f Negroes for general service was closed.[10-32]

[Footnote 10-31: Memo, CMC for CG, Marine Barracks, Cp
Lejeune, N.C., 8 Dec 47, sub: Negro Recruits,
01A33847.]

[Footnote 10-32: Ltr, CMC to CG, Cp Lejeune, 24 May
48, A0-1; Memo, CMC for Off in Charge of Recruiting
Div, 29 Jan 49, sub: Enlistment of Negroes,
07D14848; Msg, CMC to Offs in Charge of Recruiting
Divs, 25 Apr 49.]

These rapid changes, indeed the whole pattern of black enlistment in
the postwar Marine Corps, demonstrated that the staff's manpower
practices were out of joint with the times. Not only did they invite
attack from the increasingly vocal civil rights forces, but they also
fostered a general distrust among black marines themselves and among
those young Negroes the corps hoped to attract.

_Segregation and Efficiency_

The assignment policies and recruitment practices of the corps were
the inevitable result of its segregation policy. Prejudice and
discrimination no doubt aggravated the situation, but the policy of
separation limited the ways Negroes could be employed and places (p. 262)
to which they might be assigned. Segregation explained, for example,
why Negroes were traditionally employed in certain types of combat
units, and why, when changing missions and manpower restrictions
caused a reduction in the number of such units, Negroes were not given
other combat assignments. Most Negroes with combat military
occupational specialties served in defense battalions during World War
II. These units, chiefly antiaircraft artillery, were self-contained
and could therefore be segregated; at the same time they cloaked a
large group of men with the dignity of a combat assignment. But what
was possible during the war was no longer practical and efficient in
the postwar period. Some antiaircraft artillery units survived the
war, but they no longer operated as battalions and were divided
instead into battery-size organizations that simply could not be
segregated in terms of support and recreational facilities. In fact,
the corps found it impossible after the war to maintain segregation in
any kind of combat unit.

Even if segregated service had been possible, the formation of
all-black antiaircraft artillery battalions would have been precluded
by the need of this highly technical branch for so ma