rder notwithstanding,
it was therefore in a strong position to resist precipitous change (p. 334)
in its racial practices.

[Footnote 13-64: Memo, Head, Pers Accounting and
Statistical Control Sec, BuPers, for Dir, Fiscal
Div (Pers 83), 14 Dec 48, sub: Statistics on
Steward Group Personnel in Navy; Memo, W. C.
Kincaid, BuPers Fiscal Div, for Cmdr Smith, BuPers,
6 May 48, sub: Negroes, USN--Transferring From
Commissary or Steward Branch to General Service;
BuPers, "Steward Group Personnel by Race," 24 May
49. All in Pers 25, BuPersRecs.]

_Adjustments in the Marine Corps_

Unlike the Navy, the Marine Corps did not enjoy so secure a position.
Its policy of keeping black marines strictly segregated was becoming
untenable in the face of its shrinking size, and by the time President
Truman issued his order the corps was finding it necessary to make
some adjustments. Basic training, for example, was integrated in the
cause of military efficiency. With fewer than twenty new black
recruits a month, the corps was finding it too expensive and
inefficient to maintain a separate recruit training program, and on 1
July 1949 the commandant, General Clifton B. Cates, ordered that
Negroes be trained with the rest of the recruits at Parris Island, but
in separate platoons.[13-65] Even this system proved too costly, however,
because black recruits were forced to wait for training until their
numbers built up to platoon size. Given the length of the training
cycle, the camp commander had to reserve three training platoons for
the few black recruits. Maj. Gen. Alfred H. Noble, the commander,
repeatedly complained of the waste of instructors, time, and
facilities and the "otherwise generally undesirable" features of
separate black training platoons. He pointed out to the commandant
that black students had been successfully assimilated into personnel
administration and drill instructor schools without friction or
incident, and reservist training and local intramural sports had
already peacefully introduced integration to the base. Noble wanted to
integrate black recruits as they arrived, absorbing them in the white
training platoons then being processed. He also wanted to use selected
black noncommissioned officers as instructors.[13-66]

[Footnote