Viewing page 60 of 87

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

-57-

pilots in that unit was a Negro. It was never mentioned. He was one of the flyers. It was not a white unit or a Negro unit. He was evidently there because he knew how to fly reconnaissance planes. The relationship I enjoyed seemed to be excellent. I talked with him and some of the other men and it was encouraging to see that when something of that sort is tried, it works and nobody made any patriotic speeches about it. The fact was that the man was being used according to his skill and it worked out very well.

3. In the Negro staffed Army hospitals such positions as nurses, doctors and dentists were held. Negro WAC's worked as physical therapists as well as medical technicians.

4. Negro service troops who were integrated after six weeks of combat training by platoons into eleven white combat divisions in the European theater, were called upon because replacements were desperately needed to stem the German bread through. This was the first break in the Army's tradition of segregation. At least the Army gave the Negroes a chance toagain prove his fighting ability and to prove the ability of Negroes and whites to work together, fight and live together. A survey made by Army interviewers of white enlisted men in the mixed divisions pointed out: (1) that 84 per cent of the officers, and 81 per cent of the enlisted