Note (Back) — CHAPTER 17

Again as in the Far East, some integration in Europe occurred in response to the influx of new soldiers as well as to Army directives. Handy integrated his Noncommissioned Officers' Academy in 1950 in an operation involving thousands of enlisted men. After he closed the segregated Kitzingen Training Center in February 1951, black troops were absorbed into other training and replacement centers on an integrated basis. For some time Army commanders in Europe had also been assigning certain black soldiers with specialist training to white units, a practice dramatically accelerated in 1950 when the command began receiving many Negroes with occupation specialties unneeded in black units. In March 1951 Handy directed that, while the assignment of Negroes to black units remained the first priority, Negroes possessing qualifications unusable or in excess of the needs of black units would be assigned where they could be used most effectively.[17-75] Consequently, by the end of 1951 some 7 percent of all black enlisted men, 17 percent of the black officers, and all black soldiers of the Women's Army Corps in the command were serving in integrated units.