Officer candidate training was the Army's first formal experiment with integration. Many blacks and whites lived together with a minimum of friction, and, except in flight school, all candidates trained together.98 Yet in some schools the number of black officer candidates made racially separate rooms feasible, and Negroes were usually billeted and messed together. In other instances Army organizations were slow to integrate their officer training. The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, for example, segregated black candidates until late 1942 when Judge Hastie brought the matter to McCloy's attention.99 Nevertheless, the Army's experiment was far more important than its immediate results indicated. It proved that even in the face of considerable opposition the Army was willing to abandon its segregation policy when the issues of economy and efficiency were made sufficiently clear and compelling.
The Army's second experiment with integration came in part from the need for infantry replacements during the Allied advance across Western Europe in the summer and fall of 1944.100 The Ground Force Replacement Command had been for some time converting soldiers from service units to infantry, and even as the Germans launched their counterattack in the Ardennes the command was drawing up plans to release thousands of soldiers in Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee's Communications Zone and train them as infantrymen. These plans left the large reservoir of black manpower in the theater untapped until General Lee suggested that General Dwight D. Eisenhower permit black service troops to volunteer for infantry training and eventual employment as individual replacements. General Eisenhower agreed, and on 26 December Lee issued a call to the black troops for volunteers to share "the privilege of joining our veteran units at the front to deliver the knockout blow." The call was limited to privates in the upper four categories of the Army General Classification Test who had had some infantry training. If noncommissioned officers wanted to apply, they had to accept a reduction in grade. Although patronizing in tone, the plan was a bold departure from War Department policy: "It is planned to assign you without regard to color or race to the units where assistance is most needed, and give you the opportunity of fighting shoulder to shoulder to bring about victory. … Your relatives and friends everywhere have been urging that you be granted this privilege."101
The revolutionary nature of General Lee's plan was not lost on Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force. Arguing that the circular promising integrated service would embarrass the Army, Lt. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, the chief of staff, recommended that General Eisenhower warn the War Department that civil rights spokesmen might seize on this example to demand wider integration. To avoid future moves that might compromise Army policy, Smith wanted permission to review any Communications Zone statements on Negroes before they were released.
General Eisenhower compromised. Washington was not consulted, and Eisenhower himself revised the circular, eliminating the special call for black volunteers and the promise of integration on an individual basis. He substituted instead a general appeal for volunteers, adding the further qualification that "in the event that the number of suitable negro volunteers exceeds the replacement needs of negro combat units, these men will be suitably incorporated in other organizations so that their service and their fighting spirit may be efficiently utilized."102 This statement was disseminated throughout the European theater.
The Eisenhower revision needed considerable clarification. It mentioned the replacement needs of black combat units, but there were no black infantry units in the theater;103 and the replacement command was not equipped to retrain men for artillery, tank, and tank destroyer units, the types of combat units that did employ Negroes in Europe. The revision also called for volunteers in excess of these needs to be "suitably incorporated in other organizations," but it did not indicate how they would be organized. Eisenhower later made it clear that he preferred to organize the volunteers in groups that could replace white units in the line, but again the replacement command was geared to train individual, not unit, replacements. After considerable discussion and compromise, Eisenhower agreed to have Negroes trained "as members of Infantry rifle platoons familiar with the Infantry rifle platoon weapons." The platoons would be sent for assignment to Army commanders who would provide them with platoon leaders, platoon sergeants, and, if needed, squad leaders.
Unaware of how close they had come to being integrated as individuals, so many Negroes volunteered for combat training and duty that the operations of some service units were threatened. To prevent disrupting these vital operations, the theater limited the number to 2,500, turning down about 3,000 men. Early in January 1945 the volunteers assembled for six weeks of standard infantry conversion training. After training, the new black infantrymen were organized into fifty-three platoons, each under a white platoon leader and sergeant, and were dispatched to the field, two to work with armored divisions and the rest with infantry divisions. Sixteen were shipped to the 6th Army Group, the rest to the 12th Army Group, and all saw action with a total of eleven divisions in the First and Seventh Armies.
Volunteers for Combat in Training,
47th Reinforcement Depot, February 1945.
In the First Army the black platoons were usually assigned on the basis of three to a division, and the division receiving them normally placed one platoon in each regiment. At the company level, the black platoon generally served to augment the standard organization of three rifle platoons and one heavy weapons platoon. In the Seventh Army, the platoons were organized into provisional companies and attached to infantry battalions in armored divisions. General Davis warned the Seventh Army commander, Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch, that the men had not been trained for employment as company units and were not being properly used. The performance of the provisional companies failed to match the performance of the platoons integrated into white companies and their morale was lower.104 At the end of the war the theater made clear to the black volunteers that integration was over. Although a large group was sent to the 69th Infantry Division to be returned home, most were reassigned to black combat or service units in the occupation army.
The experiment with integration of platoons was carefully scrutinized. In May and June 1945, the Research Branch of the Information and Education Division of Eisenhower's theater headquarters made a survey solely to discover what white company-grade officers and platoon sergeants thought of the combat performance of the black rifle platoons. Trained interviewers visited seven infantry divisions and asked the same question of 250 men—all the available company officers and a representative sample of platoon sergeants in twenty-four companies that had had black platoons. In addition, a questionnaire, not to be signed, was submitted to approximately 1,700 white enlisted men in other field forces for the purpose of discovering what their attitudes were toward the use of black riflemen. No Negro was asked his opinion.
More than 80 percent of the white officers and noncommissioned officers who were interviewed reported that the Negroes had performed "very well" in combat; 69 percent of the officers and 83 percent of the noncommissioned officers saw no reason why black infantrymen should not perform as well as white infantrymen if both had the same training and experience. Most reported getting along "very well" with the black volunteers; the heavier the combat shared, the closer and better the relationships. Nearly all the officers questioned admitted that the camaraderie between white and black troops was far better than they had expected. Most enlisted men reported that they had at first disliked and even been apprehensive at the prospect of having black troops in their companies, but three-quarters of them had changed their minds after serving with Negroes in combat, their distrust turning into respect and friendliness. Of the officers and noncommissioned officers, 77 percent had more favorable feelings toward Negroes after serving in close proximity to them, the others reported no change in attitude; not a single individual stated that he had developed a less favorable attitude. A majority of officers approved the idea of organizing Negroes in platoons to serve in white companies; the practice,