Personnel. The exact percentage on 1 July
1949 was 4.7; see Memo for Rcd, ASD(M), 12 Sep 56,
sub: Integration Percentages, ASD(M) 291.2.]

[Footnote 16-53: Memo, Chief, NavPers, for Under
SecNav, 5 Dec 49, sub: Proposed Report to Chairman
Personnel Policy Board Regarding the Implementation
of Executive Order 9981, Pers 21, GenRecsNav.]

Submitted to and approved by the Secretary of Defense, the new Navy
plan announced on 7 June 1949 called for a specific series of measures
to bring departmental practices into line with policy.[16-54] Once he
had gained Johnson's approval, Secretary of the Navy Matthews did not
tarry. On 23 June he issued an explicit statement to all ships and
stations, abjuring racial distinctions in the Navy and Marine (p. 413)
Corps and ordering that all personnel be enlisted or appointed,
trained, advanced or promoted, assigned and administered without
regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.[16-55] Admirable
and comprehensive, Matthew's statement scarcely differed in intent
from his predecessor's general declaration of equal treatment and
opportunity of 12 December 1945 and the more explicit directive of the
Chief of Naval Operations on the same subject on 27 February 1946. Yet
despite the close similarity, a reiteration was clearly necessary. As
even the most ardent apologist for the navy's postwar racial policy
would admit, these groundbreaking statements had not done the job,
and, to satisfy the demands of the Fahy Committee and the Secretary of
Defense, Secretary Matthews had to convince his subordinates that the
demand for equal treatment and opportunity was serious and had to be
dealt with immediately. His specific mention of the Marine Corps and
the problems of enlistment, assignment, and promotion, subjects
ignored in the earlier directives, represented a start toward the
reform of his department's racial practices currently out of step with
its expressed policy.

[Footnote 16-54: Memo, SecNav for SecDef, 23 May 49,
sub: Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the
Armed Forces, copy in FC file.]

[Footnote 16-55: ALNAV 447-49, which remained in force
until 23 March 1953 when SecNav Instruction 1000.2
superseded it without substantial change.]