iewpoint."[7-72] The Chief of Staff supported Paul's view, however, and
the word "separate" was excised.[7-73]

[Footnote 7-72: DF, CG, AGF, to D/P&A, 15 Sep 47,
sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar
Army. Policy; AGF DF, 27 Aug 47, same sub; both in
GNGAP-M 291.2 (27 Aug 47). The quote is from the
former document.]

[Footnote 7-73: DA Cir 32-III, 30 Oct 47. The life of
Circular 124 was extended indefinitely by DA
Circular 24-II, 17 Oct 47, and DA Ltr AGAO 291.2
(16 Mar 49).]

But the practice of attaching rather than assigning black units
continued until the end of 1949. Only then, and increasingly during
1950, did the Army begin to assign a number of black units as organic
parts of combat divisions. More noteworthy, Negroes began to be
assigned to fill the spaces in parts of white units. Thus the 3d (p. 193)
Battalion of the 9th Infantry and the 3d Battalion of the 188th
became black units in 1950.

Despite the emergence of racially composite units, the Army's
execution of the Gillem Board recommendation on the integration of
black and white units was criticized by black leaders. The board had
placed no limitation on the size of the units to be integrated, and
its call for progressive steps to utilize black manpower implied to
many that the process of forming composite black and white units would
continue till it included the smaller service units, which still
contained the majority of black troops. It was one thing, the Army
staff concluded, to assign a self-sustaining black battalion to a
division, but quite another to assign a small black service unit in a
similar fashion. As a spokesman for the Personnel and Administration
Division put it in a 1946 address, the Army was "not now ready to mix
Negro and white personnel in the same company or battery, for messing
and housing." Ignoring the Navy's experience to the contrary, he
concluded that to do so might provoke serious opposition from the men
in the ranks and from the American public.[7-74]

[Footnote 7-74: Col. H. E. Kessinger, Exec Off,
ACofS, G-1, "Utilization of Negro Manpower, 1946,"
copy in WDGPA 291.2 (1946).]

Accordingly, G-1 and G-3 agreed to reject the Mediterranean theater's
1946 plan to organize composite s