ocessed separately so that those receiving
transfusions may be given blood of their own race."
Three days later the Chief of the Bureau of
Medicine, who was also the President's personal
physician, told the Secretary of the Navy, "It is
my opinion that at this time we cannot afford to
open up a subject such as mixing blood or plasma
regardless of the theoretical fact that there is no
chemical difference in human blood." See Memo, Rear
Adm Ross T. McIntire for SecNav, 19 Jan 42,
GenRecsNav. See also Florence Murray, ed., _Negro
Handbook, 1946-1947_ (New York: A. A. Wyn, 1948),
pp. 373-74. For effect of segregated blood banks on
black morale, see Mary A. Morton, "The Federal
Government and Negro Morale," _Journal of Negro
Education_ (Summer 1943): 452, 455-56.]

Black morale suffered further in the leadership crisis that developed
in black units early in the war. The logic of segregated units
demanded a black officer corps, but there were never enough black
officers to command all the black units. In 1942 only 0.35 percent of
the Negroes in the Army were officers, a shortcoming that could not be
explained by poor education alone.[2-48] But when the number of black
officers did begin to increase, obstacles to their employment
appeared: some white commanders, assuming that Negroes did not
possess leadership ability and that black troops preferred white (p. 037)
officers, demanded white officers for their units. Limited segregated
recreational and living facilities for black officers prevented their
assignment to some bases, while the active opposition of civilian
communities forced the Army to exclude them from others. The Army
staff practice of forbidding Negroes to outrank or command white
officers serving in the same unit not only limited the employment and
restricted the rank of black officers but also created invidious
distinctions between white and black officers in the same unit. It
tended to convince enlisted men that their black leaders were not
full-fledged officers. Thus restricted in assignment and segregated
socially and professionally, his ability and status in question, the
black officer was often an object of scorn to himself