: OFFICERS' SOFTBALL TEAM _representing the 477th
Composite Group, Godwin Field, Kentucky_.]

These changes flew in the face of the Gillem Board Report, for (p. 276)
however slightly that document may have changed the Army's segregation
policy, it did demand at least a modest response to the call for equal
opportunity in training, assignment, and advancement. The board
clearly looked to the command of black units by qualified black
officers and the training of black airmen to serve as a cadre for any
necessary expansion of black units in wartime. Certainly the
conversion of black bomber pilots to fighters did not meet these
modest demands. In its defense the Army Air Forces in effect pleaded
that there were too many Negroes for its present force, now severely
reduced in size and lacking planes and other equipment, and too many
of the black troops lacked education for the variety of assignments
recommended by the board.

The Army Air Forces seemed to have a point, for in the immediate
postwar period its percentage of black airmen had risen dramatically.
It was drafting men to replace departing veterans, and in 1946 it was
taking anyone who qualified, including many Negroes. In seven months
the air arm lost over half its black strength, going from a wartime
high of 80,606 on 31 August 1945 to 38,911 on 31 March 1946, but in
the same period the black percentage almost doubled, climbing from 4.2
to 7.92.[11-21] The War Department predicted that all combat arms would
have a black strength of 15 percent by 1 July 1946.[11-22]

[Footnote 11-21: All figures from STM-30, 1 Sep 45 and
1 Apr 46.]

[Footnote 11-22: Memo, TAG for CG's et al., 4 Feb 46,
sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, AG 291.2 (31
Jan 46).]

This prophecy never materialized in the Air Forces. Changes in
enlistment standards, curtailment of overseas assignments for Negroes,
and, finally, suspension of all black enlistments in the Regular Army
except in certain military specialist occupations turned the
percentage of Negroes downward. By the fall of 1947, when the Air (p. 277)
Force became a separate service,[11-23] the proportion of black airmen
had leveled off at nearly 7 percent. Nor did the proportion of Negroes
ever exceed the Gillem Board's 10 percent quota during the next
decade.

[Footnote 11-23: Under the terms of the National