Policies
rejected a proposal to organize a black raider
battalion. The author of the proposal had explained
that Negroes would make ideal night raiders "as no
camouflage of faces and hands would be necessary."
Memo, Col Thomas Gale for Exec Off, Div of Plans
and Policies, 19 Feb 42, AO-250, MC files.]

[Footnote 4-10: Memo, CMC for Chmn of Gen Bd, 27 Feb
42, sub: Enlistment of Men of the Colored Race in
Other Than Messman Branch, AO-172, MC files.]

[Footnote 4-11: Memo, Chmn of Gen Bd for SecNav, 20
Mar 42, sub: Enlistment of Men of the Colored Race
in Other Than Messman Branch (G.B. No. 421), Recs
of Gen Bd, OpNavArchives.]

Although the enlistment of black marines began on 1 June 1942, the
corps placed the reservists on inactive status until a training-size
unit could be enlisted and segregated facilities built at Montford
Point on the vast training reservation at Marine Barracks, New River
(later renamed Camp Lejeune), North Carolina.[4-12] On 26 August the
first contingent of Negroes began recruit training as the 51st
Composite Defense Battalion at Montford Point under the command of
Col. Samuel A. Woods, Jr. The corps had wanted to avoid having to
train men as typists, truck drivers, and the like--specialist skills
needed in the black composite unit. Instead, the commandant
established black quotas for three of the four recruiting divisions,
specifying that more than half the recruits qualify in the needed
skills.[4-13]

[Footnote 4-12: Memo, CMC for District Cmdrs, All
Reserve Districts Except 10th, 14th, 15th, and
16th, 25 May 42, sub: Enlistment of Colored
Personnel in the Marine Corps, Historical and
Museum Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps
(hereafter Hist Div, HQMC). For further discussion
of the training of black marines and other matters
pertaining to Negroes in the Marine Corps, see Shaw
and Donnelly, _Blacks in the Marine Corps_. This
volume by the corps' chief historian and the former
chief of its history division's reference branch is