The United States Ends Racial Segregation in the Military in 1941

It's a long shot but hypothetically let's say that due to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the entry into the European Theatre, and initial Allied loses that the U.S Military ends racial segregation 7 years earlier than they did in actual history.

How would this have effected the Allied military and victory in the war overall?

 

Why should it have any effect at all?

 

There was one US warship with an all black crew and a black Captain. And also an outstanding battalion of American Japanese who performed very well in Europe.

Just for starters.

But as you say, very little to no integration of the races.

 

Actually there was only one Nisei unit. There was more then one battalion in it. The 442nd Regimental Combat Team contained 3 battlions with the 100th becoming the first one of the 442nd RCT. The 100th became known as the "Purple Heart" battalion.

"The 442nd RCT was a self-sufficient fighting formation of three infantry battalions (originally 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Battalions, 442d Infantry, and later the 100th Infantry Battalion in place of the 1st), the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, the 232nd Engineering Company, an anti-tank company, cannon company, service company, medical detachment, headquarters companies, and the 206th Army Band."

 

Black Crew of World War II Navy Ship Recognized for Heroism

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Published: February 19, 1995
It took more than 50 years, but sailors on the only Navy warship in World War II with a black crew have been officially recognized for heroism in escorting support ships to England in 1944 through 90-mile-an-hour winds and 40-foot waves.
A convoy commander recommended that every one of the 160 men on the ship, the destroyer-escort Mason, receive letters of commendation. After making their first landfall in England, the sailors had braved harsh weather to quickly weld cracks that threatened to tear their ship apart, then returned to sea to guide other ships to harbor. But the recommendation was lost in channels and then in naval archives.
The Mason was the only vessel in the segregated, World War II Navy in which blacks were something other than cooks and waiters. The officers on the ship were white.
Years later, the commander's letter of recommendation was found by Mary Pat Kelly, who wrote a book and helped make a film about the ship, which led the Navy to present crew members with official commendations on Thursday.
"I feel so happy about the whole thing," James Graham, who was a radio operator, said at the ceremony at the Navy Memorial here.
Navy Secretary John H. Dalton presented the honors to Mr. Graham, 72, and 11 other crew members. "It's an important part of Navy history that needs to be told," Mr. Dalton said.
Mr. Graham, of Roosevelt, L.I., retired from television repair work in 1986 and has since devoted himself to telling the story of the Mason. "It was a fact of just doing our duty," he said. "In those days, black guys were always proving themselves."
The crew's actions and determination helped remove racial barriers and push the military toward full integration, according to the documentary film, "Proudly We Served: The Men of the U.S.S. Mason," which was shown here and is being broadcast on PBS.
In the book of the same title, published this month by the Naval Institute Press, crew members recalled the stormy convoy and the prejudice and discrimination they faced.
Charles Divers of Maywood, Ill., said he believed white officers had quashed the commendation because the Mason's crew was black. "They didn't want us to do too good," said Mr. Divers, 73, a retired electrician who was a quartermaster. "I'm just glad I was able to live long enough to receive this thing."
Ms. Kelly said, "The men never knew that they had been recommended."
She added that these men's mettle at sea persuasively argued against the military's relegating blacks to menial tasks, like cooking and serving food. "The fact that they not only did it, but were so successful, was important because history had forgotten the Mason," she said. "This was like a chapter of history forgotten."

Black Crew of World War II Navy Ship Recognized for Heroism - New York Times

 

First Integrated U.S. Navy Ship in World War II Led to Changes

Black and White Officers and Crew Served Together in 'Experiment'



By Timothy B. Benford, published May 24, 2007
Published Content: 93</SPAN> Total Views: 85,671 Favorited By: 6 CPs

When the United States entered World War II, the U.S. Navy pressed a number of private yachts into service for what were supposed to be non-combat roles, such as weather ships, lookout ships, and so forth.

Sea Cloud, the once private, luxury four-masted barque, owned by Post Cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, made military history of a very special kind during its service as IX-99 during the war: she was the first experimental vessel for racial integration in the U.S. Navy. The former opulent yacht served in the Atlantic mostly as a weather ship and lookout for U-Boats. The IX-99 designation was mostly used in official communications and messages. To the crew, and others, the ship was routinely spoken of by its civilian name.

Unfortunately, what follows is a little-known piece of American history. I came across it while researching information for various of my World War II books. At things turned out, I coincidentally handled public relations for Sea Cloud Cruises during a five year period in the 1990s, by which time the ship had been sold, refurbished and put into service as an elite passenger vessel.

At the beginning of the war only a small number of blacks with low ratings were assigned to U.S. Navy vessels. Sea Cloud's commanding Navy officer, Captain Carlton Skinner, calculated that in comparison to the 11 percent black population ashore at the time, only 2 percent of blacks made up a ship's complement. He figured, given the chance, they would serve their country equally effectively as white sailors. And he proved it. He wasn't a flaming liberal, or a do-gooder with a social agenda, he was just a practical naval officer who identified a large and productive source of needed manpower and took historic steps to prove his point.

Skinner initiated a program whereby Sea Cloud soon boasted a completely integrated crew with four black officers and some 50 black petty officers and seamen serving in the ship's 175-man company. As a private yacht, Sea Cloud was originally built to accommodate 80 guests and crew in comfort. But nobody ever said the Navy was concerned with comfort!
Not only did the ship's crew distinguish itself and maintain an excellent record, there is not a single case of racial harassment, bigotry, or disharmony during Sea Cloud's wartime record. Among many citations, Sea Cloud was cited for aiding in the sinking of a German U-Boat. The irony is that Sea Cloud herself had been built in Germany.

To the surprise of some admirals in Washington the integrated crew proved beyond a doubt that Skinner had understood something the navy, and the country, hadn't. Good and qualified people perform and function successfully no matter what the color of their skin is.

It was a wake up call made with out protests, without pressure groups, without Affirmative Action or politicians grand-standing. It was America at its best.

The success aboard Sea Cloud led to the General Order of February 1945, which for the first time declared blacks could comprise ten (10) percent of the general ranks on a ship. This simple order effectively ended segregation in the U.S. Navy.

Skinner also discovered he had a talented painter aboard in the person of Seaman Joseph Lawrence. Remembering that throughout history navy ships of various countries had chroniclers aboard, Skinner determined the IX-99 should have hers too.

Consequently, Lawrence was assigned to ship duties for half a day. . . and painting for the other half. In art circles, Joseph Lawrence is recognized as one of America's foremost black artists and his works, including some of his wartime Sea Cloud paintings, hang in several museums.

Skinner never described Lawrence as a 'black artist.' Whenever the Sea Cloud's captain mentioned Lawrence's paintings to other naval officers he simply said Lawrence was 'the ships talented artist.' If only all of us could look at each other the same way, without qualifying individuals by race or religion, without hyphenating a person's ancestry with 'American,' wouldn't that be great?

All of the American sailors who served on Sea Cloud helped tear down the notion that only those of European ancestry had the intelligence, courage, and leadership abilities to rise in the military.

After the war the ship was returned to it's owner, Marjorie Merriweather Post. Today the 68-passenger Sea Cloud is no longer a private yacht. Instead, she proffers one-week, off-the-beaten path Caribbean cruises between November and April each year. In the summer, however, Sea Cloud calls on ports in the Mediterranean and Aegean.
The sailors who once populated her decks would be amused to find 34 air-conditioned cabins with telephones; hair-dryers; bathrobes, plus a library; piano; and video players; and deck chairs.

Today, she is a far cry from her stripped down life as a warship that crowded 175 men in basically the same space.

However, because she is more than 70 years old of wooden construction, and not in compliance with fire safety laws, Sea Cloud is prevented by law from visiting U.S. ports as a commercial passenger ship.

First Integrated U.S. Navy Ship in World War II Led to Changes - Associated Content

 

JC, good of you to share those articles. As usual, thanks.
As for this what if, the one thing that immediately comes to my mind would be an increased pool of men that could be tapped for replacements or formation of new units.

 

As I understand it, very few black soldiers actually saw action in Europe. They were kept in the rear. I'm not sure why.

It maybe similar to an event in WW1 when the French wouldn't use their Senegalese troops against the Germans as it was considered bad form to have blacks fighting white men. They were however used at Gallipoli but then again they were only fighting the Turks.

 

I think, ironically, the segregation of blacks or Asians in forming same-race combat formations actually helped them to preform better, since they were conscious of the fact that they were on probation and compared to exclusively white units. I think that superior motivation (and the fact that you have to volunteer to join an all-black fighting outfit) possitively contributed to the superb fighting reputations of the 761st Tank Bn and Tuskgekee Airmen. But having more black soldiers would probably ameliorated the draught of riflemen as experienced by the US Army at late 1944; some generals reportedly integrated 'coloured' rifle platoons at this time.

 

A few more threads about US Black troops in WWII

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-general/21909-colored-cavalry-wwii.html

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-general/24996-buffalo-soldiers-cite-dual-battle-enemy-racism.html

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-general/24537-two-black-units-during-world-war-ii.html

 

Not really. Segregation did not significantly affect US manpower pools, blacks, though not nisei, were conscripted in numbers similar to whites. The difference was that for, the most part, they served in non-combat formations such as port units (stevedores), transportation units (truck drivers), etc. The combat units they did serve in were still segregated, although these units did fight alongside white units.

In the Navy, blacks served aboard all types of ships, but were limited to certain ratings and/or divisions, such as stewards and mess cooks. Ironically, the US Navy had had almost fully integrated crews, some with black officers, until the Civil War. Beginning in the 1870's when ships and naval weapons were becoming more mechanized and complex, a process of segregation began in the Navy, due primarily to lack of educational opportunities for blacks.

Overall, blacks made up a similar proportion of the military services, relative to their total population, as whites during WW II. Integration in the military would not have changed that, nor the numbers of blacks that served, only the duties and locations in which they were employed.

 

But would the increase of manpower in combat positions not have any major effects?

 

What increase in combat positions?

For every black taken out of a port unit or transportation unit and put in combat, you have to replace them with someone else. Where do all those bodies come from? There would be no net increase in the US manpower pool, you would just end up moving people around based on their race. That's pretty much what the military did in the first place.

Or are you one of those people who don't think logistics is important to the military?

 

Between 1940 and 1947 the US drafted almost 10 million men into the armed services. Now I am not sure what process was used but I would imagine SSN. The only diffrence that would have been made, was more black men at the front with more whites driving trucks. Nothing else would have changed.

 

What DA and Mike has said is true.It would have made no real difference.

Logistics!!!! the bane of "What If?"'ers

 

No, I'm just someone who didn't understand the logistics at all LOL. I was thinking that the l lack of segregation would lead to more combat units.

Thanks for clearing that up for me I understand now and it makes perfect sense.

 

I share the sentiment. Again I have to say thanks to all you guys who help me learn something new each day.

 

Yes this forum is A+ I learn something new all the time!

 

I was told by one of my Uncles (British Coldstream gaurds) that a large number of US Black troops were employed in europe often drafted in as replacements from logistic units. He was told the black troops didn't fight by the US liason officers but due being wounded several times was given the duty of battlefield assessment examining equipment and bodies soon after the battle had moved on he said he saw a fair few black dead bodies they seemed to have fought well and all but a few of the bodies had died in their positions or fallen during assaults on German positions.

From the German side my father in law stated that the US used black troops but didn't really expand on it he was in Italy at that time 1944-5.