I'm a Navy Man, and we're in a war. To me, it's that stripe that counts--and the training and leadership that it is supposed to symbolize. That's why I never called a meeting of the crew to prepare them, to explain their obligation to respect you, or anything like that. I didn't want anyone to think you were different from any other officer coming aboard.[3-93] [Footnote 3-90: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for CINCUSFLEET, 6 Mar 45, sub: Negro Personnel--Expanded Use of, with 1st Ind, from Fleet Adm, USN, for Vice CNO, 28 Mar 45, same sub, FFI/P16-3/MM, OpNavArchives.] [Footnote 3-91: BuPers Cir Ltr 105-45, 13 Apr 45, sub: Negro General-Service Personnel, Assignment of to Auxiliary Vessels of the Fleet.] [Footnote 3-92: Ltr, Chief, NavPers, to CO, USS _Mason_, 16 Mar 45, sub: Negro Officer--Assignment of, Pers 2119-FB; see also idem to CO, USS _Kaweah_, 16 Jul 45, sub: Negro Officer--Assignment of to Auxiliary Vessel of the Fleet, AO 15/P16-1; idem to CO, USS _Laramie_, 21 Aug 45, same sub, AO 16/P16-1. All in OpNavArchives.] [Footnote 3-93: Quoted in Rowan, "Those Navy Boys Changed My Life." pp 57-58.] Admitting Negroes to the WAVES was another matter considered by the new secretary in his first days in office. In fact, the subject had been under discussion in the Navy Department for some two years. Soon after the organization of the women's auxiliary, its director, Capt. Mildred H. McAfee, had recommended that Negroes be accepted, arguing that their recruitment would help to temper the widespread criticism of the Navy's restrictive racial policy. But the traditionalists in the Bureau of Naval Personnel had opposed the move on the grounds that WAVES were organized to replace men, and since there were more than enough black sailors to fill all billets open to Negroes there was no need to recruit black women. Actually, both arguments served to mask other motives, as did Knox's rejection of recruitment on the grounds that integrating women into the Navy was difficult enough without taking on the race (p. 087) problem.[3-94] In April 1943 Knox "tentatively" approved the "tentative" outline of a bureau plan for the induction of up to 5,000 black WAVES, but nothing came of it.[3-95] Given the secretary's frequent protestation that the subject was under constant review,[3-96] and his statement to Captain McAfee that black WAVES would be enlisted "over his dead body,"[3-97] the tentative outline and approval seems to have been an attempt to defer the decision indefinitely. [Footnote 3-94: Ltr, Mildred M. Horton to author, 14 Mar 75, CMH files.]