iam M. Fechteler, Asst Chief,
NavPers, 20 Jul 45, sub: Conditions Existing at
NTC, Bainbridge, Md., Regarding Negro Personnel,
Reported on by Lt Wm. H. Robertson, Jr.,
Pers-2119-FB, BuPersRecs.]

There were reasons for the inconsistent stance in Washington. The
Special Programs Unit had for some time been convinced that only full
integration would eliminate discrimination and dissolve racial
tensions in the Navy, and it had understood Forrestal's desire "to do
something" for the Negro to mean just that. Some senior commanders and
their colleagues in the Bureau of Naval Personnel, on the other hand,
while accepting the need for reform and willing to accept some racial
mixing, nevertheless rejected any substantial change in the policy of
restricted employment of Negroes on the grounds that it might disrupt
the wartime fleet. Both sides could argue with assurance since
Forrestal and King had not made their positions completely clear.
Whatever the secretary's ultimate intention, the reforms carried out
in 1944 were too little and too late. Perhaps nothing would have been
sufficient, for the racial incidents visited upon the Navy during the
last year of the war were symptomatic of the overwhelming
dissatisfaction Negroes felt with their lot in the armed forces. There
had been incidents during the Knox period, but investigation had
failed to isolate any "single, simple cause," and troubles continued
to occur during 1944.[3-118]

[Footnote 3-118: "BuPers Hist," p. 75.]

Three of these incidents gained national prominence.[3-119] The first
was a mutiny at Mare Island, California, after an explosion destroyed
two ammunition ships loading at nearby Port Chicago on 17 July 1944.
The explosion killed over 300 persons, including 250 black seamen who
had toiled in large, segregated labor battalions. The survivors
refused to return to work, and fifty of them were convicted of mutiny
and sentenced to prison. The incident became a _cause celebre_.
Finally, through the intervention of the black press and black
organizations and the efforts of Thurgood Marshall and Lester Granger,
the convictions were set aside and the men restored to active duty.

[Footnote 3-119: Nelson, "Integration of the Negro,"
ch. VIII.]

A riot on Guam in December 1944 was the climax of months of friction
between black seamen a