On April 5, 1945, more than sixty black officers of the U.S. Army Air Forces were arrested for entering a whites-only club at Freeman Field, Indiana, to protest the rigid segregation and unequal policies under which they and all African American airmen were forced to serve. Termed a mutiny by the white commanders at the base, the incident was one of several racial conflicts during the next four years that helped convince senior officers in the newly independent Air Force that segregation was an inefficient personnel policy. Documenting the racial integration of the Air Force from the end of World War II to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Alan L. Gropman contends that the service desegregated itself not for moral or political reasons but to improve military effectiveness. He draws on a range of unpublished records to show that, while proceeding smoothly, Air Force integration initially did little to ensure fair promotion practices or to protect African Americans from off-post discrimination, especially in housing, entertainment, and education. Gropman also outlines the political motivations of President Truman's 1948 Executive Order 9981 for equal opportunity in the military and reviews controversial Kennedy administration initiatives that attempted to place the military at the forefront of civil rights reform. First published in 1977, the book now includes a new preface charting the policy changes that have dramatically increased the numbers of black officers and senior supervisors in the Air Force during the past two decades. Detailing the uneven progress of a major shift in military policy, The Air Force Integrates also illuminates the often pragmatic motivations of those who bring about fundamental social change.

Originally published in 1976. This narrative describes the evacuation of more than 1,400 American soldiers, Marines, and airmen, and Vietnamese men, women, and children from the Kham Duc Special Forces camp in southern I Corps on 12 May 1968. It treats the geographical and topographical setting, the threat to the camp posed by two regiments of the North Vietnamese Army, and the danger to the camp and its inhabitants from the communist seizure of all the high ground around the camp. The monograph devotes individual chapters to the US Army and Marine helicopter rescue efforts, tactical air support, and tactical airlift. The final chapter deals with the attempts to rescue the last three men at Kham Duc. American aircraft losses were severe during the evacuation, and the successful outcome of the mass rescue depended upon the skill and courage of American aircrews. Had command and control been better, losses probably would have been less severe.

This volume has value for both the general reader and the aviation specialist. For the latter there are lessons regarding command and control and combined-unit operations that need to be learned to achieve battlefield success. For the former there is a straightforward narrative about American aviators of all four services struggling in the most difficult of conditions to try to rescue more than 1,500 American and Vietnamese military and civilians. Not all Americans moving through the events recounted in this monograph acted heroically, but most did, and it was that heroism that gave the evacuation the success it had. This volume is fully documents so that the reader wishing to look deeper into this incident may do so. Those who study the battle will see that it was something of a microcosm of the entire Vietnam War in the relationship of airpower to tactical ground efforts. Kham Duc sat at the bottom of a small green mountain bowl, and during most of 12 May 1968 the sky was full of helicopters, forward air controller aircraft, transports, and fighters, all striving to succeed and to avoid running into each other in what were most trying circumstances. In the end they carried the day, though by the narrowest of margins and heavy losses. Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force.

This book analyzes the United States industry in World War II. It talks about how the industry was mobilized in time of war and to what extent is the history myth or reality. It shows how the industry was transformed into something that couple produce weapons and supplies for war rapidly.

CONTENTS: Acknowledgments Introduction Mobilization Activities Before Pearl Harbor Day Education for Mobilization Interwar Planning for Industrial Mobilization Mobilizing for War: 1939 to 1941 The War Production Board The Controlled Materials Plan The Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion U.S. Production in World War II Balancing Military and Civilian Needs Overcoming Raw Material Scarcities Maritime Construction People Mobilization: "Rosie the Riveter" Conclusions Appendix A: Production of Selected Munitions Items Appendix B: The War Agencies of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government About the Author

FROM THE FORWARD: This book describes the struggle to desegregate the post-World War II U.S. Army Air Forces and its successor, the U.S. Air Force, and the remarkable advances made during the next two decades to end racial segregation and move towards equality of treatment of Negro airmen. The author, Lt. Col. Alan L. Gropman, a former Instructor of History at the U.S. Air Force Academy, received his doctorate degree from Tufts University. His dissertation served as the basis for this volume. In it, the author describes the fight to end segregation with the Air Force following President Harry S. Truman's issuance of an executive order directing the integration of the armed forces. Despite resistance to the order, fueled by heated segregationist opposition, integration moved ahead somewhat slowly under the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Progress increased during the administration of President John F. Kennedy, which saw major advances toward achieving equality for Negro servicemen. Colonel Gropman's study is a detailed, comprehensive, and in many respects, a documentary account. The crucial events it describes more than justify the unusually extended treatment they receive. The volume thus provides a permanent record of this turbulent period in race relations and constitutes a significant contribution to the history of the Air Force. This book is a digital reproduction of a previously out-of-print book originally published by the U.S. Air Force.