Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965MacGregor, Morris J.
History
Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965
MacGregor, Morris J.
African American soldiers; United States -- Race relations
Army Ground Forces reported that it had formed some composite units,
but its largest black unit, the 25th Regimental Combat Team, had been
attached to the V Corps at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, instead of
being made an organic element in a division. Practically all service
group headquarters reported separate black and white battalions (p. 190)
under their control, but many of the organizations in the Army Service
Forces--those under the Provost Marshal General and the Surgeon
General, for example--still had no black units, let alone composite
organizations. The Caribbean Defense Command, the Trinidad Base
Command, and the Headquarters Base Command of the Antilles Department
reported similar situations. The Mediterranean theater was using some
Negroes with special skills in appropriate overhead organizations, but
in the vast European Command Negroes were assigned to separate
regiments and smaller units. There were two exceptions: one
provisional black regiment was attached to the 1st Infantry Division,
and a black field artillery battalion was attached to each of the
three occupation divisions. The Alaskan Department and the Okinawa
Base Command had black units, both separate and grouped with white
units, but the Yokohama Base Command continued to use specially
skilled Negroes in black units because of the great demand for
qualified persons in those units.[7-65]
[Footnote 7-65: Memo, D/O&T for ASW, 18 Jul 46, sub:
Organization of Negro Manpower in Postwar Army,
WDGOT 291.2.]
To claim, as Hall did to Assistant Secretary Petersen, that black
units were being used like white units was misleading. Despite the
examples cited in the survey, many black units still remained
independent organizations, and with one major exception black combat
units grouped with white units were attached rather than assigned as
organizational elements of a parent unit. This was an important
distinction.[7-66] The constant imposition of attached status on a unit
that under normal circumstances would be assigned as an organic
element of a division introduced a sense of impermanence and
alienation just as it relieved the division commander of considerable
administrative control and hence proprietary interest in the unit.
[Footnote 7-66: An attached unit, such as a tank
destroyer battalion, is one temporarily included in
a larger organization; an assigned unit is one
permanently given to a larger organization as part
of its organic establishment. On the distinction
between attached and assigned status, see Ltr, CSA
to CG, CONARC, 21 Jul 55, CSUSA 322.17 (Div), and
CMH, "Lineages and Honors: History, Principles, and
Preparation," June 1962, in CMH.]
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