African-American Sailors Aboard Ship

"The depression of the early 30’s was tough… It was especially hard for Negroes, because jobs were so scarce and Negroes were not allowed to enlist in the armed forces. It was 1936 before the president opened up the Army and Navy to Negroes. Filipino and Chinese males were already in the Navy and the few Negroes that stayed in from WWI. The Secretary of the Navy said he would permit Negroes to come into the Navy at this time, but as mess attendants only; serving tables, shining shoes, etc.

The Navy began a recruiting program. A few Negroes were selected. Those with high school education and/or college degrees. Just as the Secretary of the Navy said, regardless of education, skill, or trade, Negroes came into the navy as mess attendants only.

In May 1938, I finished high school, and my chance of going to college was out because my dad died three years earlier and my mother could not afford to send me. I wanted to go into the Navy then, but I first tried earning money for college but to no avail. So early April 1939, I went to the Navy recruiting office and signed up.

On December 7, 1941, Dorie Miller manned a 50-caliber gun and shot down Japanese planes. This proved that if Negroes had been given the training like any other white sailor, the Navy for Negroes would have been better, however, the rate of mess attendant was all that the Navy had to offer Negroes; even then, we did our best.

In boot camp, we were in a segregated part of the base, of a segregated navy, and in a segregated city (Norfolk, Va.) and state and country. We were fenced in on one side, and the white sailors were on the other side without a fence. We were restricted to this area….

All during boot camp in Norfolk, anytime that Negroes boarded the Navy Base street car heading back to base, a fight broke out between the Negro sailors and the white sailors. Some white sailor, half drunk, would start telling his favorite joke about ‘Niggah John,’ and as always some Negro sailor resented it and the fight was on…. No time was different. No one seemed to ever learn from this lesson.

After graduation and boot camp training, I was given a 15-day leave to visit my family and to show my naval uniform to my friends and hometown (Houston, Tx.). Even being in your country’s uniform, racial hatred always raised its ugly head. In railroad and bus stations, eateries, and even restrooms and water fountains, your face, not the uniform, was the first thing people saw. It seems everything and everybody in southern states was against you; clubs, department stores, movies and public gatherings. All of a sudden, you throw up both hands; and you were anxious to get back to your buddies, after vacation, so you could be shipped out to sea. Hoping and thinking, things will be better at sea. Little did I know…

In mid-January 1941, I was transferred to the crew of the NORTH CAROLINA (still not yet commissioned into the Navy). The mess attendants duties aboard the NORTH CAROLINA were to clean officers’ staterooms, make their bunks, put towels in their rooms; unpack, wash, and store dishes (for the officers’ wardroom), clean silver (the ship had a 120-plus piece silver service), clean the wardroom, and anything else the officers asked us to do (like taking and picking up their laundry).

Negroes had a place and we were not to venture out. If we dared to be anything other than a servant, we were knocked down. They did not think it was possible for a Negro to be a servant and a man at the same time; therefore, it was hard. No it was more than hard. It was hell."

- Roosevelt Flenard, as Mr. Flenard’s recollections go on, you learn that mess attendants had ways of getting even with officers that were too unkind and rewarded officers who treated them well

"They had their own quarters, took care of the officers, especially their food. The officers’ galley was right across the hall from sick bay and there was one fine young man who we all got to know pretty well. One time he told us. ‘We eat the best and feed the officers the rest.’ There were also one or two African-American soldiers who boxed at the smokers (shipboard entertainment), and one or two who tap danced, but I didn’t really know any of them personally. They also manned to 20mm guns and that’s more than I got to do!"

- Paul B. Smith

"An officer’s steward named Bunch and I traveled together from Pearl Harbor to the ship in Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1941. We were working passengers on the carrier ENTERPRISE to San Francisco, then by troop train to Hoboken, New Jersey, where a Navy tug took us to the ship. Bunch and I became good friends during this time. When he needed to hide out for a break he could comer down to Forward Diesels to ‘check on a floor drain’ in his galley which emptied into a sump I had to pump out for him. Needless to say he was always good for a snack. In 1974, while working in San Francisco, I read an article in the paper about his success with a sausage venture in Valejo, California, nearby. I immediately phoned only to have his wife tell me that he had just passed away! I was devastated, needless to say. He was a good shipmate."

- Frank J. Haas

"I was in charge of the stewards aboard ship. To me, they were as good as I was. I treated them with respect and they treated me with respect. I think there were about 15 of them. They worked in the officers’ mess. We always got along fine. It was my duty to wake them in the morning for General Quarters."

- Thomas A. McAlone, who was a Master-at-Arms

"We would have entertainment. There was one black guy; he was from the South somewhere. Every time he got up he used to sing this song ‘Shine.’ He would sing that and put his heart and soul into it. You would have thought he was Bing Crosby that way he brought the crowds down. He was real good… We never associated socially with them."

- William A. Schack

"The blacks were strictly officers’ mess men. They were assigned General Quarters (battle stations). They did have a 20mm mount to mount for air attack against enemy planes. They were strictly mess cooks attendants for officers. It was more or less segregated to a large degree. It was just that way. It was the times. … You did what you could do. You had your laughs, you had fun. You exchanged things. In fact, to one black fellow, I had said ‘We are going to meet at Jack Dempsey’s 15 years from now.’ Jack Dempsey’s was a big place in New York. I said to myself, ‘This guy ain’t going to come.’ So 15 years later, I went there. I sat there and I sat there. I saw this black guy with a boy. I didn’t recognize him, but I recognized the boy. He was 14 or 15 years old. I recognized the boy, but I didn’t recognize the guy. I said, ‘Hey, Ashford. Is that you?’ He said ‘You Leo?’ I said ‘Yes.’ We had a good time together. The boy I recognized because he looked just like his Dad when he was young. It was fantastic."

- Leo Neumann

"The only blacks we had on board were in the wardroom. I don’t believe we had any other black enlisted men in the other ratings… We had a chief steward in the wardroom who, if he had been white, might have been the commander-in-chief of the Navy, because he was the smartest, the hardest-working man I’ve ever seen. One day we had some sort of an anniversary coming along, and he baked a cake of that ship about that long. It was the most intricate and finest thing I’ve ever seen. The only disciplinary problem I ever had came from black stewards and mess attendants. This chief steward came up to me and said that those people (stewards and mess attendants) were working from long before daylight until long after dark. They were working too long and they didn’t think they should be doing it. The next day they weren’t going to do it. They weren’t going to serve meals, as we had to, around the clock. I went to the Captain, and I said, ‘Well, I don’t know if this thing is going to amount to much, but we can’t let it get along.’ The Captain said, ‘Have you got a copy of the Articles for the Government of the Navy?’ I said ‘yes.’ He said, ‘Just look up a little paragraph in there, get them all together right now and read that to them.’ This is the article that says, ‘In time of war, if any enlisted man refuses to carry out his orders, he may summarily be shot.’ I just read it and turned around and left, and we didn’t have any strike. I don’t know how far they would have gone; but I believe they had a little bit of justification, because some of the junior officers were demanding extra services at times when they were working hard just to keep up the normal routine."

- Rear Admiral Joe W. Stryker, Executive Officer during much of the war

"Well, I remember one incident. I remember one time we had a chief steward who had been in the Navy at least 20 years. We were in Pearl, and he was to go stateside the next day. Somehow or other he was on a bus in Pearl, and some drunken civilian got into a race problem with him. The civilian told the chief to stand up and get to the back of the bus; and the chief, from the information I had at that time, told him not to bother him. He was a well-behaved chief and had been in the navy a long time, and he had done nothing… Somehow they had a fight right in the bus there. This guy leaned over and grabbed the chief and tried to pull him out of his seat. In the course of the fight, this fellow was stabbed. I was involved in the court case because I had been assigned many times as a court recorder on the battleship. It was marvelous to see how everybody rallied around this chief and got enough witnesses and enough information together to get him off the island and off to the states. He had been charged and a fair, quick trial was held."

- Ralph Sheffer