egrift, adamantly defended the Marine
segregation policy before Secretary of the Navy Forrestal. Wartime
experience showed, he maintained, oblivious to overwhelming evidence
to the contrary since 1943, "that the assignment of negro Marines to
separate units promotes harmony and morale and fosters the competitive
spirit essential to the development of a high esprit."[10-46] His stand
was bound to antagonize the civil rights camp; the black press in
particular trumpeted the theme that the corps was as full of race
discrimination as it had been during the war.[10-47]

[Footnote 10-46: Memo, Gen Vandegrift to SecNav, 25
Aug 47, sub: Assignment of Negro Marines, 54-1-29,
GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 10-47: See, for example, the analysis that
appeared in the Chicago _Defender_, August 14,
1948.]

_Toward Integration_

But even as the commandant defended the segregation policy, the corps
was beginning to yield to pressure from outside forces and the demands
of military efficiency. The first policy breach concerned black
officers. Although a proposal for commissions had been rejected when
the subject was first raised in 1944, three black candidates were
accepted by the officer training school at Quantico in April 1945. One
failed to qualify on physical and two on scholastic grounds, but they
were followed by five other Negroes who were still in training on V-J
day. One of this group, Frederick Branch of Charlotte, North Carolina,
elected to stay in training through the demobilization period. He was
commissioned with his classmates on 10 November 1945 and placed in the
inactive reserves. Meanwhile, three Negroes in the V-12 program
graduated and received commissions as second lieutenants in the
inactive Marine Corps Reserve. Officer training for all these men was
integrated.[10-48]

[Footnote 10-48: Shaw and Donnelly, _Blacks and the
Marine Corps_, pp. 47-48; see also Selective
Service System, _Special Groups_ (Monograph 10),
I:105.]

The first Negro to obtain a regular commission in the Marine Corps was
John E. Rudder of Paducah, Kentucky, a Marine veteran and graduate of
the Naval Reserve Officers' Training Corps. Analyzing the case for the
commandant in May 1948, the Director of Plans and Policies noted that
the law did not require th