Footnote 3-51: Memos, SecNav for President, 25 Feb and 14 Apr 43, quoted in "BuPers Hist," pp. 13-14; Memo, Actg Chief, NavPers, for SecNav, 24 Feb 43, sub: Employment of Colored Personnel in the Navy, Pers 10, GenRecsNav. For Roosevelt's approval see "BuPers Hist," p. 14.[(Back)]
Footnote 3-52: "BuPersHist," p. 41.[(Back)]
Footnote 3-53: Naval districts organized section bases during the war with responsibility, among other things, for guarding beaches, harbors, and installations and maintaining equipment.[(Back)]
Footnote 3-54: See CNO ALNAV, 7 Aug 44, quoted in Nelson, "Integration of the Negro," p. 46.[(Back)]
Footnote 3-55: Memo, Actg Chief, NavPers, for Cmdts, AlNav Districts et al., 26 Sep 44, sub: Enlisted Personnel—Utilization of in Field for which Specifically Trained, Pers 16-3/MM, BuPersRecs.[(Back)]
Footnote 3-56: Ltr, Eleanor Roosevelt to SecNav, 20 Nov 43; Ltr, SecNav to Mrs. Roosevelt, 27 Nov 43; both in BUMED-S-EC, GenRecsNav. Well known for her interest in the cause of racial justice, the President's wife received many complaints during the war concerning discrimination in the armed forces. Mrs. Roosevelt often passed such protests along to the service secretaries for action. Although there is no doubt where Mrs. Roosevelt's sympathies lay in these matters, her influence was slight on the policies and practices of the Army or Navy. Her influence on the President's thinking is, of course, another matter. See White, A Man Called White, pp. 168-69, 190.[(Back)]
Footnote 3-57: For a discussion of these racial disturbances, see "BuPers Hist," pp. 75-80.[(Back)]
Footnote 3-58: Interv, Lee Nichols with Rear Adm. R. H. Hillenkoetter, 1953, in Nichols Collection, CMH.[(Back)]
Footnote 3-59: Nichols, Breakthrough on the Color Front, pp. 54-59. Nichols supports his affectionate portrait of Sargent, who died shortly after the war, with interviews of many wartime officials who worked in the Bureau of Naval Personnel with Sargent. See Nichols Collection, CMH. See also Christopher Smith Sargent, 1911-1946, a privately printed memorial prepared by the Sargent family in 1947, copy in CMH.[(Back)]
Footnote 3-60: For further discussion, see Nelson, "Integration of the Negro," pp. 124-46.[(Back)]