thedrifter
02-17-08, 08:38 AM
One last battle: 60th anniversary of military integration to be remembered
By: GARY WARTH - Staff Writer
The Axis powers had been defeated and World War II had come to an end by 1945, but it would take the United States military three more years to end its own internal conflict.
It came with the stroke of a pen on July 26, 1948, when President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, ending segregation in the armed forces.
As the 60th anniversary of the act approaches, local veterans who served in segregated units are planning to attend a commemoration of the event Wednesday at the Veterans Museum and Memorial Center in San Diego.
Recalling the era is a bitter memory for some.
"We were very much opposed to it, but it was the way they were doing things at the time," said Oceanside resident Bob Maxwell, a Tuskegee Airman.
Last year, Maxwell and more than 300 Tuskegee Airmen received the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian award, for their service during World War II. The all-black group, which originally trained in Tuskegee, Ala., was credited with shooting down 251 planes and sinking a German destroyer during 15,000 sorties while never losing one of its own.
Maxwell was not a member of the legendary fighter group but did train as a B-25 bomber pilot. His group, the 477th, was ready to go overseas when the war ended.
"People never talk much about the bomb group because they didn't get into combat," Maxwell said. "They weren't the heroes that the fighter pilots were, but that's all right. It was the fighter pilots who really did a great job over there."
Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee pilot program began in 1941, and Maxwell entered the service in 1944. Some of his instructors were Tuskegee Airmen who had been overseas.
Maxwell said he knew he would be segregated when he joined the Army Air Corps, but like other patriotic young men his age, his desire to serve his country outweighed his feelings about the unfair system.
"We didn't have any choice," he said. "There was a war going on, and we were as willing as anybody else to serve the country. A lot of black men volunteered. This was our country, and we were going to protect it."
Once in the service, however, Maxwell said he felt that he and other black pilots were treated equally.
"They gave us the same airplanes to train on, and we saw it as an opportunity, first to learn to fly, and second, as a career path."
Maxwell, who had earned an engineering degree and was working in a defense plant before signing up, kept his pilot license after the war but did not fly again until the 1970s, when he flew to test an air-traffic control system he had worked on.
He served until 1946, two years shy of the integration act.
"I thought it was a great thing," he said about the act. "I felt Harry Truman did a very courageous thing in doing that because there was still a lot of opposition. It was still before the civil rights movement of the 1960s."
The seeds of the movement, many have said, were sown in World War II. Blacks who had fought alongside white troops returned to a country that often treated them as second-class citizens, and they and their fellow white servicemen saw the hypocrisy.
"Some of the fighter pilots who had just completed their tour of duty came back on a troop ship," Maxwell recalled. "They walked down the gangplank and there was a big sign that said 'Colored soldiers this way, white soldiers this way.'"
Montford Marines
Oceanside resident Robert Moore, a retired gunnery sergeant, joined the Marines in 1946 and trained at Montford Point, a satellite camp at Marine Corps Camp LeJeune in North Carolina. Montford Point began training black recruits in a segregated camp after the Fair Employment Act signed by President Franklin Roosevelt on June 25, 1941.
The act required the government to provide equal training in defense to all citizens and was the first federal law to promote equal opportunity and prohibit employment discrimination.
About 20,000 black Marines were trained at Montford Point before military integration in 1948. Montford Point was renamed Camp Gilbert H. Johnson in 1974.
For Moore, the creation of Montford Point meant he could join the branch of the service he had come to admire from movies. "The first black Marine I saw was in New York," he said. "I just thought he looked sharp in the uniform."
Moore joined in 1946 and served for 25 years.
"It was just a place where you went and did what you had to do," he said of his memories of Montford Point.
The segregated camp was not a shock to Moore, who said he had come to accept the system as the way things were. While he said he had no problems, Moore said he did see other black Marines sometimes get into fights with white Marines.
"Growing up, you had your little fistfights on the street that didn't amount to a hill of beans, but in the Marine Corps, some guys made an issue of how the Corps was segregated," he said.
Oceanside resident Oscar Culp, a retired gunnery sergeant who served from 1943 to 1966, also trained at Montford Point. As the first black Marines, Culp said, recruits at Montford Point faced a challenge.
"The Marines were considered the elite military organization in the United States," he said, "and Afro-Americans, I guess, figured we had to prove ourselves to be worthy to be a Marine. And we did. We certainly did."
While troops were segregated, units in battle fought on the same fields, and Culp said American troops did not pay attention to skin color in those moments.
"When you were fighting together, you couldn't be any closer," he said. "You had to depend on each other for life, regardless of colors. The bullets didn't know any color difference."
It was only after the war, he said, that resentment of segregation started to fully emerge.
"Here we were fighting these other nationalities, protecting our people, and the people we were fighting had more privileges than we did," he said. "That hit a sore spot."
Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.
Fast Facts
To mark the 60th anniversary of the desegregation of the U.S. armed forces, North County veterans Bob Maxwell, Robert Moore and Oscar Culp will join other black World War II veterans for symposiums at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Veterans Museum and Memorial Center. The museum is at 2115 Park Blvd., Balboa Park, San Diego. Call (619) 239-2300 or visit www.sdvmc.org.
Ellie
By: GARY WARTH - Staff Writer
The Axis powers had been defeated and World War II had come to an end by 1945, but it would take the United States military three more years to end its own internal conflict.
It came with the stroke of a pen on July 26, 1948, when President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, ending segregation in the armed forces.
As the 60th anniversary of the act approaches, local veterans who served in segregated units are planning to attend a commemoration of the event Wednesday at the Veterans Museum and Memorial Center in San Diego.
Recalling the era is a bitter memory for some.
"We were very much opposed to it, but it was the way they were doing things at the time," said Oceanside resident Bob Maxwell, a Tuskegee Airman.
Last year, Maxwell and more than 300 Tuskegee Airmen received the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian award, for their service during World War II. The all-black group, which originally trained in Tuskegee, Ala., was credited with shooting down 251 planes and sinking a German destroyer during 15,000 sorties while never losing one of its own.
Maxwell was not a member of the legendary fighter group but did train as a B-25 bomber pilot. His group, the 477th, was ready to go overseas when the war ended.
"People never talk much about the bomb group because they didn't get into combat," Maxwell said. "They weren't the heroes that the fighter pilots were, but that's all right. It was the fighter pilots who really did a great job over there."
Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee pilot program began in 1941, and Maxwell entered the service in 1944. Some of his instructors were Tuskegee Airmen who had been overseas.
Maxwell said he knew he would be segregated when he joined the Army Air Corps, but like other patriotic young men his age, his desire to serve his country outweighed his feelings about the unfair system.
"We didn't have any choice," he said. "There was a war going on, and we were as willing as anybody else to serve the country. A lot of black men volunteered. This was our country, and we were going to protect it."
Once in the service, however, Maxwell said he felt that he and other black pilots were treated equally.
"They gave us the same airplanes to train on, and we saw it as an opportunity, first to learn to fly, and second, as a career path."
Maxwell, who had earned an engineering degree and was working in a defense plant before signing up, kept his pilot license after the war but did not fly again until the 1970s, when he flew to test an air-traffic control system he had worked on.
He served until 1946, two years shy of the integration act.
"I thought it was a great thing," he said about the act. "I felt Harry Truman did a very courageous thing in doing that because there was still a lot of opposition. It was still before the civil rights movement of the 1960s."
The seeds of the movement, many have said, were sown in World War II. Blacks who had fought alongside white troops returned to a country that often treated them as second-class citizens, and they and their fellow white servicemen saw the hypocrisy.
"Some of the fighter pilots who had just completed their tour of duty came back on a troop ship," Maxwell recalled. "They walked down the gangplank and there was a big sign that said 'Colored soldiers this way, white soldiers this way.'"
Montford Marines
Oceanside resident Robert Moore, a retired gunnery sergeant, joined the Marines in 1946 and trained at Montford Point, a satellite camp at Marine Corps Camp LeJeune in North Carolina. Montford Point began training black recruits in a segregated camp after the Fair Employment Act signed by President Franklin Roosevelt on June 25, 1941.
The act required the government to provide equal training in defense to all citizens and was the first federal law to promote equal opportunity and prohibit employment discrimination.
About 20,000 black Marines were trained at Montford Point before military integration in 1948. Montford Point was renamed Camp Gilbert H. Johnson in 1974.
For Moore, the creation of Montford Point meant he could join the branch of the service he had come to admire from movies. "The first black Marine I saw was in New York," he said. "I just thought he looked sharp in the uniform."
Moore joined in 1946 and served for 25 years.
"It was just a place where you went and did what you had to do," he said of his memories of Montford Point.
The segregated camp was not a shock to Moore, who said he had come to accept the system as the way things were. While he said he had no problems, Moore said he did see other black Marines sometimes get into fights with white Marines.
"Growing up, you had your little fistfights on the street that didn't amount to a hill of beans, but in the Marine Corps, some guys made an issue of how the Corps was segregated," he said.
Oceanside resident Oscar Culp, a retired gunnery sergeant who served from 1943 to 1966, also trained at Montford Point. As the first black Marines, Culp said, recruits at Montford Point faced a challenge.
"The Marines were considered the elite military organization in the United States," he said, "and Afro-Americans, I guess, figured we had to prove ourselves to be worthy to be a Marine. And we did. We certainly did."
While troops were segregated, units in battle fought on the same fields, and Culp said American troops did not pay attention to skin color in those moments.
"When you were fighting together, you couldn't be any closer," he said. "You had to depend on each other for life, regardless of colors. The bullets didn't know any color difference."
It was only after the war, he said, that resentment of segregation started to fully emerge.
"Here we were fighting these other nationalities, protecting our people, and the people we were fighting had more privileges than we did," he said. "That hit a sore spot."
Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.
Fast Facts
To mark the 60th anniversary of the desegregation of the U.S. armed forces, North County veterans Bob Maxwell, Robert Moore and Oscar Culp will join other black World War II veterans for symposiums at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Veterans Museum and Memorial Center. The museum is at 2115 Park Blvd., Balboa Park, San Diego. Call (619) 239-2300 or visit www.sdvmc.org.
Ellie