The catalyst for the sudden shift away from these sentiments and practices was the Korean War. Ranking among the nation's major conflicts, the war caused the Army to double in size in five months. By June 1951 it numbered 1.6 million, with 230,000 men serving in Korea in the Eighth Army. This vast expansion of manpower and combat commitment severely tested the Army's racial policy and immediately affected the racial balance of the quota-free Army. When the quota was lifted in April 1950, Negroes accounted for 10.2 percent of the total enlisted strength; by August this figure reached 11.4 percent. On 1 January 1951, Negroes comprised 11.7 percent of the Army, and in December 1952 the ratio was 13.2 percent. The cause of this striking rise in black strength was the large number of Negroes among wartime enlistments. The percentage of Negroes among those enlisting in the Army for the first time jumped from 8.2 in March 1950 to 25.2 in August, averaging 18 percent of all first-term enlistments during the first nine months of the war. Black reenlistment increased from 8.5 to 12.9 percent of the total reenlistment during the same period, and the percentage of black draftees in the total number of draftees supplied by Selective Service averaged 13 percent.[17-5]
Moving Up.
25th Division infantrymen head for the front, Korea, July 1950.
The effect of these increases on a segregated army was tremendous. By April 1951, black units throughout the Army were reporting large overstrengths, some as much as 60 percent over their authorized organization tables. Overstrength was particularly evident in the combat arms because of the steady increase in the number of black soldiers with combat occupational specialties. Largely assigned to service units during World War II—only 22 percent, about half the white percentage, were in combat units—Negroes after the war were assigned in ever-increasing numbers to combat occupational specialties in keeping with the Gillem Board recommendation that they be trained in all branches of the service. By 1950 some 30 percent of all black soldiers were in combat units, and by June 1951 they were being assigned to the combat branches in approximately the same percentage as white soldiers, 41 percent.[17-6]
The Chief of Staff's concern with the Army's segregation policy went beyond immediate problems connected with the sudden manpower increases. Speaking to Maj. Gen. Lewis A. Craig, the Inspector General, in August 1950, Collins declared that the Army's social policy was unrealistic and did not represent the views of younger Americans whose attitudes were much more relaxed than those of the senior officers who established policy. Reporting Collins's comment to the staff, Craig went on to say the situation in Korea confirmed his own observations that mixing whites and blacks "in reasonable proportions" did not cause friction. Continued segregation, on the other hand, would force the Army to reinstate the old division-size black unit, with its ineffectiveness and frustrations, to answer the Negro's demand for equitable promotions and job opportunities. In short, both Collins and Craig agreed that the Army must eventually integrate, and they wanted the use of black servicemen restudied.[17-7]
Their view was at considerable variance with the attitude displayed by most officers on the Army staff and in the major commands in December 1950. His rank notwithstanding, Collins still had to persuade these men of the validity of his views before they would accept the necessity for integration. Moreover, with his concept of orderly and controlled social change threatened by the rapid rise in the number of black soldiers, Collins himself would need to assess the effects of racial mixing in a fluid manpower situation. These necessities explain the plethora of staff papers, special boards, and field investigations pertaining to the employment of black troops that characterized the next six months, a period during which every effort was made to convince senior officers of the practical necessity for integration. The Chief of Staff's exchange of views with the Inspector General was not circulated within the staff until December 1950. At that time the personnel chief, Lt. Gen. Edward H. Brooks, recommended reconvening the Chamberlin Board to reexamine the Army's racial policy in light of the Korean experience. Brooks wanted to hold off the review until February 1951 by which time he thought adequate data would be available from the Far East Command. His recommendation was approved, and the matter was returned to the same group which had so firmly rejected integration less than a year before.[17-8]
Even as the Chamberlin Board was reconvening, another voice was added to those calling for integration. Viewing the critical overstrength in black units, Assistant Secretary Earl D. Johnson recommended distributing excess black soldiers among other units of the Army.[17-9] The response to his proposal was yet another attempt to avoid the dictates of the draft law and black enlistments. Maj. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe, the G-1, advised against integrating the organized white units on the grounds that experience gained thus far on the social impact of integration was inadequate to predict its effect on "overall Army efficiency." Since the Army could not continue assigning more men to the overstrength black units, McAuliffe wanted to organize additional black units to accommodate the excess, and he asked Maj. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, the G-3, to activate the necessary units.[17-10]
The chief of the Army Field Forces was even more direct. Integration was untimely, General Mark W. Clark advised, and the Army should instead reimpose the quota and push for speedy implementation of the Secretary of Defense's directive on the qualitative distribution of manpower.[17-11] Clark's plea for a new quota was one of many circulating in the staff since black enlistment percentages started to rise. But time had run out on the quota as a solution to overstrength black units. Although the Army staff continued to discuss the need for the quota, and senior officials considered asking the President for permission to reinstitute it, the Secretary of Defense's acceptance of parity of enlistment standards had robbed the Army of any excuse for special treatment on manpower allotments.[17-12]