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In honor of Black History Month, these excerpts from the new Naval Institute Press book, Proudly We Served, testify to the conditions and attitudes faced by the 160 black crewmen who served in the destroyer escort Mason (DE-529) in World War II.
Benjamin Garrison (native of Columbia, South Carolina): The Mason was an experiment. They wanted to see
if we could take to the sea. They wanted to see if we were capable of becoming regular sailors and fitting in with the white guys. But they were going to keep us segregated and separated for as long as they possibly could because the Navy was the last stronghold. They did not want us there . . . and they didn’t know what to do with us. . . .
I really liked the insistence on professionalism, the constant training, always training, drilling, making sure that you did what you did and that you knew how to do it. In the Navy you depended upon each other so strongly. It’s teamwork. And that’s why I think we never had any problems, because we . . . were very proud of what we did.
Lorenzo DuFau (native of New York): When we went aboard ship, about 90% of the guys had been to service school. . . . Many of us were rated. The idea was that we would move up in ratings until we had relieved any of the white petty officers ahead of us. And by the end we had. We had quite a few chief petty officers . . . and two black officers.
Gordon “Skinny” Buchanan (native of New York): We had about 160 black sailors. We manned all of the positions, all of the ranks: radiomen, signalmen, quartermasters, sonarmen, motor machinists. Some people came on board as radio third class, but when they left they were chief petty officers—quite a few of them.
Merwin Peters (native of Cleveland): I volunteered for [the Mason] because I wanted to be a part of the seagoing Navy as opposed to being land based. I applied for a program for naval aviators. The two people who came out tops on the exam were to be selected to go to Pensacola,
Florida, and become naval aviators. Four of us took the exam—two black, two white. The two black fellows . . . came out on top on the exam. Then they changed the selection process. “We’re going to make our selections based on the length of time that you’ve been in the Navy.” These other two fellows had been in a couple of more months. So they were the ones who were selected for V-12 and went to Pensacola and became aviators, and ... I went on board the Mason.
This was a constant kind of thing you saw going on in the Navy. Anytime you achieved—or thought you had achieved—something, the rules would be changed, and that achievement would be thrown out.
James W. Graham (native of Lake City, South Carolina): I never forgot my experience on the Mason. I was part of the Navy, and I was very proud to be a sailor. Our destroyer escort kind of fell through the cracks and was never heard of after [decommissioning]. I just decided that I would devote the rest of my life to bringing the Mason to the forefront, so that everyone would know about our ship. Because it would be a crime for us to pass through history without our children or grandchildren ever knowing about our service.
Charles Divers (native of Maywood, Illinois): People should know what we did, what we were a success at. Even though they had programmed us to fail, we were very, very successful. Our success made progress possible in all branches of the armed forces. I feel proud that we were one of the teams in the forefront. We have to fight, fight, fight to bring that out. We guys are in our 70s now, and even our 80s. We’ve got to hurry up and get the story out!
Dr. Kelly is a veteran television writer and producer and author of a biography of movie director Martin Scorcese. This project is the product of her research for a documentary on Americans who served in Northern Ireland during World War II.
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Proceedings / February 1995