2 in the general service; 2,020 in
the Seabees; and 19,227, over two-thirds of the total, in the
Steward's Branch.[3-39]

[Footnote 3-39: Ibid., p. 9.]

The smooth and efficient distribution of black recruits was
short-lived. Under pressure from the Army, the War Manpower
Commission, and in particular the White House, the Navy was forced
into a sudden and significant expansion of its black recruit program.
The Army had long objected to the Navy's recruitment method, and as
early as February 1942 Secretary Stimson was calling the volunteer
recruitment system a waste of manpower.[3-40] He was even more direct
when he complained to President Roosevelt that through voluntary
recruiting the Navy had avoided acceptance of any considerable number
of Negroes. Consequently, the Army was now faced with the possibility
of having to accept an even greater proportion of Negroes "with
adverse effect on its combat efficiency." The solution to this
problem, as Stimson saw it, was for the Navy to take its recruits from
Selective Service.[3-41] Stimson failed to win his point. The President
accepted the Navy's argument that segregation would be difficult to
maintain on board ship. "If the Navy living conditions on board ship
were similar to the Army living conditions on land," he wrote Stimson,
"the problem would be easier but the circumstances ... being such as
they are, I feel that it is best to continue the present system at
this time."[3-42]

[Footnote 3-40: Memo, SW for SecNav, 16 Feb 42, sub:
Continuing of Voluntary Recruiting by the Navy,
QN/P14-4, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-41: Idem for President, 16 Mar 42, copy
in QN/P14-4, GenRecsNav.]

[Footnote 3-42: Memo, President for SW, 20 Mar 42,
copy in QN/P14-4, GenRecsNav.]

But the battle over racial quotas was only beginning. The question of
the number of Negroes in the Navy was only part of the much broader
considerations and conflicts over manpower policy that finally led the
President, on 5 December 1942, to direct the discontinuance in all
services of volunteer enlistment of men between the ages of eighteen
and thirty-eight.[3-43] Beginning in February 1943 all men in this age
group would be obtained through Selective Service. The order also
placed Selective Service under the War Manpower Commission.