Note (Back) — CHAPTER 4

When President Roosevelt made it clear that Negroes were to be enlisted, Coast Guard Commandant Rear Adm. Russell R. Waesche had a plan ready. The Coast Guard would enlist approximately five hundred Negroes in the general service, he explained to the chairman of the General Board, Vice Adm. Walton R. Sexton. Some three hundred of these men would be trained for duty on small vessels, the rest for shore duty under the captain of the port of six cities throughout the United States. Although his plan made no provision for the training of black petty officers, the commandant warned Admiral Sexton that 50 to 65 percent of the crew in these small cutters and miscellaneous craft held such ratings, and it followed that Negroes would eventually be allowed to try for such ratings.[4-39]