cident at Le Havre, France, where soldiers were
embarking for the United States for demobilization. Officers of a Navy
escort carrier objected to the inclusion of 123 black enlisted men on
the grounds that the ship was unable to provide separate
accommodations for Negroes. Army port authorities then substituted
another group that included only one black officer and five black
enlisted men who were placed aboard over the protests of the ship's
officers.[5-12] The Secretary of the Navy had already declared that the
Navy did not differentiate between men on account of race, and on (p. 129)
12 December 1945 he reiterated his statement, adding that it applied
to members of all the armed forces.[5-13] Demonstrating the frequent
gap between policy and practice, Forrestal's order was ignored six
months later by port officials when a group of black officers and men
was withdrawn from a shipping list at Bremerhaven, Germany, on the
grounds that "segregation is a War Department policy."[5-14]

[Footnote 5-12: OPD Summary Sheet to CofS, 2 Apr 46,
CS 291.2 Negroes; Memo, WD Bureau of Public
Relations for Press, 5 Jan 46; Ltr, Exec to Actg
ASW to P. Bernard Young, Jr., Norfolk _Journal and
Guide_, 14 Dec 45, ASW 291.2.]

[Footnote 5-13: ALNAV 423-45, 12 Dec 45.]

[Footnote 5-14: Memo, Marcus H. Ray, Civ Aide to SW,
for ASW, 11 Jun 46, ASW 291.2 (NT).]

Overt antiblack behavior and social turbulence in the civilian
community also reached into the services. In February 1946 Issac
Woodard, Jr., who had served in the Army for fifteen months in the
Pacific, was ejected from a commercial bus and beaten by civilian
police. Sergeant Woodard had recently been discharged from the Army at
Camp Gordon, Georgia, and was still in uniform at the time of the
brutal attack that blinded him. His case was quickly taken up by the
NAACP and became the centerpiece of a national protest.[5-15] Not only
did the civil rights spokesmen protest the sadistic blinding, they
also charged that the Army was incapable of protecting its own members
in the community.

[Footnote 5-15: See Ltr, Walter White, Secy, NAACP,
to SW, 6 May 46, and a host of letters in SW 291.2
file. See also copies of NAACP press releases on
the subject in CMH fi