be taken too seriously by Negro units. Thus, when plans to use particular units to help harvest cotton in Arizona were discussed in 1943 and when, in the same year, Negro troops were used to clean snow from the streets of cities such as Richmond, Virginia, and Seattle, Washington, where snow seldom falls and where, as a result, the cities lacked equipment to keep open main highways over which essential war transportation moved, no logical explanation could obviate the conclusion of units hundreds of miles away as well as those involved that here was direct evidence that Negro troops were esteemed as laborers only .72 Wheat or potatoes would have been bad enough, but to pick cotton, with all that this traditional plantation crop symbolized in the lives of Negroes, or to shovel snow, when Negroes felt their outfits were scheduled to become "pick and shovel" units sooner or later anyway, were considered crowning indignities.
 
Similarly, the Red Cross blood bank controversy, in which Negro blood for dried plasma was at first refused and later accepted, but segregated despite the scientific fact that all human blood, for transfusion purposes, is alike, was an additional reminder to Negro troops of the reasoning which sometimes governed their status even in those areas where objective scientific approaches might have been expected to prevail.73 The Negro press, in the meantime, continued to editorialize on the contrast between the acceptance of serums and
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antitoxins developed from horses and cows with the refusal of Negro blood for plasma use. The irony of the situation was further heightened by the widely publicized fact that a pioneer researcher in blood preservation, medical supervisor of the emergency Blood Plasma for Britain project in 1940, and director of the first American Red Cross Blood Plasma Bank, a pilot unit for the armed services established in 1941, was Dr. Charles R. Drew of the Howard University School of Medicine.74
 
News of this sort of action, once it got to troops, lowered general morale. Realizing this-and blaming the Negro press for inciting dissatisfaction among Negro troops by carrying such news items, as well as accounts of racial friction in camps-many posts, despite lack of approval from higher headquarters, banned Negro papers, or particular issues, from libraries and from sale in exchanges. While lack of news from the Negro world or from the home towns of Negro troops, added to the knowledge that a particular paper was no longer readily available, might act as an additional deterrent to morale, some banned papers usually arrived through the mails to those men who were subscribers. The news which they contained, now doubly valued, made the rounds of the Negro portion of a post anyway. The bans did little more than convince troops of the insecurity of their commands and heighten their belief that the banned news must be all the more important.75
 
Incidents such as these were easily interpreted as real affronts. They reinforced the growing opinion among Negro troops that they were the objects of special treatment designed not to increase their preparation for participation in war but to neutralize the effect that their military service might have upon their status as soldiers and citizens. They increased the mixed feelings of Negro soldiers toward the Army's intention of treating them as responsible members of and equal partners in the Military Establishment. They increased the feeling that Negro troops had no important or carefully considered part to play in the unfolding Near.
 
Esprit
 
The development of esprit de corps, or pride in organization, was more difficult to achieve in Negro units than in most white units, both because of the generally lower morale of Negro troops and because of other factors described in preceding chapters. Certain small units of Negro troops did achieve a sense of unity, especially after entering operational -areas, but the large units remained, for the most part, organizations whose parts, in their relations with the whole, were never firmly cemented either through emotion or logic. In none of the Negro divisions, for example, was high individual personal or unit identification with the division as a whole achieved.
 
The size and the remoteness of the divisions as a physical entity was partly at fault. The concept of a division was itself difficult for men with the limited horizons of many Negro enlisted men. Its actual size, its potential abilities, and
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its function as a great foundation block for modern corps and armies had little specific meaning for the Negro division's individual soldiers. To many a member of a subordinate divisional unit, "Division" simply meant that headquarters from which unpleasant orders and directives emanated. The division commander, insulated by his full staff, all white, might as well have dwelled "in a moated castle in a far countree." Few men had affection or high regard either for him or for the division; many men never knew their current division commander's name.
 
Initially, in the case of the 92d Division, the headquarters and special troops were physically several hundreds of miles distant from each of the regiments and artillery battalions, for the division was activated with its headquarters and special troops at Fort McClellan, Alabama, while the combat teams of the division were located at Camp Joseph T. Robinson in Arkansas, at Camp Breckinridge in Kentucky, and at Camp Atterbury in Indiana. Despite the rapidity of modern transportation and communication, the elements of this command were sufficiently far removed from each other to hamper division wide development of esprit in the formative period of the organization. Different procedures and different atmospheres, all affecting morale, developed in each of the four enclaves of the division, all affected by the personalities of the four commanders and the racial climate of the four geographical regions. Despite attempts of the commanding general and the combat team commanders to maintain equivalent standards of discipline and morale throughout the division, the assembly period at Fort Huachuca in the late spring of 1943, which might have been followed by an upward swing in division-wide morale, saw instead a slackening, as members of the four groups compared and criticized differences and similarities among them.
 
The consolidation of the division reinforced and brought into sharper focus dormant antipathies which, when the division was divided, did not appear to be significant at any one post but which, when all the division could be observed together, appeared to Negro officers and enlisted men to have sinister significance. On both sides of the racial fence notes could be compared, attitudes could solidify, and mutually antagonistic positions could be bulwarked. It was not long before successive events, interpreted by Negro soldiers to mean that the newly assembled division had adopted the least instead of the most desirable features of each of its parts, began to be felt. These included an increase in segregation in officers' messes and barracks, with one Negro assistant mess officer removed because he refused to participate in setting up separate tables; an increase in objectionable individual acts including the use of epithets toward Negro officers and enlisted men; the "obvious transfer of Negro officers to preclude command"; the recognition that only Negro officers were assigned to a School of Application and Proficiency, thought of as a prelude to reclassification, when "it did not seem reasonable to them that there could only be inefficient Negro officers in the Division"; and an increase in chaplains' dissatisfaction with and interference in
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command matters.76 Correctives, usually made promptly in accordance with division policies which condoned none of these actions, did not alter the belief that these and similar irritants and not officially stated policies were the true gauge of the command's attitude toward its Negro personnel.
 
General Davis, after a visit to the 92d Division in the summer of 1943, noted the effect on morale which these and other occurrences had had. He contrasted the situation before and after assembly:
 
During the period 21 January to 18 March, 1943, the three combat teams and divisional units were inspected by the inspector general. During these inspections the morale of the Division was found to be superior. There appeared to be the best of feeling existing between the colored and white officers. There were no complaints or reports of racial discriminations. At the Division Headquarters mess there was no segregation of colored officers. The inspector general noted that colored officers were seated with their white comrades at several tables in the Headquarters mess, and the best of comradeship was displayed. At a reception held at Fort McClellan colored and white officers were present. General Almond was held in the highest respect by all officers. The colored officers were especially profuse in their praise of him for his fairness and deep concern for their advancement and welfare. He had on all occasions shown a personal interest even in their comforts and entertainment.
 
Now, there seems to be an opinion among the colored officers and men that General Almond has been unduly influenced by some officers in the Division and that his attitude has changed since his arrival at Fort Huachuca. In justice to General Almond the record shows that in all cases where white officers deviated from his policy of fairness, action has been taken. Such officers were transferred, court-martialed, or disciplined under AW 104. In some cases, the disciplinary action was delayed, incident to the necessary investigations, etc., and the action taken was therefore not always associated by the colored officers and enlisted men with the offenses ....
 
General Almond has, in the opinion of the inspector general, overlooked the human element in the training of this Division. Great stress has been placed upon the mechanical perfection in the execution of training missions. Apparently not enough consideration has been given to the maintenance of a racial understanding between white and colored officers and men. The execution of ceremonies with smartness and precision, and the perfunctory performance of military duties is taken as an indication of high morale. This is not true with the colored soldier. He can be driven to perform without necessarily having a high morale . . . . However, General Almond appears to be an able officer, and it is believed that now-since he is well aware of the situation and because of the fact that in all cases of unfairness or misconduct involving racial issues he has taken remedial
action-action will be taken to remove the causes of unrest . . . .77
 
Evidences of the decline in morale and the growth of dissatisfaction and resentment within the division were at times spectacular in shape and proportion. A car in which white officers were riding through Fry was stoned by enlisted men. A white lieutenant, asleep in his tent during a field exercise, was severely injured by a blow on the head with a shovel. Twelve Negro lieutenants had been recommended for trial by general court-martial. Four second
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lieutenants were in confinement awaiting trial. Two captains, three first lieutenants, and nineteen second lieutenants had been recommended for disciplinary action.78 While Army Ground Forces had recognized that the dispersion of the division at four posts would retard training,79 the possible effect of assembly at Fort Huachuca upon esprit and general morale was apparently not considered too fully.
 
The 93d Division was formed from two separate Regular regiments-one an old peacetime unit and the other a new unit activated for a little more than a year-and a new selectee regiment.80 The Regular regiments, during their independent existence, had evolved a kind of solidarity of their own which might have been developed, under skillful handling, into a division-wide esprit. While the 93d did not suffer all the divisive experiences of its younger sister division, there is no evidence that it ever achieved division-wide esprit under any of the five commanders assigned to it.
 
The 2d Cavalry Division, after going through its original reorganization, remained in an anomalous position, for alone among divisions activated in World War II it continued to occupy separate posts, Camp Lockett in California and Fort Clark in Texas. Since some of its units, preparatory to the conversion of the division to service functions, did not move overseas with the rest of the division, the 2d Cavalry Division was never assembled as a whole in any one place. Esprit here remained on the subordinate unit level until after conversion, after which a nostalgic esprit for the disbanded division developed among some of its former members.
 
In none of the Negro divisions, moreover, was it possible to use constructively the device of unit tradition to achieve esprit de corps. The 93d Division, having fought in World War I as separate regiments, had no past tradition as a division to draw upon, nor did it have any of its regiments of World War I to utilize as separate foci of unit pride.81
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The only legitimate World War I traditional element left to the division was its shoulder sleeve insignia, a blue French helmet.
 
This insignia was considered unspectacular and a negative morale factor by the 93d.82 Believing that it had Army Ground Forces' approval for a change, the division opened a competition for a design for a new insignia. From a host of deserts, mountains, tropical palms, and yellow panthers, wildcats, and tigers-the latter all rejected because the color yellow signified cowardice-the division finally selected a black panther head, so that it could be called the "Panther Division." But even here, its attempts to build up morale were unexpectedly frustrated. Ground Forces, citing the historical significance of the blue helmet, the cost of the change, and the desire of the War Department to retain all possible World War I insignia as reasons, withdrew its approval for the change.83
 
The 92d Division, on the other hand, had as its insignia a black buffalo dating its symbolism back to the Negro regiments of Indian warfare days.84 During World War I "The Buffaloes" had been the 367th Infantry,85 then a member of the 92d Division, which in World War II had become a separate unit. Besides obtaining a buffalo calf mascot, christened Buffalo Bill, and besides using the "Buffalo" designation freely, the division did little to capitalize on the tradition behind its shoulder sleeve insignia. Each of its regiments had its own World War I traditions and honors, two of them having been decorated either in whole or in part.86 But little successful indoctrination of new selectees in the meaning and continuity of regimental traditions was achieved.
 
In contrast to the divisions, certain of the separate Negro organizations developed considerable unit pride. In most cases these were smaller units, with a highly developed sense of mission. They usually continued with few top command changes during their careers. The air combat units were of this type, as were the three tank battalions. Of his 99th Fighter Squadron, Lt. Col. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., explained in a press conference held in the War Department upon his return from the Mediterranean:
 
. . . It is a very significant fact, I believe, that all members of this organization were impressed at all times with the knowledge that the future of the colored man in the Air Corps probably would be dependent largely upon the manner in which they carried out their mission.
 
Hence, the importance of the work done by this squadron, the responsibility carried
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by every man, be he ground crewman or pilot, meant that very little pleasure was to be had by anyone until the experiment was deemed an unqualified success.87
 
In this case, delays in assignment, attacks in the public press, restrictions and annoyances, plus the positive sense of the individual responsibility of each man consolidated that group loyalty and pride upon which esprit is founded. Colonel Davis continued:
 
In the meantime, the squadron received the attention of the press. When was the unit going to the combat zone? Why the delay? Much attention was directed toward the segregated aspects of the Tuskegee Airfield. This publicity had a profound effect upon the individual member of the Ninety-ninth. The eyes of the Nation were upon this organization.
 
It was true that he felt hurt to find that his training station at Tuskegee Army Airfield was being regarded by some outside the Military Establishment as being a discriminatory set-up.
 
However, he had had the good sense to realize that the best means he had to defeat the end of supporters and philosophers who relegated him to a subsidiary role in the life of the United States was to do the job in such a way that the world would know that he was capable of performing a highly specialized and technical piece of the work in a creditable manner.
 
Every man in the Ninety-ninth will go through any ordeal concocted by combat or garrison existence to assure the successful completion of the experiment. At all times every man realizes that the pleasures and relaxations that are available to men in other organizations are not available to him because his task is far greater, his responsibility is much heavier, and his reward is the advancement of his people.88
 
Like the air combat units, the tank battalions, training as the 5th Tank Group though often located at different posts, had a high sense of mission. Though higher headquarters had frequent doubts as to the wisdom of continuing these units, these doubts were not communicated to the men-of the battalions. Rather, through their group and higher commanders, the units learned to think of themselves not only as units from which important results were expected but also as units which could expect to produce important results. Their men were no better in AGCT's or in civilian psychological preparation than those of many other units; but the visible progress of their training and of their potential usefulness, stimulated by their growing familiarity with their tanks and the gradual appearance of Negro officers who moved up to command some of the units' companies, gave these units a sense of movement toward a visible goal. From maneuvers and exercises, with both white and Negro regiments and divisions, they gained confidence in each other, in their officers, and in their units, as they should have done, but as many Negro units did not do. More important, higher commanders not only visited them, but what they reported to commanders in the way of commendation was communicated to the men; what they said in addresses was well enough said to be remembered and acted upon. Hortatives to which many white units became accustomed struck home to units unaccustomed to being
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taken as valuable members of a team. The commander of one of the training centers, Brig. Gen. Ernest J. Dawley, addressed the men of one of the units, the 761st Tank Battalion, on three occasions. Once, in speaking to the men of the various things that might or might not happen during wartime for which there would be no obvious explanation but which must be laid to the "fog of war," he concluded: "When you get in there, put in an extra round of ammunition, and fire it for General Dawley! " This speech made a lasting impression on the men. When the 761st entered combat, one of its tanks was named "The Fog of War." "And to top it off, several extra rounds of ammunition were put in, and fired `for General Dawley,' " the unit's historian recorded.89 Men of this battalion, when hospitalized and subsequently transferred, tried to return; the reputation of the unit spread into the rear areas and requests for transfers into it, not all of which came through the proper channels, became common enough for the unit to provide forms for transfer requests.90 Even after V-E Day, when the unit expected to be redeployed to another theater, either direct or through the United States, requests for transfer in or return to the unit continued, some of them coming from men of other combat units already inactivated or scheduled for inactivation and others from service unit soldiers, including former members.91
 
For service units which saw little military value in their daily activities, developing unit pride was more difficult. Inspectors were likely to recommend, especially for those with observable difficulties, a considerable morale building program, often beyond the abilities of company officers to carry out.92 A typical recommended corrective program included: a more forceful unit commander, more drill and purely military training, an instructional and educational program stressing loyalty and military subjects, more educational films and explanations pointing out joint responsibility for national defense, musicals and plays on Army and patriotic themes produced by the units, good speakers on Americanism and the progress of the Negro race, an educational program to increase the literacy level of soldiers, lectures to instill confidence in leaders, explanations of the dangers of spreading rumors, complaint periods scheduled by 'and with the post commander, and transfers of agitators to other units.93
 
The average small unit had neither the personnel, the physical equipment, nor, if training and duties were to be accomplished, the time to engage in so extensive a program. Yet, where any significant part of such a program was
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put into operation, beneficial results were obtained. One quartermaster service company, described as the "worst" unit in its service command, "which set fire to the previous Company Commander's Quarters, trying to burn him while he was asleep," and in which an enlisted man, a candidate for discharge under Section VIII procedures, had struck a company officer in the face with his fist, was hardly a promising candidate for such a program. High absence without leave and venereal disease rates, accompanied by high courts-martial rates, were the rule of this company. The situation was made worse, if not originally precipitated, by the undefined functions of the unit. Activated in January, it had been used more or less as a casual company up to the end of June 1944. Its seventeen-week training program did not begin until then. It had had a large turnover of personnel, including the disciplinary cast-oils of "all the other Quartermaster Companies" at its training center. After the appointment of a new company commander and the transfer of new noncommissioned officers to the company, matters improved. The downward trend in morale and discipline, constant since activation, was stemmed without resource to great emphasis on physical facilities for recreation and entertainment. Simply through attention to the purposes of training, the company improved remarkably. By the time of its technical training period, consisting of on the job operations at the Lincoln Ordnance Depot in Springfield, Illinois, the commander of the Quartermaster Training Section at Camp Ellis, its training station, reported that the unit could and would function successfully. Upon departure from its three weeks of training at Lincoln Depot, it received a letter of commendation from the depot commander which spoke highly of "the splendid performance of work and the excellent discipline" of this formerly troubled unit.94
 
Mission and Morale
 
Lack of belief in the seriousness and importance of their training became a critical problem in many another unit. In some cases, this disbelief was shared and even fostered by unit officers. "In conversation with a number of senior officers," General Davis reported of the 371st Regimental Combat Team of the 92d Division in March 1943, early in the division's training period, "it was learned that there is a widespread belief within the Division, based upon rumors, that these two divisions [92d and 93d] are not to be committed to combat. This belief is having a disturbing effect." 95 Of the 93d Division another observer reported in the same month: "Among the white officers the outstanding question [is] as to whether the division will ever be able to perform combat service. The feeling is that it will not and that nobody on the staff would dream of sending it to combat duty. The result of this feeling is that the officers and men who do not want to fight are just marking time in a spiritless
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way and those who do want to fight feel that they are in a blind alley." 96
 
No one was more surprised when the 93d Division was committed to an active theater than men of the division. The quarterly report of one of the division's elements, written after arrival in the Pacific, described the reaction of the unit to the knowledge that the division would move overseas:
 
The 93d Infantry Division Artillery has come a long way since the beginning of the year. Even the most skeptical of us no longer deny the fact that the Division will see action. It is up to each officer and enlisted man to acquit himself creditably when the time comes for him to put into use the knowledge that he has acquired during training ....
 
The Division was alerted for oversea duty the first of the year and the morale of the men was something to be proud of. There were those of us who held tenaciously to the belief that we would never see action or go overseas; however that fallacy has been dispelled. Time took care of that. When all of the men finally awoke to the fact that we were definitely going over, they, as the slang goes, "straightened up and flew right." 97
 
The effect of the awakening was marked by an upswing in morale and discipline. When the division's troop trains left for the staging area, the unit historian continued, morale was excellent and "according to the authorities, our unit was one of the most perfectly conducted units that has ever gone through Stoneman . . . ." 98 The unit behaved on the transport from San Francisco like a "picnicking outfit." 99
 
Disbelief in the importance and ultimate purpose of units, coupled with its deleterious effect on morale and training, was not confined to the larger combat organizations. Many of the smaller, more nearly anonymous units had similar qualms. The "most serious handicap" of medical sanitary companies was lack of knowledge of what their ultimate mission would be in the field. Garbage and trash collection and disposal, duties given to some of the units, were, according to Army Regulations, functions of the Corps of Engineers and not of the Medical Department. Some companies had difficulty finding even so "meaningful tasks" for their men to perform.100 The aviation squadrons, into which most of the Air Forces' Negroes went, often asked searching questions about their roles in the war. Investigation revealed that, though it might be but part of the problem, the undefined character of these units and the nature of their work often lay at the root of their low morale.
 
Many of the men in these and in other service units had had no formal basic military training and had no clear idea of the relation of their units to the winning of the war. "Negro outfits, if trained in the same manner as ours, cannot be fit for modern warfare or any other group task," members of one aviation squadron complained in a letter to the War Department. The list of
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grievances included an assertion that upon activation the unit had begun training but, sixty days later, "individual understanding of duty is as low as upon activation, with squadron discipline disrupted beyond recovery by Non-Coms and our present Commanding Officer." The communication made no reference to discrimination, though subsequent investigations directed by higher headquarters revealed grounds for complaint here which the communicants had ignored. Before the original letter could be investigated, the squadron had demonstrated against its commanding officer, upon removal of its first sergeant, by refusing to respond to the duty sergeant's call for morning formation. Four investigations were made, three of the squadron and one of two of the inspectors, one of whom, in a brief survey, had found the squadron mutinous, the other of whom, in a more thorough investigation, had decided that at most the conduct of the squadron could be described as prejudicial to good order, since testimony was given that the squadron formed quickly upon appearance of an officer and marched smartly to a hurriedly called squadron meeting.101 Another communication, from two similar units, read:
 
You must please, please understand that we do not resent serving our country (we are proud to serve) but we would like and want very much to serve it in a more important capacity than we are at this time. We can and would fight [for] it if trained to do so, but as yet we hardly know what a gun, tank, combat plane, hand grenade, machine gun look like.
 
We haven't had any drilling to speak of that could be classed as drilling. We had three (3) weeks of Basic Training. It takes that long to learn to do the Manual of Arms (arms are something we haven't seen, except a 45 on the M. P.'S side, ready to blow your brains out if you resent being treated like a dog and being called a Nigger or a Black Son of a B---) much less call it Basic Training.102
 
Such complaints, resulting in incipient disorder in the first case, were the end products of disbelief in the importance of the missions of certain service units. They matched in their significance for morale the conviction in many combat units that their titular missions would never see fulfillment.
 
The damage done by these convictions was considerable. It continued throughout the training periods of units so affected. A few weeks before the departure of the 92d Division for overseas assignment, an inspector reported:
 
It is apparent that a general impression prevailed in the 92d Division that the unit would never be committed to overseas combat service. Platoon leaders have testified that in trying to bring out realism in the training problems they explained how certain exercises would be used in overseas services, but that they detected knowing glances among the non-commissioned personnel implying that this was only training talk. It was further reported that before going to maneuvers, General Almond called an officers' meeting and pointed out that the rumors that the 92d Division was never going overseas were unfounded. It is fur-
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ther reported that he often tried to eliminate the spirit of defeatism in the division and tried to insert realism and purpose in their training problems.103
 
Complicating the problem of lack of understanding and motivation in many units was the additional uncertainty caused by frequent transfers and the long periods in unassigned and casual status experienced by many soldiers. At times whole units remained relatively idle, without apparent training or work progress. Inactivity of this type, seemingly pointless, militated against good training habits and tended to destroy discipline, morale, and the effectiveness of whatever training had been accomplished. This was true of all units and individuals in pools or in uncertain status. But with white soldiers, Army red tape or perhaps an individual error somewhere along Army channels could be blamed. In Negro units, sitting and waiting could be interpreted as anything from a normal delay in their planned use to a complete confirmation that nobody ever intended to use them anyway.
 
Units so highly motivated by their individual significance and training successes as the tactical units at Tuskegee found their morale slipping when, after being alerted for movement overseas in the Liberia Task Force in August 1942, they found that 1943 had arrived without a sign of actual movement to a port. During the months that they had been in various stages of alert they had seen certain units of the original task force disbanded; they could not be certain that the same thing would not happen to the remaining units. The men of the 99th Fighter Squadron, 83d Fighter Control Squadron, and 689th Signal Air Warning Company had finished their training; though refresher training was carried on constantly "the newness had worn off." No furloughs were possible and often pass privileges were withdrawn when successive immediate movement communications, which did not result in movement orders, were received.
 
Mental strain in these units was increased by the sense of urgency and significance of their role, a role not shared by less critical units. Tension mounted as the fear that "something" might happen to prevent their use in combat grew. Every accident, minor or major, was viewed as a threat to the program of which they were a part. Lt. Mac Ross, the first Negro pilot to survive the loss of a military plane in flight, thought, while bailing out, "I've wrecked a ship worth thousands of dollars. Maybe they'll start saying Negroes can't fly." 104 The distinction of being -the first Negro member of the Caterpillar Club did not dim this concern. Further accidents during the more than six months alert period caused similar qualms to develop among the men of all the station's units.105 That the squadron might dry rot before ever getting overseas, and that, as a result, its members might be charged with demonstrating the inability of Negroes to fly in combat was a major concern of many of its men dur-
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ing these months of waiting. Concern about their commitment, frequently expressed in the Negro press, which began to recount the speed of shipment of white units and pilots with less training time, did not decrease the pressure upon the morale of these units.
 
In units with a less critical view of their significance, greater deleterious effects resulted from long periods of inactivity. "Colored troops at this station," an ASF inspecting committee reported a post commander as saying in 1944, "have been in training nearly a year and a half, most of it at this station. They are bored, over-trained, domesticated, and subject to any bad influence upon their emotions. It is recommended that every effort be made to move these troops to some other locality, preferably in the direction of their ultimate destination. The mere activity of moving would satisfy them for a reasonable length of time, and strange surroundings would quiet their restlessness." 106 But many units remained undisturbed at their posts, continuing routine training and, on occasion, performing miscellaneous duties of barely visible importance.
 
A number of observers shared the opinion that moving Negro troops to new locations would divert them enough to check falling morale and allay unrest before it became serious. In some cases, general improvement noted in units was attributed to the receipt of movement orders.107 But the first sergeant who had felt that most of the troubles of his unit could be solved if the bus situation could be improved, went on to remark: 
 
I don't know any cure for the rest of it. Just not content. It all goes back to the mess halls. It is unfortunate that anyone has to be in a place he doesn't like but this is war and these men don't realize they must suffer discomfort for their country. I think what they would rather have than be near home is to be out on the [flying] line. They don't want to mess around pots and pans. They want to learn something in the Army. They want to gain something. Some men by being here are becoming stagnant.108
 
Most of the men in this squadron were assigned to cadet, officers', and consolidated messes, many of them as kitchen police. The squadron had some counter indications of high morale: first unit on the post to reach 100 percent in war bond allotments; best venereal record on the field, with no new case in the preceding 76 days; and a good disciplinary record both on and off the post. When his men had tried to obtain transfers, the squadron commander had therefore thought that "They merely want to leave Texas." 109
 
A more striking instance of the relationship between awareness of usefulness and both morale and efficiency was provided at Seymour Johnson Field, North Carolina. There, since the summer of 1943, serious malassignments had existed in the field's aviation squadron. A number of the men, for example, had been trained in Signal Corps radio schools and in colleges as members of the Enlisted Reserve Corps.
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When they were called to active duty and sent to basic training centers, they were classified for further specialist training. Instead, however, they were assigned to Seymour Johnson Field and placed on squadron duty, where they performed menial labor with no prospect of further training.
 
This condition was not unusual, but Seymour Johnson Field, through the Technical Training Command, managed to have many of the men transferred to other fields where, it was hoped, they could be more efficiently used. Others of these better qualified men were left on the field. Some of them were used in administrative positions taking advantage of their intelligence and general education if not of their specialized training; others were placed in the station hospital, as medical corpsmen and as medical and dental laboratory technicians. With the reduction of station and hospital strength that came in 1944, these men were no longer needed; some of them, now trained as medical technicians, were transferred from the field.
 
The field began to find itself short of qualified maintenance personnel as white soldiers were withdrawn for assignments to units preparing for overseas duty. The field's Classification Section checked the Form 2o record cards of all Negro men. Only two Negroes with AGCT scores of 100 or better were being used in basic specialties, one man as automotive equipment operator and one as head waiter in the Officers' Club. Those whose backgrounds, AGCT scores, or mechanical aptitude scores warranted, were then assigned to the flight line. Beginning in May 1944 untrained white and Negro men selected to bolster the fast crumbling supply of maintenance men were trained locally:
 
All men assigned to the flight line with the prospect of receiving technical training were assigned to Production Line Maintenance and put to work on the planewashing rack. If they showed promise and proper interest and attitude, they were sent to the P-47 school conducted by the Ground Training Department. Most of these men were classified as laborers and attended the school which was conducted for both white and colored soldiers who attended the same classes. Personnel in charge of the P-47 school were enthusiastic, in general, concerning the response of the Negro soldiers .
 
. . . It was impossible to comment too favorably on two aspects of the situation-morale and the aid to the manpower problem.
 
No segregation whatever was practiced in on-the-job training, in the P-47 school, or on the flight line. The colored soldiers working on the line were quite naturally most outspoken in their praise of the policy and in their opinion that it was definitely a pioneering step. None of them, either from personal experience at other bases or from the experiences of friends with whom they corresponded knew of any other field where such a policy had been adopted. One of the colored soldiers, a radio man in FLM Communications and a college graduate, commented that he had been malassigned until the First Air Force took over the Base. In spite of experience in radio and signal work, he had been detailed to duty as a carpenter in the squadron area, realizing all the while that he could have been of more use elsewhere. Very strong in his admiration for the overall handling of the racial question at Seymour Johnson Field, he emphasized that no (t) enough praise could be given the amicable relationship that existed between the colored and white soldiers on the line.
 
The officer in charge of FLM Communications stressed the fact that two of his section chiefs, white men from Southern states, were as satisfied with the work of the colored men under them as with the white men as-
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signed to them. One of the section chiefs protested strongly when the officer in charge suggested the transfer of one of the Negro soldiers to another crew.
 
It was generally agreed that practically all the mechanically inclined men in C Squadron had applied for assignment to the flight line and most of those qualified had been given the opportunity. Although a great deal of skepticism had existed among the colored soldiers, when the plan first went into effect, the favorable reports from the first men to work on the line counteracted that feeling.
 
The pride and satisfaction of the Negro soldiers was plainly shown by their preference for work on the flight lines as privates, often on the night shift, than to work at the Officers' Club with a chance to earn extra duty pay. A factor which had much to do with the excellent morale was the promotional policy under which the Negro soldiers had-theoretically and actually-the same chance for advancement as white soldiers working on the same jobs.110
 
Not only did the morale of the squadron rise as a result of this policy, but also administrative and disciplinary problems were greatly reduced, though Negro soldiers still presented more than their share of disciplinary problems, mainly in town situations.
 
The post commander, some months after the beginning of maintenance training for Negro soldiers, commented:
 
Although, frankly, the program was undertaken with some trepidation and the feeling that some of the more advanced technical work would be beyond the limitations of the Negro soldiers, the result has been most gratifying. They are now working efficiently and reliably in the refueling system and at the various stations in PLM, including hydraulics, and in radio repair. It has been found that they perform the duties which are commensurate with their AGCT score.
 
It is satisfying to note the great improvement in the morale of the Negro soldiers since the plan started and also to note how amiably they work alongside white soldiers with no friction or ill-will whatever.111
 
On airfields, where planes and shops were available to give even the least technical units a sense of mission, it may have been easier to stem falling morale through job assignments that had immediate, visible usefulness in terms of the conduct of the war. But in the less glamorous branches the sense of usefulness could also be enhanced with a corresponding response in morale and efficiency. At Indiantown Gap's Army Service Forces Training Center, in Pennsylvania, where large numbers of port companies-many of them made up of personnel formerly in medical, sanitary, antiaircraft, and other now inactivated units-were trained, a special orientation program for Negro troops emphasizing their relation to past and present wars was developed in 1944 under the direction of a Negro officer 112 and a staff of enlisted men of good academic backgrounds. Without elaborate physical facilities-the makeshift service club, the exchanges, and restaurants available at this post were, if anything, below average-but with intensive attention to both instructional and command staff on the part of the
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centers' commander, Col. Forrest Ambrose, an officer once assigned to the 24th Infantry, this post succeeded in convincing the majority of the men trained at the center that ships, docks, and the necessary port companies were an important part in the wartime team and that the Army was doing its best in utilizing their services. By the last year of the war Indiantown Gap had become a major example of what could be done by a command to lessen the debilitating effects of a decline in motivation and morale among Negro troops. Because of its location, near the big eastern cities, it was available as a prime exhibit of what the Army could do for morale. In January 1945 Truman Gibson, after visiting this and other posts, determined that the main ingredients of success at this training center were the high caliber of the officers and their leadership plus their willingness to attempt answers to the puzzled queries of enlisted men, both in words and in actions. He observed to Assistant Secretary McCloy:
 
At Indiantown Gap, I inspected the physical facilities and talked at length with many of the officers and enlisted men of the ASFTC which Colonel Ambrose commands. In talking with the enlisted men, I was impressed with their high morale. Never in the four years that I have visited Army installations have I seen more trust and confidence placed in officers by enlisted men. This was made all the more unusual by reason of the fact that the stevedore training which the men receive is very arduous. Particularly effective was the Orientation Program in which intelligent answers are given the many difficult questions that the enlisted men raise. The white and colored officers seemed to get along well during their duty and off-duty hours. A Negro officer is the coach of the basketball team which I saw play and on which there are only two Negro players. Together both races use the Officers' Club freely and without strain in the Training Center.113
 
Roy Wilkins, acting secretary of NAACP, who had accompanied Gibson, remarked of the commanding officer, "It is a great pity that the Army does not have a couple of hundred more men like him."114
 
A quartermaster service battalion training in the California-Arizona maneuver area also showed the benefits of careful instruction on the purposes and value of their organization to the prosecution of the war. An inspector reported:
 
The battalion had just commenced basic training at the start of the maneuvers and the utilization of this battalion was absolutely necessary in support of the troops in the combat zone. Investigation discloses that the work of this battalion was outstanding and interrogation of negro soldiers from private to master sergeant reveals a surprisingly high morale and pride in their work. Large numbers stated openly and freely that they knew the type of work being accomplished by them was absolutely necessary and just as important as actual fighting . . . . One Sergeant, a welder by trade, when asked if he would like to go to school and continue in that type of work stated that he preferred to remain a sergeant in his present unit . . . .115
 
Not all posts and units were able or willing to alter the outlook of Negro soldiers by exerting the effort to convince them that what they were doing had ultimate value to the war effort. But where men and units felt that theirs
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was a position of responsibility and import in the conduct of the war, where they were made to feel that an honest attempt had been made to use their services, and where they were convinced that their superiors were both cognizant of their problems and judicious in their decisions concerning them, high morale could be achieved. In most units a sincere attempt in any one of these directions was sufficient to hold the morale line. Where none of these courses was adopted, morale and motivation crumbled to the point that neither the routine of training and employment, the expansion of physical facilities, nor the hortatives of the well meaning had significant effect.
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Endnotes

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