questionable value during large-scale
mobilization.[11-30] As Colonel Parrish, the wartime commander of
training at Tuskegee, warned, a peacetime policy incapable of wartime
application was not only unrealistic, but dangerous.[11-31]

[Footnote 11-30: Memo, DCofS/P&A, TAC, for CG, TAC, 18
Mar 48, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower,
AFSHRC.]

[Footnote 11-31: Parrish, "Segregation of the Negro in
the Army Air Forces," pp. 72-73.]

The Air staff tried to carry out the Gillem Board's suggestion that
Negroes be stationed "where attitudes are most favorable for them
insofar as military factors permit," but even here the service lagged
behind civilian practice. When Marcus H. Ray arrived at Wright Field,
Ohio, for a two-day inspection tour in July 1946, he found almost
3,000 black civilians working peacefully and effectively alongside
18,000 white civilians, all assigned to their jobs without regard to
race. "I would rate this installation," Ray reported, "as the best
example of efficient utilization of manpower I have seen." He went on
to explain: "The integration has been accomplished without publicity
and simply by assigning workers according to their capabilities and
without regard to race, creed, or color." But Ray also noted that
there were no black military men on the base.[11-32] Assistant Secretary
of War Petersen was impressed. "In view of the fact that the racial
climate seems exceptionally favorable at Wright Field," he wrote
General Carl Spaatz, "consideration should be given to the employment
of carefully selected Negro military personnel with specialist ratings
for work in that installation."[11-33]

[Footnote 11-32: Memo, Ray for ASW, 25 Jul 46, ASW
291.2.]

[Footnote 11-33: Memo, Petersen for CG, AAF, 29 Jul
46, ASW 291.2.]

The Air Force complied. In the fall of 1946 it was forming black (p. 280)
units for assignment to Air Materiel Command Stations, and it planned
to move a black unit to Wright Field in the near future.[11-34] In
assigning an all-black unit to Wright, however, the Air Force was
introducing segregation where none had existed before, and here as in
other areas its actions belied the expressed intent of the Gillem
Board policy.

[Footnote 11-34: Memo, Brig Gen Reuben C. Hood, Jr.,