ny kinds of
trained specialists. Not only would separate training facilities for
the few Negroes in the peacetime corps be impossibly expensive and
inefficient, but not enough black recruits were eligible for such
training. A wartime comparison of the General Classification Test and
Mechanical Aptitude Test scores of the men in the 52d Defense
Battalion with those of men in two comparable white units showed the
Negroes averaging considerably lower than the whites.[10-33] It was
reasonable to expect this difference to continue since, on the whole,
black recruits were scoring lower than their World War II
counterparts.[10-34] Under current policies, therefore, the Marine Corps
saw little choice but to exclude Negroes from antiaircraft artillery
and other combat units.

[Footnote 10-33: Ltr, CO, 52d Defense Battalion, to
CMC, 15 Jan 46, sub: Employment of Colored
Personnel as Antiaircraft Artillery Troops,
Recommendations on, 02-46, MC files.]

[Footnote 10-34: Memo, Dir of Personnel for Dir, Div
of Plans and Policies, 21 Jul 48, sub: General
Classification Test Scores of Colored Enlisted
Marines, 07DZ0348. The GCT distribution of 991
black marines as of 1 March 1948 was as follows:
Group I (130-163), 0%; Group II (110-129), 4.94%;
Group III (90-109), 24.7%; Group IV (60-89),
61.45%; and Group V (42-59), 9.54%. Memo, Dir of
Personnel to Dir, Div of Plans and Policies, 30 May
48, sub: Marines--Tests and Testing.]

Obviously the corps had in its ranks some Negroes capable of
performing any task required in an artillery battalion. Yet because
the segregation policy demanded that there be enough qualified men to
form and sustain a whole black battalion, the abilities of these
high-scoring individuals were wasted. On the other hand, many billets
in antiaircraft artillery or other types of combat battalions could be
filled by men with low test scores, but less gifted black marines were
excluded because they had to be assigned to one of the few black
units. Segregation, in short, was doubly inefficient, it kept both
able and inferior Negroes out of combat units that were perpetually
short of men.

Segregation also promoted inefficiency in the placement of black
M