Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 Part 36

The Postwar Marine Corps

Unlike the Army and Navy, the all-white Marine Corps seemed to consider the wartime enlistment of over 19,000 Negroes a temporary aberration. Forced by the Navy's nondiscrimination policy to retain Negroes after the war, Marine Corps officials at first decided on a black representation of some 2,200 men, roughly the same proportion as during the war. But the old tradition of racial exclusion remained strong, and this figure was soon reduced. The corps also ignored the Navy's integration measures, adopting instead a pattern of segregation that Marine officials claimed was a variation on the Army's historic "separate but equal" black units. In fact, separation was real enough in the postwar corps; equality remained elusive.

_Racial Quotas and a.s.signments_

The problem was that any "separate but equal" race policy, no matter how loosely enforced, was incompatible with the corps' postwar manpower resources and mission and would conflict with its determination to restrict black units to a token number. The dramatic manpower reductions of 1946 were felt immediately in the two major elements of the Marine Corps. The Fleet Marine Force, the main operating unit of the corps and usually under control of the Chief of Naval Operations, retained three divisions, but lost a number of its combat battalions. The divisions kept a few organic and attached service and miscellaneous units. Under such severe manpower restrictions, planners could not reserve one of the large organic elements of these divisions for black marines, thus leaving the smaller attached and miscellaneous units as the only place to accommodate self-contained black organizations. At first the Plans and Policies Division decided to a.s.sign roughly half the black marines to the Fleet Marine Force. Of these some were slated for an antiaircraft artillery battalion at Montford Point which would provide training as well as an opportunity for Negroes' overseas to be rotated home.

Others were placed in three combat service groups and one service depot where they would act as divisional service troops, and the rest went into 182 slots, later increased to 216, for stewards, the majority in aviation units.

The other half of the black marines was to be absorbed by the so called non-Fleet Marine Force, a term used to cover training, security, and miscellaneous Marine units, all noncombat, which normally remained under the control of the commandant. This part of the corps was composed of many small and usually self-contained units, but in a number of activities, particularly in the logistical establishment and the units afloat, reductions in manpower would (p. 254) necessitate considerable sharing of living and working facilities, thus making racial separation impossible. The planners decided, therefore, to limit black a.s.signments outside the Fleet Marine Force to naval ammunition depots at McAlester, Oklahoma, and Earle, New Jersey, where Negroes would occupy separate barracks; to Guam and Saipan, princ.i.p.ally as antiaircraft artillery; and to a small training cadre at Montford Point. Eighty stewards would also serve with units outside the Fleet Marine Force. With the exception of the depot at Earle, all these installations had been a.s.signed Negroes during the war. Speaking in particular about the a.s.signment of Negroes to McAlester, the Director of the Plans and Policies Division, Brig. Gen.

Gerald C. Thomas, commented that "this has proven to be a satisfactory location and type of duty for these personnel."[10-1] Thomas's conception of "satisfactory" duty for Negroes became the corps'

rationale for its postwar a.s.signment policy.

[Footnote 10-1: Memos, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 25 Sep and 17 Oct 46, sub: Post War Personnel Requirements, A0-1, MC files. Unless otherwise noted, all the doc.u.ments cited in this chapter are located in Hist Div, HQMC. The quotation is from the September memo.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARINE ARTILLERY TEAM. _Men of the 51st Defense Battalion in training at Montford Point with 90-mm. antiaircraft gun._]

To a.s.sign Negroes to unskilled jobs because they were accustomed to such duties and because the jobs were located in communities that would accept black marines might be satisfactory to Marine officials, but it was considered racist by many civil rights spokesmen and left the Marine Corps open to charges of discrimination. The policy of tying the number of Negroes to the number of available, appropriate slots also meant that the number of black marines, and consequently the acceptability of black volunteers, was subject to chronic fluctuation. More important, it permitted if not encouraged further restrictions on the use of the remaining black marines who had combat training, thereby allowing the traditionalists to press for a segregated service in which the few black marines would be mostly servants and laborers.

The process of reordering the a.s.signment of black marines began just eleven weeks after the commandant approved the staff's postwar policy recommendations. Informing the commandant on 6 January 1947 that "several changes have been made in concepts upon which such (p. 255) planning was based," General Thomas explained that the requirement for antiaircraft artillery units at Guam and Saipan had been canceled, along with the plan for maintaining an artillery unit at Montford Point. Because of the cancellation his division wanted to reduce the number of black marines to 1,500. These men could be a.s.signed to depot companies, service units, and Marine barracks--all outside the Fleet Marine Force--or they could serve as stewards. The commandant's approval of this plan reduced the number of Negroes in the corps by 35 percent, or 700 men. Coincidental with this reduction was a 17 percent rise in s.p.a.ces for black stewards to 350.[10-2]

[Footnote 10-2: Memo, G. C. Thomas, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 6 Jan 47, sub: Negro Requirements, A0-1.]

Approval of this plan eliminated the last Negroes from combat a.s.signments, a fact that General Thomas suggested could be justified as "consistent with similar reductions being effected elsewhere in the Corps." But the facts did not support such a palliative. In June 1946 the corps had some 1,200 men serving in three antiaircraft artillery battalions and an antiaircraft artillery group headquarters. In June 1948 the corps still had white antiaircraft artillery units on Guam and at Camp Lejeune totaling 1,020 men. The drop in numbers was explained almost entirely by the elimination of the black units.[10-3]

[Footnote 10-3: USMC Muster Rolls of Officers and Enlisted Men, 1946 and 1948.]

A further realignment of black a.s.signments occurred in June 1947 when General Vandegrift approved a Plans and Policies Division decision to remove more black units from security forces at naval sh.o.r.e establishments. The men were rea.s.signed to Montford Point with the result that the number of black training and overhead billets at that post jumped 200 percent--a dubious decision at best considering that black specialist and recruit training was virtually at a standstill.

General Thomas took the occasion to advise the commandant that maintaining an arbitrary quota of black marines was no longer a consideration since a reduction in their strength could be "adequately justified" by the general manpower reductions throughout the corps.[10-4]

[Footnote 10-4: Memo, G. C. Thomas for CMC, 11 Jun 47, sub: Negro Requirements and a.s.signments, A0-1.]

Actually the Marine Corps was not as free to reduce the quota of 1,500 Negroes as General Thomas suggested. To make further cuts in what was at most a token representation, approximately 1 percent of the corps in August 1947, would further inflame civil rights critics and might well provoke a reaction from Secretary Forrestal. Even Thomas's accompanying recommendation carefully retained the black strength figure previously agreed upon and actually raised the number of Negroes in the ground forces by seventy-six men. The 1,500-man minimum quota for black enlistment survived the reorganization of the Fleet Marine Force later in 1947, and the Plans and Policies Division even found it necessary to locate some 375 more billets for Negroes to maintain the figure. In August the commandant approved plans to add 100 slots for stewards and 275 general duty billets overseas, the latter to facilitate rotation and provide a broader range of a.s.signments for Negroes.[10-5] Only once before the Korean War, (p. 256) and then only briefly, did the authorized strength of Negroes drop below the 1,500 mark, although because of recruitment lags actual numbers never equaled authorized strength.[10-6]

[Footnote 10-5: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 28 Aug 47, sub: Requirements for General Duty Negro Marines, A0-1.]

[Footnote 10-6: Idem for Div, Pub Info, 10 Nov 48, sub: Information Relating to Negro Marines, A0-1.]

By mid-1947, therefore, the Marine Corps had abandoned its complex system of gearing the number of black marines to available a.s.signments and, like the Army and the Air Force, had adopted a racial quota--but with an important distinction. Although they rarely achieved it, the Army and the Air Force were committed to accepting a fixed percentage of Negroes; in an effort to avoid the problems with manpower efficiency plaguing the other services, the Marine Corps established a straight _numerical_ quota. Authorized black strength would remain at about 1,500 men until the Korean War. During that same period the actual percentage of Negroes in the Marine Corps almost doubled, rising from 1.3 percent of the 155,679-man corps in June 1946 to slightly more than 2 percent of the 74,279-man total in June 1950.[10-7]

[Footnote 10-7: Unless otherwise noted, statistics in this section are from NA Pers, 15658 (A), _Report, Navy and Marine Corps Military Statistics_, 30 Jun 59, BuPers. Official figures on black marines are from reports of the USMC Personnel Accounting Section.]

Yet neither the relatively small size of the Marine Corps nor the fact that few black marines were enrolled could conceal the inefficiency of segregation. Over the next three years the personnel planning staff tried to find a solution to the problem of what it considered to be too many Negroes in the general service. First it began to reduce gradually the number of black units accommodated in the Operating Force Plan, absorbing the excess black marines by increasing the number of stewards. This course was not without obvious public relations disadvantages, but they were offset somewhat by the fact that the Marine Corps, unlike the Navy, never employed a majority of its black recruits as stewards. In May 1948 the commandant approved new plans for a 10 percent decrease in the number of general duty a.s.signments and a corresponding increase in s.p.a.ces for stewards.[10-8]

The trend away from a.s.signing Negroes to general service duty continued until the Korean War, and in October 1949 a statistical high point was reached when some 33 percent of all black marines were serving as stewards. The doctrine that all marines were potential infantrymen stood, but it was small comfort to civil rights activists who feared that what at best was a nominal black representation in the corps was being pushed into the kitchen.

[Footnote 10-8: Memo, Dir, Plans and Policies Div, for CMC, 20 May 48, sub: Procurement and a.s.signment of Negro Enlisted Personnel, A0-1.]

But they had little to fear since the number of Negroes that could be absorbed in the Steward's Branch was limited. In the end the Marine Corps still had to accommodate two-thirds of its black strength in general duty billets, a course with several unpalatable consequences.

For one, Negroes would be a.s.signed to new bases reluctant to accept them and near some communities where they would be unwelcome. For another, given the limitations in self-contained units, there was the possibility of introducing some integration in the men's living or working arrangements. Certainly black billets would have to be created at the expense of white billets. The Director of Plans and Policies warned in August 1947 that the reorganization of the Fleet Marine (p. 257) Force, then under way, failed to allocate s.p.a.ces for some 350 Negroes with general duty contracts. While he antic.i.p.ated some reduction in this number as a result of the campaign to attract volunteers for the Steward's Branch, he admitted that many would remain una.s.signed and beyond antic.i.p.ating a reduction in the black "overage" through attrition, his office had no long-range plans for creating the needed s.p.a.ces.[10-9] When the attrition failed to materialize, the commandant was forced in December 1949 to redesignate 202 white billets for black marines with general duty contracts.[10-10] The problem of finding restricted a.s.signments for black marines in the general service lasted until it was overtaken by the manpower demands of the Korean War.

Meanwhile to the consternation of the civil rights advocates, as the corps' definition of "suitable" a.s.signment became more exact, the variety of duties to which Negroes could be a.s.signed seemed to decrease.[10-11]

[Footnote 10-9: Ibid., 28 Aug 47, sub: Requirements for General Duty Negro Marines, A0-1.]

[Footnote 10-10: Ibid., 14 Nov 49, sub: Designation of Units for a.s.signment of Negro Marines, A0-1.]

[Footnote 10-11: For criticism of a.s.signment restrictions, see comments and questions at the National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs, 26 Apr 48 (afternoon session), pp. 1-10, copy in CMH.]

_Recruitment_

Postwar quotas and a.s.signments for Negroes did nothing to curb the black community's growing impatience with separate and limited opportunities, a fact brought home to Marine Corps recruiters when they tried to enlist the Negroes needed to fill their quota. At first it seemed the traditionalists would regain their all-white corps by default. The Marine Corps had ceased drafting men in November 1945 and launched instead an intensive recruiting campaign for regular marines from among the thousands of reservists about to be discharged and regulars whose enlistments would soon expire. Included in this group were some 17,000 Negroes from among whom the corps planned to recruit its black contingent. To charges that it was discriminating in the enlistment of black civilians, the corps readily admitted that no new recruits were being accepted because preference was being given to men already in the corps.[10-12] In truth, the black reservists were rejecting the blandishments of recruiters in overwhelming numbers. By May 1946 only 522 Negroes, less than a quarter of the small postwar black complement, had enlisted in the regular service.

[Footnote 10-12: G-1, Div of Plans and Policies, Operational Diary, Sep 45-Oct 46, 23 Apr 47; Memo, Dir of Personnel (Div of Recruiting) for Off in Charge, Northeastern Recruiting Div, 17 Jan 46, sub: Enlistment of Negro Ex-Marines, MC 706577. See also _Afro-American_, February 16, 1946.]

The failure to attract recruits was particularly noticeable in the antiaircraft battalions. To obtain black replacements for these critically depleted units, the commandant authorized the recruitment of reservists who had served less than six months, but the measure failed to produce the necessary manpower. On 28 February 1946 the commanding general of Camp Lejeune reported that all but seven Negroes on his antiaircraft artillery roster were being processed for discharge.[10-13] Since this list included the black noncommissioned instructors, the commander warned that future training of black (p. 258) marines would entail the use of officers as instructors. The precipitous loss of black artillerymen forced Marine headquarters to a.s.sign white specialists as temporary replacements in the heavy antiaircraft artillery groups at Guam and Saipan, both designated as black units in the postwar organization.[10-14]

[Footnote 10-13: Msg, CMC to CG, Cp Lejeune, 19 Feb 46, MC 122026; Memo, CG, Cp Lejeune, for CMC, 28 Feb 46, sub: Personnel and Equipment for Antiaircraft Artillery Training Battalion (Colored), Availability of, RPS-1059, MC files.]

[Footnote 10-14: Memo, G. C. Thomas for Dir of Personnel, 6 Mar 48, sub: Replacements for Enlisted Personnel (Colored) a.s.signment of, Request for, A0-3; Msg, CINCPAC/POA PEARL to CNO, 282232Z Apr 46, MC 76735, MC files.]

It was not the fault of the black press if this expression of black indifference went unnoticed. The failure of black marines to reenlist was the subject of many newspaper and journal articles. The reason for the phenomenon advanced by the Norfolk _Journal and Guide_ would be repeated by civil rights spokesmen on numerous occasions in the era before integration. The paper declared that veterans remembered their wartime experiences and were convinced that the same distasteful practices would be continued after the war.[10-15] Marine Corps officials advanced different reasons. The Montford Point commander attributed slow enlistment rates to a general postwar letdown and lack of publicity, explaining that Montford Point "had an excellent athletic program, good chow and comfortable barracks." A staff member of the Division of Plans and Policies later prepared a lengthy a.n.a.lysis of the treatment the Marine Corps had received in the black press. He charged that the press had presented a distorted picture of conditions faced by blacks that had "agitated" the men and turned them against reenlistment. He recommended a public relations campaign at Montford Point to improve the corps' image.[10-16] But this a.n.a.lysis missed the point, for while the black press might influence civilians, it could hardly instruct Marine veterans. Probably more than any other factor, the wartime treatment of black marines explained the failure of the corps to attract qualified, let alone gifted, Negroes to its postwar junior enlisted ranks.

[Footnote 10-15: Norfolk _Journal and Guide_, May 4, 1946. See also Murray, _Negro Yearbook_, 1949 pp.

272-73. On the general accuracy of the press charges, see Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks in the Marine Corps_, pp. 47-51.]

[Footnote 10-16: CO, Montford Point, Press Conference (ca. 1 May 47), quoted in Div of Plans and Policies Staff Report, "Rescinding Ltr of Instruction #421,"

MC files; unsigned, unt.i.tled Memo written in the Division of Plans and Policies on black marines and the black press (ca. Aug 55).]

Considering the critical shortages, temporarily and "undesirably" made up for by white marines, and the "leisurely" rate at which black reservists were reenlisting, General Thomas recommended in May 1946 that the corps recruit some 1,120 Negroes from civilian sources. This, he explained to the commandant, would accelerate black enlistment but still save some s.p.a.ces for black reservists.[10-17] The commandant agreed,[10-18] and contrary to the staff's expectations, most Negroes in the postwar service were new recruits. The ma.s.s departure of World (p. 259) War II veterans eloquently expressed the att.i.tude of experienced black servicemen toward the Marines' racial policy.

[Footnote 10-17: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 3 May 46, sub: Enlisting of Negroes in the Marine Corps From Civilian Sources, A0-1.]

[Footnote 10-18: Ibid., 23 Oct 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, 1335-110; Memo, CMC to Off in Charge, Northeastern Recruiting Div, et al., 23 Oct 46, sub: Negro First Enlistments, Quota for Month of November, 1946, AP-1231. There was an attempt to stall first enlistment, see Memo, Dir of Personnel, for Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 17 May 46, sub: Enlisting of Negroes in the Marine Corps From Civilian Sources; but it was overruled, Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for Dir of Personnel. 23 May 46, same sub, A0-1.]

The word spread quickly among the new black marines. When in mid-1947 the Division of Plans and Policies was looking for ways to reduce the number of black marines in keeping with the modified manpower ceiling, it discovered that if offered the opportunity about one-third of all Negroes would apply for discharge. An even higher percentage of discharge requests was expected from among black marines overseas. The commandant agreed to make the offer, except to the stewards, and in the next six months black strength dropped by 700 men.[10-19]

[Footnote 10-19: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 28 May 47, sub: Program for Accelerated Attrition of Negro Marines, A0-1; Maj S. M. Adams, "Additional Directives From Plans and Policies--3 June 1947," 3 Jun 47; Speed Ltr, CMC to CG, Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, N.C., et al., 8 May 47, A0-1; Memo, CMC to Depot Quartermaster, Depot of Supplies, 3 Jun 47, sub: Discharge for the Convenience of the Government Certain Enlisted Negro Members of the Marine Corps, 070-15-447.]

Even the recruitment of stewards did not go according to predictions.

Thomas had a.s.sured the commandant in the spring of 1946 that a concrete offer of steward duty to black reservists would produce the 300-man quota for the regular corps. He wanted the offer published at all separation centers and a training program for stewards inst.i.tuted at Camp Lejeune.[10-20] General Vandegrift approved the proposal, but a month later the commander of Camp Lejeune reported that only three reservists and one regular had volunteered.[10-21] He advised the commandant to authorize recruitment among qualified civilians. Faced with wholesale rejection of such duty by black marines, General Thomas in March 1947 opened the Steward's Branch to Negroes with previous military service in any of the armed forces and qualifications for such work.[10-22] This ploy also proved a failure. Looking for 250 stewards, the recruiters could find but one acceptable applicant in the first weeks of the program. Retreating still further, the commandant canceled the requirement for previous military service in April, and in October dropped the requirement for "clearly established qualifications."[10-23] Apparently the staff would take a chance on any warm body.

[Footnote 10-20: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 12 Mar 46, sub: Steward's Branch Personnel, Information Concerning, A0-3, MC files.]

[Footnote 10-21: Ltr, CG, Cp Lejeune, to CMC, 4 Apr 46, sub: Steward's Branch Personnel, 060105.]

[Footnote 10-22: Memo, Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, for CMC, 18 Mar 47, sub: Enlistment of Negro Personnel, 01A7647.]

[Footnote 10-23: Ibid., 16 Apr 47, sub: First Enlistment of Negro Personnel, A0-1, and 9 Oct 47, sub: Procurement and a.s.signment of Stewards Personnel, Box 1515-30; Ltr, CMC (Div of Recruiting) to Off in Charge, Northeastern Recruiting Div, 29 Apr 47, sub: Negro First Enlistments, 07A11947.]