ring a war that mobilized a biracial army
of eight million men. Through administrative error or necessity,
segregation was ignored on many occasions, and black and white
soldiers often worked and lived together in hospitals,[2-83] rest camps,
schools, and, more rarely, units. But these were isolated cases,
touching relatively few men, and they had no discernible effect on
racial policy. Of much more importance was the deliberate integration
in officer training schools and in the divisions fighting in the
European theater in 1945. McCloy referred to these deviations from
policy as experiments "too limited to afford general conclusions."[2-84]
But if they set no precedents, they at least challenged the Army's
cherished assumptions on segregation and strengthened the postwar
demands for change.

[Footnote 2-83: Ltr, USW to Roane Waring, National
Cmdr, American Legion, 5 May 43, SW 291.2 NT.
Integrated hospitals did not appear until 1943. See
Robert J. Parks, "The Development of Segregation in
U.S. Army Hospitals, 1940-1942," _Military Affairs_
37 (December 1973): 145-50.]

[Footnote 2-84: Ltr, ASW to SecNav, 22 Aug 45, ASW
291.2 NT (Gen).]

The Army integrated its officer candidate training in an effort to
avoid the mistakes of the World War I program. In 1917 Secretary of
War Newton D. Baker had established a separate training school for (p. 047)
black officer candidates at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, with disappointing
results. To fill its quotas the school had been forced to lower its
entrance standards, and each month an arbitrary number of black
officer candidates were selected and graduated with little regard for
their qualifications. Many World War I commanders agreed that the
black officers produced by the school proved inadequate as troop
commanders, and postwar staff studies generally opposed the future use
of black officers. Should the Army be forced to accept black officers
in the future, these commanders generally agreed, they should be
trained along with whites.[2-85]

[Footnote 2-85: Ltr, William Hastie to Lee Nichols,
15 Jul 53, in Nichols Collection, CMH; see also
Lee, _Employment of Negro Troops_ pp. 15-20; Army
War College Misc File 127-1 through 127-22, AMHRC.]

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