pany in the
Marshall Islands. The grade became permanent upon
Nelson's assignment to the Public Relations Bureau
in Washington in 1946.]

The Bureau of Naval Personnel offered what it considered a reasonable
explanation. As a group, black reserve officers were considerably
overage for their rank and were thus at a severe disadvantage in the
fierce competition for regular commissions. The average age of the
first class of black officers was over thirty-one years. All had been
commissioned ensigns on 17 March 1944, and all had received one (p. 246)
promotion to lieutenant, junior grade, by the end of the war. When age
and rank did coincide, black reservists were considered for transfer.
For example, on 15 March 1947 Ens. John Lee, a former V-12 graduate
assigned as gunnery officer aboard a fleet auxiliary craft, received a
regular commission, and on 6 January 1948 Lt. (jg.) Edith DeVoe, one
of the four black nurses commissioned in March 1945, was transferred
into the Regular Navy. The following October Ens. Jessie Brown was
commissioned and assigned to duty as the first black Navy pilot.

In a sense, the black officers had the cards stacked against them. As
Nelson later explained, the bureau did not extend to its black line
officers the same consideration given other reservists. While the
first twelve black officers were given unrestricted line officer
training, the bureau assigned them to restricted line positions, an
added handicap when it came to promotions and retention in the postwar
Navy. All were commissioned ensigns, although the bureau usually
granted rank according to the candidate's age, a practice followed
when it commissioned its first black staff officers, one of whom
became a full lieutenant and the rest lieutenants, junior grade. As an
overage reservist himself, Nelson remained on active duty after the
war through the personal intervention of Secretary Forrestal. His tour
in the Navy's public relations office was repeatedly extended until
finally on 1 January 1950, thanks to Secretary Sullivan, he received a
regular commission.[9-40]

[Footnote 9-40: Nelson, "Integration of the Negro,"
pp. 157-59; Ltr, Nelson to author, 10 Feb 70;
Interv, Nichols with Sullivan.]

Prospects for an increase in black officers were dim. With rare
exception the Navy's officers came from the academy at Annapol