a, the quota increased the Army's
vulnerability to charges of discrimination.

_Integration of the General Service_

The Navy's postwar revision of racial policy, like the Army's, was the
inevitable result of its World War II experience. Inundated with
unskilled and undereducated Negroes in the middle of the war, the Navy
had assigned most of these men to segregated labor battalions and was
surprised by the racial clashes that followed. As it began to
understand the connection between large segregated units and racial
tensions, the Navy also came to question the waste of the talented
Negro in a system that denied him the job for which he was qualified.
Perhaps more to the point, the Navy's size and mission made
immediately necessary what the Army could postpone indefinitely.
Unlike the Army, the Navy seriously modified its racial policy in the
last year of the war, breaking up some of the large segregated units
and integrating Negroes in the specialist and officer training
schools, in the WAVES, and finally in the auxiliary fleet and the
recruit training centers.

Yet partial integration was not enough. Lester Granger's surveys and
the studies of the secretary's special committee had demonstrated that
the Navy could resolve its racial problems only by providing equal
treatment and opportunity. But the absurdity of trying to operate two
equal navies, one black and one white, had been obvious during the
war. Only total integration of the general service could serve justice
and efficiency, a conclusion the civil rights advocates had long since
reached. After years of leaving the Navy comparatively at peace, they
now began to demand total integration.

There was no assurance, however, that a move to integration was
imminent when Granger returned from his final inspection trip for
Secretary Forrestal in October 1945. Both Granger and the secretary's
Committee on Negro Personnel had endorsed the department's current
practices, and Granger had been generally optimistic over the reforms
instituted toward the end of the war. Admirals Nimitz and King both
endorsed Granger's recommendations, although neither saw the need for
further change.[6-37] For his part Secretary Forrestal seemed determined
to maintain the momentum of reform. "What steps do we take," he (p. 167)
asked the Chief of Naval Personnel, "to correct the various practices
... which are not in accordance with Navy standards?"[6-38]

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