2 Oct
46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, AGSE-P342.06, WDGAP
291.2.]

[Footnote 7-41: Ltr, TAG to CG, Each Army, et al., 2
Oct 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, AGSE-P342.06
(30 Sep 46).]

[Footnote 7-42: Ibid., 31 Oct 46, sub: Enlistment of
Negroes, AGSE-P342.06 (23 Oct 46); see also WD Cir
103, 1947. An exception to the AGCT 70 minimum for
whites was made in the case of enlistment into the
AAF which remained at 100 for both races.]

These measures helped lower the percentage of Negroes in the Army and
reduced to some extent the differential in test scores between white
and black soldiers. The percentage of Negroes dropped by 30 June 1947
to 7.91 percent of the Army, 8.99 percent of its enlisted strength (p. 186)
and 9.4 percent of its Regular Army strength. Black enlisted strength
of all the overseas commands stood at 8.75 percent, down from the
10.77 percent of the previous December. Percentages in the individual
theaters reflected this trend; the European theater, for example,
dropped from 10.33 percent black to 9.96, the Mediterranean theater
from 10.05 to 8.03, and Alaska from 26.6 to 14.54.[7-43]

[Footnote 7-43: All figures are from STM-30, Strength
of the Army. Figures for the Pacific theater were
omitted because of the complex reorganization of
Army troops in that area in early 1947. On 30 June
1947 the Army element in the Far East Command, the
major Army organization in the Pacific, had 18,644
black enlisted troops, 8.56 percent of the
command's total.]

Precise figures on the number of poorly qualified troops eliminated
are unknown, but the European command expected to discharge some
12,000 low-scoring and unsuitable men, many of them black, in
1947.[7-44] Several commands reported that the new regulations
materially improved the quality of black units by opening vacancies to
better qualified men. General Paul could argue with considerable
justification that in regulating the quality of its recruits the Army
was following the spirit if not the letter of the Gillem Board Report.
If the Army could set high enough standards it would get good men, and
to this end the General