mental policies on utilizing black soldiers, it had selected
Negroes for special training on the same basis as whites with the
exception of aviation cadets. Negroes with a lower stanine (aptitude)
had been accepted in order to secure enough candidates to meet the
quota for pilots, navigators, and bombardiers in the black units. In
its preliminary report to the War Department on the employment of
Negroes, the Army Air Forces admitted that individuals of both races
with similar aptitudes and test scores had the same success in
technical schools, could be trained as pilots and technicians in the
same period of time, and showed the same degree of mechanical
proficiency. Black units, on the other hand, required considerably
more time in training than white units, sometimes simply because they
were understrength and their performance was less effective. At the
same time the Air Forces admitted that even after discounting the
usual factors, such as time in service and job assignment, whites
advanced further than blacks. No explanation was offered.
Nevertheless, the commanding general of the Air Forces reported very
little racial disorder or conflict overseas. There had been a
considerable amount in the United States, however; many Air Forces
commanders ascribed this to the unwillingness of northern Negroes to
accept southern laws or social customs, the insistence of black
officers on integrated officers' clubs, and the feeling among black
fliers that command had been made an exclusive prerogative of white
officers rather than a matter depending on demonstrated qualification.

In contrast to the others, the Army Air Forces revealed a marked
change in sentiment over the post-World War I studies of black troops.
No more were there references to congenital inferiority or inherent
weaknesses, but everywhere a willingness to admit that Negroes had
been held back by the white majority.

The commanding general of the Army Air Forces recommended Negroes be
apportioned among the three major forces--the Army Ground Forces, the
Army Service Forces, and the Army Air Forces--but that their numbers
in no case exceed 10 percent of any command; that black servicemen be
trained exactly as whites; and that Negroes be segregated in units (p. 141)
not to exceed air group size. Unlike the others, the Army Air Forces
wanted black units to have black commanders as far as possible and
recommended that the degree of segregation in messing, recreation,