Breaking the Color Barrier: The U.S. Naval Academy's First Black Midshipmen and the Struggle for Racial Equality
Robert J. Schneller Jr. New York and London: New York University Press, 2005. 331 pp. Photos. Notes. Bib. Index. $34.00.
Reviewed by Paul Stillwell
Changing the culture of an institution can be slow, difficult, and painful—particularly when that culture is as deeply entrenched as the racism that scarred the U.S. Navy during the period from the end of the Civil War to the late 1940s, when President Truman officially ordered desegregation of the armed forces. It was a culture built on the dogma—sincerely believed by many—that permitting black officers to command white subordinates would produce catastrophic results. The evidence of the past half-century has demonstrated the folly of that long-held belief.
Sixty years ago this summer, as World War II was nearing its end, Wesley Brown of Washington, D.C., became a midshipman. Four years later he became the first black graduate of the Naval Academy. As historian Robert Schneller demonstrates so capably in this volume, Brown's success resulted from a confluence of circumstances, but it also came after many frustrated attempts over a span of decades.
The author details the unpleasantness that confronted Brown's unsuccessful predecessors, going back to 1872, during the post-Civil War Reconstruction. One by one, they were driven out by hostile midshipmen and academy officials who were determined that they not succeed. The names of those unsuccessful midshipmen had been buried until resurrected in this scholarly study: James Henry Conyers entered in 1872; Alonzo Clifton McClennan in 1873; Henry Edwin Baker in 1874; James Lee Johnson Jr., in 1936; and George Joseph Trivers in 1937.
One of the things that worked in Brown's favor was timing. The war itself had opened doors of opportunity for minorities. A year earlier, the Navy had finally commissioned its first black officers, the "Golden Thirteen." And shortly after that happened, secretary of the Navy Frank Knox had died. Knox was hesitant at best about creating greater opportunities for black personnel. His successor, James Forrestal, actively sought to increase opportunities for African-Americans, both as a matter of social justice and as the best way to use manpower effectively.
The Naval Academy administration of the mid-1940s was one that was willing to give a black midshipman a fair chance, rather than going out of its way to remove those who had overcome the significant hurdles involved in getting an appointment and passing the entrance examinations. Finally, the biggest factor was Wesley Brown himself. He brought to Annapolis a combination of intelligence, superior high school education, a sunny disposition, personal courage, and an attitude that he would adapt to the requirements of the institution in order to graduate. His path, as Schneller demonstrates with case after case of the challenges thrown at Brown, was a difficult one-made more so by fellow midshipmen who seemed to take it as a mission to drive him out of the school by putting him on report for all manner of infractions, which in many cases were spurious. Fortunately, Brown had the support of a number of white midshipmen, including future President Jimmy Carter, who encouraged him to push on. In a number of cases, these individuals overcame their own learned prejudices because they witnessed the unfairness of Brown's situation.
When he did earn his ensign's shoulder boards in 1949, Brown's success was trumpeted in the African-American media, and his own account appeared in a mainstream publication, The Saturday Evening POST. He was overwhelmed with congratulations and received a good many marriage offers from young women whom he had never met. Through it all, he kept a level head and went on to serve quietly as an officer in the Civil Engineer Corps. Some had accused him of being a pawn of the NAACP or other political interests. Wesley Brown demonstrated that his real objective was to succeed for himself. That his success opened the door for many others has been the beneficial result in later years.
The author is an accomplished historian with the Naval Historical Center. The depth of his research is striking. He has combed archives to find a great many records going back to the 19th century and has combined those with interviews with Brown and inputs from many other former midshipmen. The result is a demonstration of the utter backwardness of the naval service in embracing what we have now come to call diversity. The Military Academy at West Point first graduated an African-American, Henry O. Flipper, in 1877. That it took the Naval Academy 72 more years to graduate Brown is dramatic testimony to the effectiveness of those who discouraged or actively opposed the efforts of black midshipmen. This detailed story is one that has been long overdue in being told. Dr. Schneller has told it exceedingly well.
Paul Stillwell, formerly the director of the Naval Institute's history division, is the editor of The Golden Thirteen: Recollections of the First Black Naval Officers.
That Anvil of Our Souls: A Novel of the Monitor and the Merrimack
David C. Poyer. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. 448 pp. $25.00.
Reviewed by Dr. Robert M. Browning, Jr.
David Foyer's third volume of the "Civil War at Sea" begins where his second novel, A Country of Our Own finished. Once again, the author entertains us with characters such as Calpurnius Hanks, Theodorus Hubbard, and Lomax Mintor. The narrative uses as a backdrop the conversion of the steam frigate Merrimack into the powerful ironclad Virginia and the parallel building of the USS Monitor. Rushed to completion, the Monitor, the Union Navy's most famous Civil War ship, hurriedly left New York to meet the Virginia in battle. Most of the story revolves around the two ships and the men involved with them. The narrative reaches its climax during the battle between the two in Hampton Roads, Virginia, in March 1862 as the Monitor attempts to protect the remaining Union fleet.
Poyer, the author of twenty-six books, is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and served both on active duty and in the Naval Reserve. He resumes his wartime tale set amidst the strife of the Civil War with the characters that he introduced and developed in his two earlier volumes. Mintor, the firebrand Southerner, serves on the Virginia and uncovers a spy working on the ship. His nemesis from the second volume, Ker Claiborne, returns as a prisoner of war; captured on board the fictional CSS Maryland. Claiborne, a prominent character early in the book, is imprisoned and does not return to the story until the end. His wife bears the threat of her husband's execution in prison, and then the death of her infant daughter while under the added burden of Union occupation. Hanks, the African-American gunner, serves as one of the major characters and has his own failings and triumphs. We see much of Dr. Alphaeus Steele, captured on the CSS Maryland. After his release from prison, he serves on the Virginia.
Most historical fiction writers weave their narratives around a central character. Poyer, who is writing this series in the style of Patrick O'Brien, tells his story through the eyes of about a half dozen major characters who interact with historic figures. The narrative passes from the Monitor to the Virgina and between Boston, Richmond, and Washington. The novel's numerous characters, combined with the constant change of scenery, can make it a challenge to keep pace with the story. Foyer's readers will either appreciate or find tiresome the use of detailed technical terms and descriptions. His portrayal of the state of combat medicine of the day is extremely well done.
Disappointing to this reviewer is the fact that the author's narrative style does not allow the full development of any one person. There is no villain or hero, nor is there a person for whom Poyer's readers develop a keen interest. Some of his characters who played major roles in his earlier books make only cameo appearances in this one.
As a historian, I must mention my vexation with the use of Merrimack in the title. The United States steam frigate Merrimack ceased to exist after the Confederates converted her to an ironclad and commissioned her the CSS Virginia.
Despite the reservations presented above, Poyer has provided a fine historical novel accurately recreating the battle scenes, displaying the complex emotions of the war, and infusing this into the interaction between the characters on a personal level. Readers will find the settings and the people realistic, entertaining and very human. They will enjoy That Anvil of Our Souls.
Dr. Browning is Historian of the U.S. Coast Guard and author of Success is All That was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War and From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War.
Conduct Under Fire
John A. Glusman. New York: Viking, 2005. 608 pp. Illus. $29.95.
Reviewed by Paul Galanti
Conduct Under Fire is a son's moving tribute to his father and three colleagues who shared an extraordinary experience after their capture during the fall of the Philippines in 1942. This is a riveting account of courage in captivity, sacrifice, and survival of four Navy doctors and their odyssey. It captures their lives over the subsequent three years with emotions and experiences that spanned the gamut from idyllic to the depths of misery.
Glusman honors his father, Murray, and the other Navy physicians—Fred Berley, George Ferguson, and John Bookman—and the inordinate price they paid in a finely crafted work. Few war stories are written about medical doctors and those that do tend to have shallow interest, but Conduct Under Fire is a page-turner.
The vicious, bloody battles to capture Bataan and Corregidor in the Philippines are notorious in any history of World War II. Battle survivors faced a rough life as prisoners of the Japanese who considered those who allowed themselves to be taken prisoner as the lowest form of life. They found themselves in the hands of an enemy that viewed surrender as a disgrace.
Glusman's father and comrades were captured on Corregidor in May 1942. Told dramatically—there's no other way to tell them—are the tales of the surrender of Bataan, the siege of Corregidor, "the Rock," and the daily struggles of the doctors. With minimal support or supplies they tended to thousands of the sick, wounded, and dying in some of the worst conditions of the entire war.
Desperate doctors and corpsmen battled the enemy as well as the disease and starvation prevalent from the time of their capture. To survive, the POWs became closer than family. They worked to exhaustion, nursing men broken from brutality, disease, and starvation. While many of the POWs succumbed, the numbers would have been exponentially higher had it not been for this medical "Fab Four" whose selfless dedication gave hope to the hopeless.
Moved from the Philippines to Japan under harrowing circumstances, their treatment and living conditions went downhill rapidly as America's war effort began to strangle to Japanese empire. The B-29s' fire-bombings and American submarines' depletion of the Japanese naval and trade fleets infuriated the Japanese who vented their wrath on their helpless charges.
Glusman paints a poignant picture in the aftermath of the Japanese surrender. On a train ride from the prison in Osaka to Tokyo to report to General Douglas MacArthur on their hellish experiences, the sight of the defeated Japanese mystically removed the doctors back to the Philippines. The General was visibly moved.
Based on extensive interviews with American, British, Australian, and Japanese veterans, as well as diaries, letters, and war crimes testimony, Glusman's work is a harrowing account of a brutal clash of cultures that reads like a novel. Conduct Under Fire is a story of bravery on the battlefield and ingenuity behind barbed wire, one that reveals the long shadow the war cast on the lives of those who fought it. I have not been moved by a non-fiction book since reading Flyboys and for the same reason.
Commander Galanti, a 1962 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, was a naval aviator who was shot down in North Vietnam in June 1966. He remained a POW for nearly seven years.