r larger aircraft had no
chance to diversify their careers. It was essentially the same story
for black airmen. Without more varied and large black combat units the
Air Force had no need to assign many black airmen to specialist
training. In December 1947, for example, only 80 of approximately
26,000 black airmen were attending specialist schools.[11-28] When asked
about the absence of Negroes in large aircraft, especially bombers,
Air Force spokesmen cited the conversion of the 477th Composite Group,
which contained the only black bomber unit, to a specialized fighter
group as merely part of a general reorganization to meet the needs (p. 279)
of a 55-wing organization.[11-29] That the one black bomber unit
happened to be organized out of existence was pure accident.

[Footnote 11-28: Memo, unsigned (probably DCofS/P&A),
for Asst SecAF Zuckert, 22 Apr 48, SecAF files.]

[Footnote 11-29: See Air Force Testimony Before the
National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs
(afternoon session), pp. 29-32, CMH files.]

The Gillem Board had sought to expand the training and placement of
skilled Negroes by going outside the regular black units and giving
them overhead assignments. After the war some base commanders made
such assignments unofficially, taking advantage of the abilities of
airmen in the overmanned, all-black Squadron F's and assigning them to
skilled duties. In one instance the base commander's secretary was a
member of his black unit; in another, black mechanics from Squadron F
worked on the flight line with white mechanics. But whatever their
work, these men remained members of Squadron F, and often the whole
black squadron, rather than individual airmen, found itself
functioning as an overhead unit, contrary to the intent of the Gillem
Board. Even the few Negroes formally trained in a specialty and placed
in an integrated overhead unit did not approximate the Gillem Board's
intention of training a cadre that would be readily expandable in an
emergency.

The alternative to expanded overhead assignments was continuation of
segregated service units and Squadron F's, but, as some manpower
experts pointed out, many special purpose units suitable for unskilled
airmen were disappearing from the postwar Air Force. Experience gained
through the assignment of large numbers of marginal men to such units
in peacetime would be of