Report; see also monthly reports on AF integration,
for example Memo, Dir, Pers Plng, for Osthagen
(SecAF office), 10 Mar 50, sub: Distribution of
Negro Personnel, SecAF files.]

Despite the predictions of some analysts, the effect of (p. 405)
integration on black recruitment proved to be negligible. In a service
whose total strength remained about 415,000 men during the first year
of integration, Negroes numbered as follows (_Table 6_):

Table 6--Black Strength in the Air Force

Percentage
Officer Enlisted of Air Force
Date Strength[1] Strength[1] Strength

December 1948 Not available Not available 6.5
June 1949 319 (47) 21,782 (2,196) 6.0
August 1949 330 (32) 23,568 (2,275) 6.5
December 1949 368 (18) 25,523 (3,072) 7.2
May 1950 341 (8) 25,367 (2,611) 7.1

[Tablenote 1: Includes in parentheses the Special
Category Army Personnel with Air Force (SCARWAF),
those soldiers assigned for duty in the Air Force
but still administratively under the segregated
Army, leftovers from the Department of Defense
reorganization of 1947. Figures extracted from Marr
Report.]

The Air staff explained that the slight surge in black recruits in the
early months of integration was related less to the new policy than to
the abnormal recruiting conditions of the period. In addition to the
backlog of Negroes who for some time had been trying to enlist only to
find the Air Force quota filled, there were many black volunteers who
had turned to the quota-free Air Force when the Army, its quota of
Negroes filled for some time, stopped recruiting Negroes.

With Negroes serving in over 1,500 separate units there was no need to
invoke the 10 percent racial quota in individual units as Vandenberg
had ordered. One notable exception during the first months of the
program was the Air Training Command, where the rapid and unexpected
reassignment of many black airmen caused some bases, James Connally in
Texas, for example, to acquire a great many Negroes while others
received few or none. To prevent a recurrence of