ck
Coast Guard officers, on board the Sea Cloud_.]

Throughout the war the Coast Guard never exhibited the concern shown
by the other services for the possible disruptive effects if blacks
outranked whites. As the war progressed, more and more blacks advanced
into petty officer ranks; by August 1945 some 965 Negroes, almost a
third of their total number, were petty or warrant officers, many of
them in the general service. Places for these trained specialists in
any kind of segregated general service were extremely limited, and by
the last year of the war many black petty officers could be found
serving in mostly white crews and station complements. For example, a
black pharmacist, second class, and a signalman, third class, served
on the cutter _Spencer_, a black coxswain served on a cutter in the
Greenland patrol, and other black petty officers were assigned to
recruiting stations, to the loran program, and as instructors at the
Manhattan Beach Training Station.[4-62]

[Footnote 4-62: USCG Historical Section, The Coast
Guard at War, 23:53; Intervs, author with Lt Harvey
C. Russell, USCGR, 14 Feb 75, and with Capron, CMH
files.]

The position of instructor at Manhattan Beach became the usual avenue
to a commission for a Negro. Joseph C. Jenkins went from Manhattan
Beach to the officer candidate school at the Coast Guard Academy,
graduating as an ensign in the Coast Guard Reserve in April 1943,
almost a full year before Negroes were commissioned in the Navy.
Clarence Samuels, a warrant officer and instructor at Manhattan (p. 122)
Beach, was commissioned as a lieutenant (junior grade) and assigned to
the _Sea Cloud_ in 1943. Harvey C. Russell was a signal instructor at
Manhattan Beach in 1944 when all instructors were declared eligible to
apply for commissions. At first rejected by the officer training
school, Russell was finally admitted at the insistence of his
commanding officer, graduated as an ensign, and was assigned to the
_Sea Cloud_.[4-63]

[Footnote 4-63: "A Black History in WWII," pp. 31-34.
For an account of Samuels' long career in the Coast
Guard, see Joseph Greco and Truman R. Strobridge,
"Black Trailblazer Has Colorful Past," _Fifth
Dimension_ (3d Quarter, 1973); see also Interv,
author with Russell.]

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