[Footnote 3-43: Executive Order 9279, 5 Dec 42.]

The Navy issued its first call for inductees from Selective (p. 070)
Service in February 1943, adopting the Army's policy of placing its
requisition on a racial basis and specifying the number of whites and
blacks needed for the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. The Bureau
of Naval Personnel planned to continue its old monthly quota of about
1,200 Negroes for general service and 1,500 for the Messman's Branch.
Secretary Knox explained to the President that it would be impossible
for the Navy to take more Negroes without resorting to mixed crews in
the fleet, which, Knox reminded Roosevelt, was a policy "contrary to
the President's program." The President agreed with Knox and told him
so to advise Maj. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, Director of Selective
Service.[3-44]

[Footnote 3-44: Memo, SecNav for Rear Adm Randall
Jacobs, 5 Feb 43, 54-1-22, GenRecsNav.]

The problem of drafting men by race was a major concern of the Bureau
of Selective Service and its parent organization, the War Manpower
Commission. At a time when a general shortage of manpower was
developing and industry was beginning to feel the effects of the
draft, Negroes still made up only 6 percent of the armed forces, a
little over half their percentage of the population, and almost all of
these were in the Army. The chairman of the War Manpower Commission,
Paul V. McNutt, explained to Secretary Knox as he had to Secretary
Stimson that the practice of placing separate calls for white and
black registrants could not be justified. Not only were there serious
social and legal implications in the existing draft practices, he
pointed out, but the Selective Service Act itself prohibited racial
discrimination. It was necessary, therefore, to draft men by order
number and not by color.[3-45]

[Footnote 3-45: Ltr, Paul McNutt to SecNav, 17 Feb
43, WMC Gen files, NARS.]

On top of this blow, the Navy came under fire from another quarter.
The President was evidently still thinking about Negroes in the Navy.
He wrote to the secretary on 22 February:

I guess you were dreaming or maybe I was dreaming if Randall
Jacobs is right in regard to what I am supposed to have said
about employment of negroes in the Navy. If I did say that such
employment should be stopped, I must have been talking in my
sleep. Most decided