![]() ![]() 4 For a major cabinetofficer, Knox's powers were severely circumscribed. Together with Secretary of War Stimson,Knox had joined the cabinet in July 1940 when Roosevelt was attemptingto defuse a foreign policy debate that threatened to explode during thepresidential campaign. Development of a Wartime PolicyĪt first the new secretary, Frank Knox, and the Navy's professionalleaders resisted demands for a change. 3It was not surprising that civil rights organizations and their supportersin Congress demanded a change in policy. 2īy the end of December 1941 the number of Negroes in the Navy had increasedby slightly more than a thousand men to 5,026, or 2.4 percent of the whole,but they continued to be excluded from all positions except that of steward. Despite the fact that their enlistment contracts restrictedtheir training and duties, stewards, like everyone else aboard ship, wereassigned battle stations, including positions at the guns and on the bridge.One of these stewards, Dorie (Doris) Miller, became a hero on the firstday of the war when he manned a machine gun on the burning deck of theUSS Arizona and destroyed two enemy planes. Stewards manned the officers'mess and maintained the officers' billets on board ship, and, in some instances,took care of the quarters of high officials in the shore establishment.Some were also engaged in mess management, menu planning, and the purchaseof supplies. and even chief stewards never exercised authorityover men rated in the general naval service. The Steward's Branch, composed entirely of enlisted Negroes and orientalaliens, mostly Filipinos, was organized outside the Navy's general service.Its members carried ratings up to chief petty officer, but wore distinctiveuniforms and insignia. 1All were enlisted men, and with the exception of six regular rated seamen,lone survivors of the exclusion clause, all were steward's mates, labeledby the black press "seagoing bellhops." In June 1940 the Navy had 4,007 black personnel,2.3 percent of its nearly 170,000-man total. Although the exclusion of Negroes that began with aclause introduced in enlistment regulations in 1922 lasted but a decade,black participation in the Navy remained severely restricted during therest of the interwar period. The period between the world wars marked the nadir of the Navy's relationswith black America. CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 3 World War II: The Navy ![]()
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