that precluded the creation of additional
units and policy restrictions that forbade the creation of new units
merely to accommodate black recruits. The operations staff recommended
instead that black soldiers in excess of unit strength be shipped
directly from training centers to overseas commands as replacements
without regard for specific assignment. McAuliffe's personnel staff,
in turn, warned that on the basis of a monthly average dispatch of
25,000 replacements to the Far East Command, the portion of Negroes in
those shipments would be 15 percent for May 1951, 21 percent for June,
22 percent for July, and 16 percent for August. McAuliffe listed the
familiar problems that would accrue to the Far East commanders from
this decision, but he was unable to break the impasse in Washington.
Thus the problem of excess black manpower was passed on to the
overseas commanders for resolution.[17-13]

[Footnote 17-13: CMT 2 (Brig Gen D. A. Ogden, Chief,
Orgn & Tng Div, G-3), 3 May 51, CMT 3 (Brig Gen W.
E. Dunkelberg, Chief, Manpower Control Div, G-1),
21 May 51, and CMT 4 (Ogden), 24 May 51, to G-1
Summary Sheet for CofS, 18 Apr 51, sub: Negro
Overstrengths, G-1 291.2.]

Commanders in Korea had already begun to apply the only practical
remedy. Confronted with battle losses in white units and a growing
surplus of black replacements arriving in Japan, the Eighth Army began
assigning individual black soldiers just as it had been assigning
individual Korean soldiers to understrength units.[17-14] In August
1950, for example, initial replacements for battle casualties in (p. 434)
the 9th Infantry of the U.S. 2d Infantry Division included two black
officers and eighty-nine black enlisted men. The commander assigned
them to units in his severely undermanned all-white 1st and 2d
Battalions. In September sixty more soldiers from the regiment's
all-black 3d Battalion returned to the regiment for duty. They were
first attached but later, with the agreement of the officers and men
involved, assigned to units of the 1st and 2d Battalions.
Subsequently, 225 black replacements were routinely assigned wherever
needed throughout the regiment.[17-15] By December the 9th Infantry
had absorbed Negroes to about their proportion of the national
population, 11 percent. Of six black officers among them, one
commanded Company C and ano