the experiences of the Special
Programs Unit: black performance was deeply affected by the extent to
which Negroes felt victimized by racial discrimination or handicapped
by segregation, especially in housing, messing, and military and
civilian recreational facilities. Although no official policy on
segregated living quarters existed, Granger found such segregation
widely practiced at naval bases in the United States. Separate housing
meant in most cases separate work crews, thereby encouraging voluntary
segregation in mess halls. In some cases the Navy's separate housing
was carried over into nearby civilian communities where no segregation
existed before. In others shore patrols forced segregation on civilian
places of entertainment, even when state laws forbade it. On southern
bases, especially, many commanders willingly abandoned the Navy's ban
against discrimination in favor of the racial practices of local
communities. There enforced segregation was widespread, often made
explicit with "colored" and "white" signs.

Yet Granger found encouraging exceptions which he passed along to
local commanders elsewhere. At Camp Perry, Virginia, for example,
there was a minimum of segregation, and the commanding officer had
intervened to see that Virginia's segregated bus laws did not apply to
Navy buses operating between the camp and Norfolk. This situation was
unusual for the Navy although integrated busing had been standard
practice in the Army since mid-1944. He found Camp Perry "a pleasant
contrast" to other southern installations, and from his experiences
there he concluded that the attitude of the commanding officer set the
pace. "There is practically no limit," Granger said, "to the
progressive changes in racial attitudes and relationships which can be
made when sufficiently enlightened and intelligent officer leadership
is in command." The development of hard and fast rules, he concluded,
was unnecessary, but the Bureau of Naval Personnel must constantly see
to it that commanders resisted the "influence of local conventions."

At Pearl Harbor Granger visited three of the more than two hundred
auxiliary ships manned by mixed crews. On two the conditions were
excellent. The commanding officer in each case had taken special (p. 149)
pains to avoid racial differentiation in ratings, assignments,
quarters, and messes; efficiency was superior, morale was high, and
racial conflict was absent. On the third ship Negroes wer