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IV

The Air Force

The experience of the Navy seemed to the Committee to answer rather conclusively the two basic questions which had always been raised about the utilization of Negro personnel: Can Negroes be effectively employed in as wide a range of skills as white? Can the races be integrated on the job, in barracks and messes, without impairing morale and service efficiency? The Navy had found that unless Negroes were trained and utilized according to their individual capacities, wastage of manpower resulted, and that this wastage was made inevitable by segregation. The Navy had also found that Negro and white sailors would work together, eat at the same messes and sleep in the same quarters without trouble.

Confronted by the Navy experience, some military officials maintained that it did not provide a reliable basis for generalization because of the relatively small number of Negroes involved. If, these officials suggested, Negroes had comprised 7 to 10 percent of the men in general service rather than 2 percent, the Navy experience might have been quite different.

The Committee was skeptical of this argument, but it could not gainsay it without concrete evidence to the contrary. The experience of the Air Force has supplied that evidence.

Air Force Racial Policy in World War II

During World War II the racial policy of the Air Force was that of the parent Army - a 10 percent restriction on Negro enlisted

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