ial reform as such but does view the problem as a matter of
efficient troop utilization. With an imposed ceiling on the
maximum strength of the Army it is the responsibility of all
officers to assure the most efficient use of the manpower
assigned.[2-41]

[Footnote 2-40: War Department Pamphlet 20-6,
_Command of Negro Troops_, 29 February 1944.]

[Footnote 2-41: Army Service Forces Manual M-5,
_Leadership and the Negro Soldier_, October 1944,
p. iv.]

But the best efforts of good officers could not avail against poor
policy. Although the Army maintained that Negroes had to bear a
proportionate share of the casualties, by policy it assigned the
majority to noncombat units and thus withheld the chance for them to
assume an equal risk. Subscribing to the advantage of making full use
of individual abilities, the Army nevertheless continued to consider
Negroes as a group and to insist that military efficiency required
racially segregated units. Segregation in turn burdened the service
with the costly provision of separate facilities for the races.
Although a large number of Negroes served in World War II, their
employment was limited in opportunity and expensive for the service.

_The Need for Change_

If segregation weakened the Army's organization for global war, it had
even more serious effects on every tenth soldier, for as it deepened
the Negro's sense of inferiority it devastated his morale. It was a
major cause of the poor performance and the disciplinary problems that
plagued so many black units. And it made black soldiers blame their
personal difficulties and misfortunes, many the common lot of any
soldier, on racial discrimination.[2-42]

[Footnote 2-42: Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_, p.
84; for a full discussion of morale, see ch. XI.
See also David G. Mandelbaum, _Soldier Groups and
Negro Soldiers_ (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1952); Charles Dollard and Donald Young, "In
the Armed Forces," _Survey Graphic_ 36 (January
1947):66ff.]

Deteriorating morale in black units and pressure from a critical
audience of articulate Negroes and their sympathizers led the War
Department to focus special attention on its race problem. Early in
the war Secret