 Good afternoon and welcome to the National Archives Museum program Korea, the Forgotten War. I'm Jeff Hawks, Director of Education and Veterans Outreach for the Army Heritage Center Foundation at the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle. And today we will be discussing some of the changes that occurred during the Korean War, specifically the changing roles of African Americans and women in the military. Our presenters are Dr. Michael Lynch, the U.S. Army War College faculty and Ms. Briddick-Grandrude of the Women's, the Military Women's Memorial. Thank you for joining us for today's program. We will begin with Dr. Lynch. Dr. Lynch is a research historian at the Strategic Studies Institute and associate professor at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He's a U.S. Army veteran who retired in 2005 after 21 years of service. He's a PhD in history from Temple University, a graduate certificate in public history from Shippensburg University, a Master of Arts in History from the Virginia Commonwealth University, and a Bachelor of Arts in English from East Tennessee State University. His book, Edward M. Almond and the U.S. Army from the 92nd Infantry Division to 10 Corps, published by the University Press of Kentucky in 2019, was awarded the 2019 Distinguished Writing Award for Biography from the Army Historical Foundation. He also contributed chapters to Drawdown, the Liberty Dilemma, and Black History of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. His most recent publication was War in the Pandemic Era, Implications for the U.S. Army. He's currently working on a chapter on Incheon for an edited volume on amphibious operations. So Dr. Lynch, tell us about what is going on with African-American soldiers during the Korean War era. Good afternoon, Jeff, and thanks to you and thanks to the National Archives for inviting me and hosting this. At the beginning of the Korean War, to understand exactly what the Army looked like then and what the segregated Army looked like, you have to really go back to World War II. So if we could pull up my slides, and we'll go to slide two when you get a chance. Next slide. So during World War II, the entire Army was segregated. Only two divisions were full divisions that were segregated as African-American divisions. And only one of those, the 92nd on the right hand side, you see there, was served as a full division. The 93rd Division went to the Pacific and was broken up in smaller pieces, but the 92nd Division served in Italy and it served as a full division. But what you see there is part of the problem that the segregated Army encountered. The entire division was not allowed to train in any one place, except for Fort Wachuk, Arizona, because that's where people, it was not acceptable to have large numbers of Black soldiers around other towns. Fort Wachuk is way out in the Sonoran Desert and nobody cared there. So initially the 92nd was broken up by regiments in different locations. Next slide please. Next slide. So the problem that all of the units in World War II experienced was carried over to the Korean War, and that was that the soldier scores on the Army General Classification Test, especially for those who went into the infantry, was typically lower than their counterparts in white units. So you see the expected distribution is in yellow. That's what the, I'm sorry, it was in green, was sort of a bell curve, but what the 92nd experienced was actually much more toward the right end of the curve. So more soldiers had lower scores on their qualification tests than did a similar number of white soldiers. That continued through Korea as well. Next slide please. The 92nd Division failed in February of 1945, fairly significantly in northern Italy, and because of that it was reorganized. And at the end of that reorganization it became the most integrated division in the Army. Prior to the reorganization it had four black regiments, one of which was added during the, once it got to Italy and the other three were its three base regiments. But it was reorganized, and in the reorganization all of the best soldiers from the four regiments were put into one regiment. And then another white regiment was added, and then the, the Nisei regiment, the, the, was added. They actually pulled out of France and added to the division, which made the 92nd Division have one black regiment, one white regiment and one Nisei regiment. And it worked very well after that. And that became a, a model, if you will, of how a unit could be integrated. Next slide please. So after the war, and immediately after the war since 1945 discussions at the War Department ensued about how best to use the African American manpower that we had in the, in the Army. There was general consensus that they should not be integrated at division level anymore, and they should be segregated at least to, to a regimental level. So a board was, was formed under General Alan, Alvin Gillum was the, the board chair and later known as the, the Gillum board. And the, what the Gillum board did was it took a lot of the, it interviewed a lot of the commanders from, from black units during the war and trying to develop processes for how the Army could best use its manpower is not talking about integration yet but that was certainly under discussion and at what point or what level it should be integrated. The idea was that we should have black soldiers in the Army at the same proportion that they were in society. And that had sort of been the rule in during World War two. In other words, about 10% of society at the time was black so they're therefore 20, 10% of the, the Army should be should be black. Careful thought put into a lot of it. One idea was to open more, more positions to black officers and soldiers to give them more experience that they did not have during the war, one of the problems that that the Army determined was the reason that the soldiers had scored so poorly on the EGCT is because they had poor education before the war. And, and so they were really unable to negotiate a test that, you know was not designed for, for people with that level of education so the idea was to keep the good ones, and then allow them to grow into to other positions. Officers, we did have black officers during the war, and there was agreement that that black officers should stay and that they should meet the same standards as as white officers. And significantly, there was a quota for for black soldiers, keeping it at that 10% proportion there's some concern about that. But then there was no limit on the number of black officers, because the feeling was that that black units needed to have more supervision than white units, and having more more soldiers more officers assigned black or white units would would help with that. Next slide please. Now here are some of the criticisms that came from that. The Secretary of War, did not think that the recommendations were were specific enough and he also thought the quota option was not practical because it's hard to, you know, in a pre computerized era how you can maintain 10% across the pretty much universal agreement that black, nobody wanted black officers command white troops but white officers and black officers could command black troops. So, they thought that the large units such as divisions should be should be segregated or composite the Army Air Force disagreed with that. And they didn't want to have any, any sort of desegregation and most everybody thought that only the smaller units, smaller black units such as maintenance units, said or should be assigned to the large to larger units. One big thought that we see reflected today in various different kinds of, of circumstances is that the Army should not be a testing ground for problems and race relations and numbers not be a social laboratory well in fact it has been for a long time. And they go going hand in hand with that is. It's just the wrong time to do that. Well it's always the wrong time for certain kinds of change. So that that was, that was the, the main criticism. Next slide. When the war began in, in June 1950. This is what the army looked like and specifically the army in the Pacific on the left hand side first of all, regimental structure the army had been stripped from from 12.2 million in uniform I think and all services at the end of World War two to a little over a million. And so each of the regiments in the army was was had had one battalion inactive. Its tank company was inactive. And they were, and all units were under strength. The 24th infantry regiment, a black regiment son 25th infantry division was at full strength at all three of its battalions it was one of the it was. I think the only regiment in the army that was full strength. And the reason for that was with a trying to maintain 10% of the force. As African American, we needed those slots. So all the rest of the white units were short but the 24th after regiment was full strength, as were the, the other battalions will talk about in a minute. The units that you see there on the left are the four divisions that were assigned to Japan. And they're the seventh infantry that the first cavalry, the 24th and 25th infantry, all under the eighth army. Next slide please. Next slide. All right, this, this just goes shows a little bit more about the organization and just to show that all the way down to the army's base structure. It was, it was short when the war, when the war started, with the exception of the, the black units. Next slide. So, these are the percentages and as you can see, the, the percentages as the started for the war began about 10% of the army about that's about what the quarter was but as the, the, the war ramped up those percentages started to grow higher. On December 52, I think the last, last data we have before the armistice in July 53, we're, you're sitting in about, about 13%. Now, if you compare that to the, to the other services you find that the army is doing a lot better for immigration or, or, or use of, of African American menpower than the other services are in July 49 12.4% in the army, for instance, 4.7 going all the way down to, to the Marine Corps which was the, the smallest of all so and it's stays fairly consistent across the board. Next slide please. This slide and the next one, illustrate a little bit of just how much the, the, the, the percentages raise or what the, what the strength of each of the services was this particular one is Navy, and the important thing here is, if you look down through there you see the large strength, but you also find that primarily they're concentrated in the sewer than in the stewards branch so these are the, the, the stewards that are serving in the officers passes, and then you go down to the, to the bottom and you find that those are not percentages at the bottom. So it says 1949. There's a 19 it's not 19%. It's their 19 officers in the Navy that are black. Next slide. This gives you a little bit of a view of the, the Marine Corps in the Air Force, and as you can tell, they're, they're pretty low numbers to. So, the point of these two slides is to simply say that the, the military, the Department of Defense at that time was not doing a good job at, at, at integrating black officers, but it wasn't even doing an even, an even poorer job at actually bringing in black officers, a black Airmen Marine soldiers and, and sailors. Next slide please. Okay, getting to Korea at the beginning or these are the, the units that are that are black units during or before and during the wars. I mentioned the 24th Infantry Regiment out of the 25th Infantry Division, and then the 3rd Battalion 9th Regiment and it was in the 2nd Infantry Division 3rd Battalion 15th was in the 3rd Infantry Division Regiment yet 3rd Infantry Division. And then the separate artillery and tank battalions there were, they were separate and then they were later assigned to two other units. Now at the bottom I've included the 65th Infantry Regiment. It is a, an interesting organization because we had a different kind of segregation that we hadn't really talked about the 65th Infantry Regiment was an active unit at the time it's National Guard now. But it was made up of Puerto Ricans. And it was specifically for Puerto Rico. It's Puerto Rico National Guard now but it was a regular Army unit in 1950. And they, it was maintained separately for the Puerto Ricans and the Puerto Ricans preferred it that way. They actually had their own separate resupply or replenishment cycle that brought more, you know, more people in so they supplied their own replacements. Next slide please. Now, this is to sort of give you an idea of how, how the, the structure was when the war began this is the 24th Infantry Regiment, and you see that it's it, all of its maneuver units were were African American. It failed pretty badly in combat also. And that is really what drove the, the desegregation of the Army in Korea. The regiment performed poorly as a regimen. One of the things that had been discovered in World War Two was that the, the, the units that depended on technical expertise generally performed well, they had what they needed so the artillery and engineers performed pretty well. And it was those in the infantry where, again, the AGCT scores were lower. They didn't need to, to be as, as good or as technically proficient. And therefore, they, they became difficult to manage in combat because they, by fail I mean ran off the battlefield in some cases. So, after this failure, the move to, to begin to integrate units began, I think a late 1950 early in 1951, and the, or, I'm sorry if you want to, the, the idea was that just like the division had been proven to be too big during World War Two. The regiment is too big to be integrated in the Korean War. So, the 24th infantry regiment was, was broken up and, and these soldiers were out, salted around in, in other units. And that actually worked very pretty well because what most leaders recognized during both World War Two and Korea was that there were outstanding performances by black soldiers. There's no doubt about that individual black soldier. The problem came in, in, in groups and larger, larger units. The variety of reasons for that some of which apply to white units as well. But the overall feeling in the Army was that if those soldiers could be spread out among other units, they would be, they would perform better. And largely that was the case. Next slide, please. Here's an example of how some of that happened. So I mentioned the Puerto Rican 65th infantry regiment. It was, it was short one battalion, just like all the other regiments in the Army so when it left Puerto Rico it sailed through Panama Canal Zone, and, and it added a third battalion in the canal zone, which was made up of purely of canal zone residents. At the time it was a cross territory of the United States. And then, once it arrived, it only had infantry with it. And so as, as the other units were broken up, it was, it had units added to it. And as you see there it, it actually gained a, a, an African American tank battalion and two African American artillery battalions. Next slide. Now one aspect of, of the integration we had that we, another aspect we haven't talked about is the integration of Catooses, which is the Korean augmentees, the US Army. This was a, a, a, a sort of an extreme measure taken in order to, to fill up the, the units in Japan that were already well short of their, their wartime strengths, just because the Army had, had stripped itself down so far. The General Douglas MacArthur requested from President Seaman and Rhea of Korea for assistance with able-bodied soldiers and civilians to help fill out the numbers on his, on, of American units. So, as the units were fed into Korea at the beginning of the war, they started to get smaller and then larger numbers of, of Catooses as they could. And as you see there, those are not in the order that they went, but the Seventh Infantry Division actually ended up with over 8,000 Catooses as part of its strength. It was, it was nearly, nearly half. So, if you expand that out on out to, to today we kept Catooses assisting the US Army in Korea for a long time. And now the Second Infantry Division stationed in Korea is actually the Second Infantry Combined Rock US Division. So, the, the, I guess you can say the integration of, of units in Korea has, has gone to its, to its furthest extent. And last slide, or the next slide. So this just shows a little bit about what the, the, the 24th Infantry Division or the, the black units were, were how they were compared to other regiments. These are the three regiments of the 25th Infantry Division. And you see the, the numbers of soldiers who scored in the lower CAT 4 and CAT 5 category on the AGCT test 24th compared to the two, to the two white regiments. And Jeff, I will pause there. Okay, thank you very much. Tremendous. Thank you. All right, we are going to move on to Ms. Brita Granrud. She is a proud Army brat and a graduate of Mary Washington College who has lived all over the world. She is the director of collections of the Military Women's Memorial Foundation collection. For 25 years, she has managed the collection over 8,000 donations of documents, photographs, oral histories, uniforms, objects, and audio visual materials, representing all areas and all services of Americans women military history. Brita has been a curator for all exhibits at the women's, at the military women's memorial. She is the leading author of a defense weapon known to be a value service women in the Korean War era published by the foundation's own military women's press. And Brita, thank you for joining us today. Tell us a little bit about what is going on with women during this period of history. Thank you, and I am delighted to be with you today to talk about service women during the Korean War. In World War II, the United States found itself in a war for which it was unprepared. The military had been downsized and they needed to draft and recruit manpower. And just as they had in World War II, they turned to American women to fill the need. Next slide please. The post World War II era is one of conflicts. While World War II brought about social and economic changes, which broadened women roles in society, there was also the expectation that women be mothers and homemakers. The military services had demobilized almost all women, but some leaders realized the need for a permanent core of women. The passage of the Women's Armed Services Integration Act in 1948 allowed for a permanent full time place for women in the military. And although there were restrictions, it was a significant step forward and created opportunities for women. Women did not want to serve though. They looked forward to normalcy after war. They had minor children or dependent parents. They were expected to stay in the home. The Korean War a couple of years later created manpower shortages due to men going off to war. The services were also struggling with how to implement the integration of women and the desegregation of the military, which had been mandated in 1948. Despite massive recruiting campaigns, numbers remained low. Next slide please. The outstanding service of military women in World War II culminated in two groundbreaking legislative acts. The first was the Army Navy Nurse Act passed in April 1947, which established the nurse corps of each service as the permanent staff corps. Army and Navy nurses were integrated into the officer corps of the regular Army and Navy. This medical specialist corps was also established by this act at last providing permanent and professional recognition to the dieticians and physical and occupational therapists who served with the U.S. military since World War I. Achieving regular status in the non-medical services did not come easily. It will quickly pass the Senate but was defeated in the House. The greatest objection would jeopardize men's promotions, retention and retirement opportunities. Noting that it would be unfair to give women regular commissions when many men who had fought during the war had been denied the privilege. The act passed Congress on June 2nd and signed by President Truman on June 12th. Women were now guaranteed permanent assignment on the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and newly established Air Force. Coast Guard women were not included because the Coast Guard had reverted to the Treasury Department at the end of the war. The bill had restrictions it established the women's Army Corps or WAAT as a separate branch of the Army, allow the service secretary's authority to define women's command capacities, as well as terminate regular commissions and the enlistment of any woman, quote, under the circumstances and in accordance with regulations prescribed by the President, end quote. Termination provision meant that the services were allowed to establish regulations as such as the immediate resignation or discharge of women due to pregnancy. Other restrictions included in kinds of duties that women could be involved and assigned, assigned and performed. Air Force and Navy women, quote, may not be assigned to duty and aircraft while such aircraft are engaged in combat missions, end quote, and Navy women main quote may not be assigned to duty on vessels of the Navy, except hospital ships and naval transports, end quote. There was a 2% ceiling on the proportion of women in each service and a grade ceiling cap on lieutenant colonels or commanders. If a woman served as the chief of a woman's component she was temporarily promoted to colonel or captain and permitted to retire at that grade. If she remained on active duty, she would return to the next lower grade. Another provision established separate promotion list for women except for Air Force women who were integrated into the male promotion list. The legislation also imposed imposed age restrictions for women age 18 with parental consent under age 21, as compared to men which whose which minimum age was 17 with parental consent husbands and children were also an issue. To claim dependence, it had to be proven that their chief support was more than 50%. So the law permitted her to claim dependent children if she was chief support, the services would not allow women children, nor allow them to remain on active duty if they acquired children by birth adoption marriage or other circumstances. The serious restrictions were included that would impact women's service for more than six decades. The primary purpose purpose at the time was to provide a means for mobilizing women in the event of a national emergency, rather than starting a scratch as the national defense officer in World War, World Wars one and two. Assistant chief of Naval personnel for women Navy Captain Joy Bart Hancock, a veteran of both wars, reinforced that objective during her Senate testimony saying quote, it would appear to me that any national defense weapon known to be a value should be developed and kept in good working order and not be allowed to rest or to be abolished and quote. Next slide please. After the Korean War, the armed forces conducted a highly publicized recruiting campaign for women, so that fewer men would have to be drafted. Only limited numbers volunteered and for the first time in history, the services recalled women reservists involuntarily to active duty. The recall women was difficult, as though many didn't want to join as they were newly married, or were working in civilian jobs. The number of women in the services thought they had available because many exceeded the age limit or they were married and had started families. As the military situation in Korea deteriorated support for when for war dwindled, some leaders called for drafting women, nurses were especially needed as they were essential for battlefield care and in hospitals. The next department stepped up recruiting. The services tried to make the military more appealing. They offered a shorter to and your enlistments and brought on female recruiters. They featured service women performing glamorous jobs and printed material and ads on radio and TV. They highlighted career opportunities, travel, adventure and patriotism. In 1951, DACAWITS, the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services, was established to assist the recruiting effort. The committee was comprised of 50 prominent civilian women, including the four former World War Two service directors. One of the jobs of DACAWITS was to help reassure parents that their young women would be taken care of and protected. The public was still somewhat ambivalent about women's military service and there was the lingering trepidation stemming from the rumors of service women's immorality that had arisen during World War Two. They were also having trouble retaining women. DoD had ended discharge upon marriage in August 1950, but reversed the policy in July 1951, which led to large numbers of women leaving to get married. Women who had joined for education and training were happy, but those who wanted to go into a specific job to do something useful were disappointed. The military believed that women were only suited for a specific narrow job, narrow group of jobs, deemed quote unquote women's work. And some jobs that women had performed during World War Two such as mechanics, truck drivers and other non-traditional jobs were unavailable to women. Those women who were older and had more responsibility were more likely to stay and re-enlist. Job dissatisfaction, the lack of promotion opportunities, the lack of acceptance by the services themselves, concern for the reputations, the old accusations immorality, and marriage were taken at all. A civilian idea was in the works to create a commemorative stamp featuring military women. The idea originally turned down by the post office came to the attention of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Personnel Anna Rosenberg in 1952, and she brought the idea to President Truman. Rosenberg felt that a stamp featuring military women at that time would have national recognition and help with recruiting efforts. Truman agreed and contacted the post office. In September 1952, the US Postal Service released a three cent commemorative stamp featuring the Forest Service women and the first day issue was held at the White House with President Truman. DoD held recruiting rallies across the country to promote the stamp. Despite all the high profile recruiting campaigns, recruiters were unable to meet quotas, and the services were recruiting quantity at Requality, which upset the women's directors, who called for an end to the recruiting drive in 1953. Next slide. As the African, as the Korean War began, decades of protest of political and legal activism had made few inroads into racial segregation. In equities of the separate but equal doctrine of the 1896 plus EV Ferguson Supreme Court decision still shaped public policy, race relations, and white attitudes in most of America. African American women who volunteered during this period faced dual barriers of gender and race to serve their country and to test the new policies. Navy women already served in desegregated assignments, but their numbers were small. In 1948, there was only one African American woman naval officer and only six African American enlisted among a force enlisted force of 1700. The first two African American women joined the Marine Corps in the summer of 1949, and the third followed early in 1950. In the Air Force, the first flight of 17 African American women graduated from the third training class at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. In early 1949, the only WAF women in the Air Force basic training center in the country. The Army took almost two years to develop a desegregation plan in 1948 for African American officers and 121 enlisted women war and active duty. Until 1950 these women received automatic assignment to the segregated company be first battalion of the women's Army Corps training center for Lee now for Greg Adams Virginia, staffed by African American women officers and non commissioned officers. Officer candidate school and specialist training were integrated, but most African Americans based Army careers and segregated work assignments, housing, eating arrangements and social settings after training. In 1950 army policy officially desegregated the service. African American women serving during the Korean War era were usually among the first to train, demand work and live in desegregated settings. Most were stationed in Europe, Japan and the United States. A handful of African American nurses served in Korea treating American and United Nations soldiers and POWs and training Korean and Chinese nurses. African American service women shared the experiences of all military personnel, but as women of color their experience is different from both their black male and white female counterparts. Next slide please. The military women who served in the combat theater proved once again how essential military nurses are in war. Approximately 1,750 nurses and medical specialists such as physical therapists and dieticians served in the Korean Theater. Nurses and medical specialists served in MASH mobile army surgical hospital units close to the front lines and in field evacuation and station hospitals. MASH units moved often and the tents were out in the field under harsh conditions, particularly in the winter. Supplies were short water scarce and there was little woods of these portable coal stoves and electricity was provided by portable generators. The large number of casualties overwhelmed hospitals and there was often not enough nurses. The front lines meant that nurses came under enemy fire. Hanboys and hospital trains were attacked and enemy aircraft bombed and straved army hospitals. The nurses often found themselves close to front lines like the nurses of World War I and II did as well. Next slide. When the 13 nurses of the first MASH were en route with the 7th Infantry Division from Incheon to Busan on October 9, 1950, the convoy was attacked. For 12 hours the nurses were trapped in a ditch carrying for 6 critically wounded men as gunfire rang out over their heads. Chief nurse Eunice Coleman wrote home to her family, quote, the nurses spent the remainder of the night in a ditch. The whole sky was lit up by gunfire and burning vehicles. About set up we got up and started treating the wounded, who by this time were coming in pretty fast. All that day until 1500 we worked on the roadside operating, treating for shock and putting the wounded in ambulances for care. We lost eight men and quite a number of supplies and vehicles. When all was clear, the convoy started again and arrived at Pusan by midnight. After the ambush, the 13 nurses of the unit started calling themselves the lucky 13. Next slide. The Air Force Nurse Corps had only been in existence for a year when the war started in 1950. There was a severe shortage of trained flight nurses throughout the war and some were assigned evacuation duty, although they did not have flight training. The nurses served aboard flights from Korea to Japan, Japan to Guam, Midway, Hawaii and the United States. They also served, I'm sorry, they also served at Air Force hospitals in California and San Antonio, Texas. Flight nurses were responsible for dispensing medication and keeping patients stable and comfortable during crowded and full flights. Three flight nurses were killed in plane crashes. Next slide please. Flight nurse Janice Vegan-Britain had already served one tour of duty by the time the Korean War broke out. She then taught flight nursing stateside and was assigned to special maneuvers in Alaska before returning to the combat theater. She recalls flight nursing in the combat zone demanding and dangerous and that sometimes accidents happened, such as the time the plane she was traveling on ran out of gas on the runway. Working on the ground could also be dangerous. She remembers loading a group of Korean orphans as this enemy hovered nearby and warming sea rations and a burning supply depot to the sound of enemy guns and mortars. She found the irregular hours due to the weather and events at the front, the most demanding of all. Next slide please. Navy nurses served aboard the hospital ship, consolation, repose and haven stationed at Busan and Incheon harbors. They were not subject to enemy raids so they lived in relatively comfortable conditions. The ships were air conditioned and they lived in relatively day and they had luxury foods such as milk and ice cream. They were bombarded with patients though and often worked over 30 hours without rest. The ships often took on more patients than they were built for during battlefield emergencies in and operating rooms were used around the clock. Some 200 Navy nurses also served in a large hospital on the coast of Japan. They received marine casualties directly from the battlefield in the first winter of war. They received in the first winter of the war they received 5000 Marines. The men suffered from frostbite trench foot and shock. The hospital was so crowded that staff beds were allocated for the wounded. Next slide please. During the war, only three wax served in Korea, thousands were stationed in Japan in open hour. Wax served in military hospitals as medical technician, lab specialists, X-ray technicians, record clerks and dental technicians. They also served as teletype and telephone operators and cryptologic clearance specialists for routing communications between military and units in Korea and headquarters in Japan. Alice O'Connor was one of the wax stations in Japan. She was with the 803rd 32nd wax battalion assigned to the 8034 signal service where she handled telephone communications on the night shift. On the night of November 18, 1952, an emergency required O'Connor to establish rapid and clear communications between Yokota, Japan and Air Rescue Units in Korea. Her knowledge and capable handling of the situation resulted in a letter of appreciation from the commanding officer of the 98th bombardment wing. In September 1950, three months after the start of the war, the first squadron of wax arrived in Tokyo. They served as supply clerks, stenographers, intelligence specialists and air control tower operators. Next slide please. The American military was hesitant to send service women other than nurses into the combat theater. Civilian women including those working alongside the military such as the American Red Cross, USO and the Defense Department's Education Education Service were in and out of Korea throughout the war. They endured the same conditions as the nurses who were stationed there. War correspondent Margaret Higgins came under fire while getting out the story of the war. The American Red Cross, which opened its first recreational center in Korea in November 1950, eventually had 24 permanent and mobile units within a few months. On Kojido Island where UN forces held 180,000 communist POWs, Jane Seaver Kerr handed out donuts to soldiers of the Second Infantry Division. The USO had closed its operations after World War II and while slow to bring the camp shows to Korea, eventually 126 units put on 5,400 shows for military personnel in Korea. The women who volunteered found themselves performing usually twice a day, sleeping in tents, traversing country in jeeps and helicopters, and enduring air raid drills. The O.D. civilian teacher Ann Zoss-Rod Roberts, who ran the Air Force Education Center at Air Base K-13 outside of Suwon, found herself to be the only woman on base among 5,000 airmen. She wore khaki pants and shirts similar to the uniforms worn by the airmen and was required to always carry a gas mask. When there was an air raid alarm which happened frequently at night, she sought protection among the road sandbags. Next slide please. In 1951, the United States built up army and air force units in Europe because of fears that the Soviet Union would take advantage of the focus on Korea and attack Western Europe. Increasing numbers of women were assigned to Europe during this period. The women managed communication networks, worked in intelligence, public information, finance and personnel. Many held top secret clearances because of their positions. Nurses and wax were signed to large hospitals in Germany because of the increased number of military personnel and families assigned to Europe. The women trained in emergency drills and hospitals held mass casualty drills from chemical and gas attacks. Evacuation routes were planned and the women were often placed on alert and confined to post. It was for the first time that non-medical Navy and Air Force women and Marine women were sent to Europe. Volunteers from the American Red Cross and the US Army Special Services also saw service there during the war. Next slide please. Most service women were assigned to bases in the United States during the Korean War. Nurses and medical specialists worked at hospitals caring for large numbers of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines from the combat theater and preparing the wounded veterans for civilian life. Military women also service military policemen, weather observers, parachute packers, pharmacists, haymasters, blood bank operators, flight nurses, electricians, and engineers, radio and radar technicians, finance officers, photo analysts, personnel specialists, stenographers, telephone and teletype operators, file clerks, librarians and food specialists. A 1952 WAC recruiting booklet stated quote, work carried on behind the lines is as necessary as that done on the battlefield itself. It may be unheralded and unsung, but it is essential and quote. Next slide please. About 50,000 women served in the military during the Korean War, which was less than 2% of the total force. Despite Cold War tensions around the world, the military was demobilizing. When war ended in July 1953, the women's components returned to their pre-war strengths and remain under strength for the rest of the 1950s. Recruiting and retention continued to be a problem and jobs dissatisfaction was the main factor for women not recommending the service. During World War II women had been willing to put up with dead-end jobs, malicious gossip about women in uniform, and less than ideal conditions for the greater good. The economy was no longer entwined with the war effort and social societal norms dictated that a woman's place was in the home. Additionally, after the war, the military was not clear about women, about the role of military women. They had set up expectations that they could not fulfill. Despite gaining permanent status in 1948, women were still viewed as intruders in the all male world. Women now competed for men with assignments, ratings, and promotions. They were relegated to administrative and hospital and medical jobs and would quote-unquote complement men and quote-unquote replace them. It was a survival period for women. Despite the lack of job opportunities and limitations, just the fact that women's services did survive was a win. As the establishment and legacy of DACAWITS, the oldest Defense Department advisory committee, they were created to inform the public about the need for service women, reassure parents that military was a good place for their daughters, and boost recruitment of top quality women and submit recommendations to the Secretary of Defense. The majority of the recommendations have been fully or partially independent, implemented, or the committee submits them year after year if they are not. The post-war military faced yet another challenge with the growing involvement in Vietnam and the need for services to recruit and direct men. However, every service branch had service women ready to deploy. While each generation of military women would have to prove themselves and face new equality battles, the services would never again have to start from scratch as the director of the Women's Army Corps, Mary Hallen, Mary Hallen stated in 1948 when she said, quote, It would be tragic if in another emergency, a new generation had to start from scratch, had to duplicate effort, make the same mistakes. It would be foolhardy to wait for another war to find out how and when women could best be used for national defense. To write finesse on women's contributions would be turning back. Thank you. Oh, thank you very much for that. So, we do have a few questions. And I think that one to start off with is there was a common theme in both of your commentaries about the emergency in Korea, and also common references to troop strength. So I guess that sort of leads to the question, and maybe you could comment on the rate of progress for women and African Americans, and to what extent this was driven by practical military necessity and the need for troops. And to what extent it was driven by changes in attitude or civilian pressure. So either one of you, how you cared to respond to that. I can go first and if you can pull up my slide 17 that'll kind of put it on a timeline may take a second to get up there. So, certainly let's talk about the military necessity. One thing that that you can look at from a couple of different ways is we needed a lot of troops in Korea in a hurry, but we also need a lot of troops in Europe because we thought that the greater threat even though we're at war in Korea we still thought that the greater threat was in against the Soviet Union Europe. And the part of one of the part of the problem that segregation caused is having separate but equal and I'm putting air quotes in their facilities which they they absolutely weren't equal but they were separate. And having to duplicate that across the department was had already become a huge burden. And that was even before the war came backing up you mentioned civilian pressure. Of course, in 1948, President Truman had issued executive order 9918 to to desegregate the military that came as a result of the, the Gillom board which looked primarily at the army and the Air Corps at that time. That was followed by the Fahy committee which looked defense enterprise wide. And then Chamber of board and so forth and so on. But the the combat failure is really what drove the train for for getting the military to understand that. And I guess we need to do this the belief on the on the part of the military was that large black units were failing and therefore we needed to, to remove the large black units, not the soldiers themselves, put them out in other units and and and allow the other units, the other units to succeed. And part of the, part of the problem that the, the, the army at least ran into was the quota was at, at 10% of the force. As we're scrambling to send soldiers to Korea and other places that percentage actually went up as you saw on one of my slides, it actually went up because more black soldiers were getting there than than white soldiers initially. I might add that there were also political considerations that when National Guard units out of California were activated for for duty in Korea. General Ridgeway integrated them and that that that they're concerned that was going to cause some problems back in the States. But they waited until they got to Korea to integrate them for that reason but that that was certainly part of the part of the calculus. I'm not sure that there was a widespread human cry in the white civilian community to to desegregate. There certainly was in some parts of the white community and some part and of course the black community, but still the tone. And in Britain mentioned it. The world was governed by Plessy v Ferguson. And it's, it's what everybody lived with for most of their adult lives. And so until Brown v Board of Education, there's no, there's no overarching push to to fully desegregate. By that time, the army pretty much desegregated anyway for other reasons. Brita, how about with the women. I'm sorry, can you. Sure. So, where was, where was the bulk of the pressure coming from you, you mentioned, you know, the need for the troops strength issue the need for manpower. But what was the role of public opinion, changing attitudes political pressure, etc. They needed them. They were sending men to war. And, and just as you know free man to fight, you know had been kind of the rallying cry for so many years I mean you know go back to World War one. And so, they needed to find a group of people to, you know, to perform these essential jobs. So there was certainly the military was pressuring them was, was putting a lot of pressure, you know, the problem was, I think the military they were hesitant to bring on women, except put them into, you know, quote, women's work and administrative jobs and things like that and jobs that women could do better. Unlike in World War two where so many jobs were had been opened up. Just because they were, you know, non traditional jobs and mechanics and aircraft mechanics truck mechanics things like that. And, you know, but by time period that women were expected to be in the home they were expected to raise families. And the services also said if you were not, you know they kept changing their policies, you could be pregnant you could you could have a family. And you know you could you could be married, and you can be in service no you can't you can't be married and be in the service so there's this this constant push and pull and it's you know it's based on need of the mission and they saw they needed them but they weren't quite sure how to deal with them and and put them in the places that they needed them and how to keep them. The job but while there was the integration act opened a lot of doors for them. They were still that were a lot shut. And they couldn't. You know, they were having a hard time opening them. And I can give you an example using one of your examples of how my mother in enlisted in the army in 19 January 1951 as a truck driver. And she wanted to drive trucks. And I guess in training she actually did drive trucks we've got a picture of her driving a truck. And under unit, women drove staff cars. Yeah, we'll stop they don't have trucks men drop trucks, women have staff car. Yeah. Yeah. They do work that they that women are more suited to doing whatever the services felt that that was. So question for Brita from the audience. And this is really a question about the numbers. How many women served in Korea during the war. And do you know what percentage that was a total us strength. You know, there were probably about 500 and 600 nurses army nurses I think the numbers are really small like I said they only had three wax. There were no Navy women, there were no non medical Air Force women it was it was nurses you had, but you had the civilian women coming in and out and all that so I don't. Specifically, but it was only about 500 and 600 nurses. All right. Just out of curiosity for the women serving there. Was it a volunteer or did they just get their orders and go. They got their orders. Okay, but it was. But they've all I mean, well, it's kind of hard to talk about women in the military and volunteer, because women were always volunteer always. They talked about drafting them because they were so essential but it never, you know, there, there never was a draft. So it's. So yes, they, they volunteered to go over there. That's still undetermined today. Yes. Question for Dr Lynch. In the failures of the black units. What was the role of leadership in that failure, presumably at certainly at certain times assignment to an all black unit was certainly not considered a prestigious career move for many. And so how often were the white officers blame for the failure did they get lower quality officers, or what was what was the thinking on that. That much research and 24th entry, specifically in Korea, although those, those statements are, are, are generally sound with the exception that in the World War two experience. The white leadership of the army wanted to send the best leaders to, to, to black units. And I know that in the 90 second if your vision, I think at least two and possibly three of the regimental commanders were relieved. They were deployed because they were, they were not, not good, not good trainers, not good leaders. In Korea, one of the problems that they the entire army had. What was the leadership problem because First of all, they're, you know, it's coming to our war. And second, not everybody was there hadn't been a lot of training in the, in the interwar years so there were a lot of basic things that that a lot of leaders were deficient in. And as we saw, you know, we had division commanders relieved during the war, because of the incompetence. And many of them were, you know, there were some, there were some crusty old regimental commanders who commanded regiments in World War two but a lot of them had never commanded at that level before. So, and if you then, then if you put the challenges of leading a unit that that needs to be led in a different way than other units, there, there could be problems. In the 65th Infantry Regiment, you saw a little bit of that. There are some. There's also some swashbuckling tendencies to which is kind of prominent among not all units but in warfare. Okay. Afterwards, did women get access to the GI bill benefits when they returned from Korea it's another question from the audience if not then when. They got them this after World War two so yes they were they had, I'm not extremely versed on those benefits but yeah I mean they did after World War two and a lot of them that's how a lot of women ended up going into school going higher jobs and higher pain and into the workforce and jobs and not wanting to give these jobs up once they, you know what Korea came about. Let's talk a little bit about the rate of progress for women and black service members in the military compared to the rate of progress in the civilian world. The Army often gets a reputation the military gets a reputation of being it's rather conservative organization but in a lot of ways it seems they were leading the charge would you do care to comment on that. Well for women it's always been equal pay for equal work. You know it didn't matter what didn't matter what she was doing in the military she was getting paid the same as men. So, but in terms of what positions were available is quite different and and that you know what was open to women, you know that certainly took a very long time to and the numbers of women to. That and now I mean, you know and until you know 1970 it wasn't that was when we had our first female general officers with anime haze and Elizabeth Washington. So, each generation is building upon the other, but sometimes it kind comes pretty fast other times it's you know it takes decades, you know with with women in combat it took. The Interface Integration Act in 1948 was saying that women cannot be engaged in aircraft, and you know it wasn't until 1992. You know they were on ships, you know, and 94 and then women in combat. You know where there was no law that said women can't be in combat. You know it was decades after the 1948 act. It's been, it's been slow. It moved but it's been in a lot of cases it's been very slow. I do think it's worth mentioning that General haze was a Korean war veteran came ashore during the invasion of Incheon and when I met with her she told me that she was working in an operating room and could hear could hear the gunfire and the distance so it's interesting that you mentioned here. Oh, I absolutely agree and you know that the big complaint that I mentioned earlier about the army being used as a as a social laboratory. You hear that echoed even today about about certain things. And I think the reason that the army and I say army and military in general is is cannon should be used that way is because at some point. The, the military just says, Okay, we're done fighting against this. This is the mission we're going to execute the mission. And, and that's it we don't have to like it we just have to do it. And so, and also one of the things that does get lost is even during World War two, almost all leaders acknowledged all white leaders acknowledged that there were several examples of excellent black soldiers and black officers and even black smaller units. It's just that the larger units and particularly infantry had had the biggest problems. As a matter of fact when the 22nd Division was reorganized after it failed in Italy. It was only the infantry that was reorganized. As I said all the technical units, the people who probably had higher scores on their AGCTs. They were kept in place because they they performed very well and education seemed to be a, you know, a part of that so I think the the just like for the women the opportunities for for African Americans and and all other minorities are much greater and much earlier in the military than is then then has been generally in surveillance society. And just to clarify as I understand your reference to the, to the testing. The chart showed that the large African American units had a higher percentage of troops that scored poorly, and that that appears to be because that demographic had a higher percentage of individuals with poor educational backgrounds. That is correct and and it also goes to to when and how they were raised. The 93rd Division had began with one regiment that was a regular Army regiment, one that was National Guard and one was drafted. The 92nd Division was all drafted, primarily out of the south. Now we're education up educational opportunities were even worse. And so that the expected the 92nd Division bell curve actually fell below the rest of other black soldiers because they had a very few and in in cat one which are the ones who went to to OCS typically cat to became NCOs. Cat three is where we'd expect most soldiers to be under the bell curve, they had a few there. Most of theirs were in cats four and five and then there were 13% of the division who were illiterate and couldn't be tested. So that's a that's a pretty big, pretty big chunk I don't want to be caught doing math in public but we're talking about 20,000 soldiers 13% of that it's a lot of people so right. We have one more question from the audience and I think this is mostly going to be for Dr Lynch but bridge if you have something to share. What was the, what was general would richways impact on desegregation in Korea we talked about general richway a lot in the first session so Richway. He had already decided to to desegregate the eighth Army. And when he was commander of the eighth Army and that that only paused slightly because then done MacArthur was relieved and he was moved to command, you know to take our take MacArthur's places as the scalp but he had intended to to to desegregate the the eighth Army anyway, and then he pushed it on through as the, as the scalp, but in a lot of ways, it was there. There's no efficiency to a segregated unit because everything you have to have two of everything. So that eliminating segregated eliminating segregation helped in a lot of ways that people don't just think about you think about opportunities for soldiers and things like that but there are a lot of things that make make armies move and make it harder to do if you have if you have to do do everything twice. Well, the units that the unit that the, the 24th entry into infantry regiment was eliminated essentially, or completely was reflagged as something else, and the unit the soldiers were salted out in the other. In the other units and they were able to the units performed well after after they were segregated after they were desegregated so. Britta any last words. I just want to say thank you and it's. We do have one last question would would feed into that so I suggest on how to better educate folks about the Korean War, and what final lessons should be taken from that history so whoever wants to go first. You know, just that, you know, there are places out there such as a heck and, you know, certainly the military women's memorial and other other places that are, you know, they're doing great work on on on the military and women in the military and other groups, and just in general and and, you know, to go to seek them out and to find those little places. And last time and to find the stories about the individual and and to ask people and to ask people what they're what they're, you know, find out those those people who have served and find out their stories, and you know, and you just get a. I couldn't have said, go find those people, your, your, your grandfather, you haven't asked about that about a service yet. We used to call the Korean War the forgotten war because of the name of a book now unfortunately that's become a trademark. And we always think of it as the forgotten war but in fact it's not really forgotten. We talk about it all the time and the, especially now that the veterans of those career passing on and everything. And from the for the military. There's probably no better example to study than the Korean War because we went from absolute peacetime to absolute war overnight. And, and we had nothing to plan, no way to plan it. And so we ought to take a lot of lessons from that. All right, well I want to thank you both for coming and sharing your time and your knowledge and your expertise and I, I do want to encourage the audience at home if you're near Arlington go visit the military women's memorial and if you're near Carlisle, Pennsylvania come visit us at the US Army Heritage and Education Center, learn more about our nation's history the Korean War and all wars and the men and women who have served our country so well. So, thank you all for joining us. Thank you, Dr. Lynch. Thank you, Britta, and everybody have a great day. Thank you.