- 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
- [300]
- 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-
- [301]
- 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.
-
-
- 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
- [302]
- 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
- [303]
- 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
- [304]
- 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
- [305]
- 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
- [306]
- 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
- [307]
- 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
- [308]
- 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.
-
-
- 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
- [309]
- 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
- [310]
- 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-
- [311]
- 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.
-
-
- 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-
- [312]
- 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,
- [313]
- 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-
- [314]
- 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.
-
-
- 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-
- [315]
- 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
- [316]
- 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-
- [317]
- 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
- [318]
- 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-
- [319]
- 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
- [320]
- 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
- [321]
- 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,
- [322]
- 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
- [323]
- 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.
-
-
- 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
- [324]
- 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
- [325]
- 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
- [326]
- 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
- [327]
- 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
- [328]
- 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
- [329]
- 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
- [330]
- 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.
-
-
- 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
- [331]
- 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.
-
-
- 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
- [332]
- 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
- [333]
- 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
- [334]
- 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
- [335]
- 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
- [336]
- 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
- [337]
- 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
- [338]
- 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
-
-
- 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
- [339]
- 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
- [340]
- 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-
- [341]
- 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-
- [342]
- 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.
- [343]
- 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-
- [344]
- 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
- [345]
- 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
- [346]
- 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.
- [347]
Endnotes
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