ecome the Navy's first black admiral.

[Footnote 3-63: Memo, Chief, BuPers, for CINCUSFLEET,
1 Dec 43, sub: Negro Personnel, P16/MM, BuPersRecs.
The latter experiment has been chronicled by its
commanding officer, Eric Purdon, in _Black Company:
The Story of Subchaser 1264_ (Washington: Luce,
1972).]

[Illustration: USS MASON. _Sailors look over their new ship._]

Although both ships continued to operate with black crews well (p. 078)
into 1945, the _Mason_ on escort duty in the Atlantic, only four
other segregated patrol craft were added to the fleet during the
war.[3-64] The _Mason_ passed its shakedown cruise test, but the Bureau
of Naval Personnel was not satisfied with the crew. The black petty
officers had proved competent in their ratings and interested in their
work, but bureau observers agreed that the rated men in general were
unable to maintain discipline. The nonrated men tended to lack respect
for the petty officers, who showed some disinclination to put their
men on report. The Special Programs Unit admitted the truth of these
charges but argued that the experiment only proved what the Navy
already knew: black sailors did not respond well when assigned to
all-black organizations under white officers.[3-65] On the other hand,
the experiment demonstrated that the Navy possessed a reservoir of
able seamen who were not being efficiently employed, and--an
unexpected dividend from the presence of white noncommissioned
officers--that integration worked on board ship. The white petty
officers messed, worked, and slept with their men in the close contact
inevitable aboard small ships, with no sign of racial friction.

[Footnote 3-64: Memo, CNO for Cmdt, First and Fifth
Naval Districts, 10 May 44, sub: Assignment of
Negro Personnel, P-16-3/MM, BuPersRecs.]

[Footnote 3-65: For an assessment of the performance
of the _Mason's_ crew. see "BuPers Hist," pp. 42-43
and 92.]

Opportunity for advancement was as important to morale as (p. 079)
assignment according to training and skill, and the Special Programs
Unit encouraged the promotion of Negroes according to their ability
and in proportion to their number. Although in July 1943 the Bureau of
Naval Personnel had warned command