by Dan Goldberg
Refusing a direct order is a far more serious breach of protocol than having cigarettes in a jumper pocket. The fact that Martin, black, had refused a white chief petty officer’s order in front of a line of black enlistees made the situation potentially explosive.
Martin was put on report and sent to Richmond, the regimental commander, who asked why Martin would disobey a direct order.
Martin explained the situation: Cigarettes were meant to be smoked, not eaten.
Richmond grinned. “I don’t blame you,” he said. “I wouldn’t have made the man eat [it] either. I think it’s ridiculous. Let’s forget the whole thing.”
Richmond also refused to discipline the white petty officer. It wasn’t worth it, he thought.
“It was a ridiculous disciplinary tactic that he apparently thought might impress somebody,” Richmond later recalled. “I don’t know how.”
But the white chief petty officer wouldn’t let it go. He relayed the story over and over. The white side of the camp was now complaining that black men didn’t have to obey orders.
Commander Armstrong was called to answer for the lack of discipline in his camp. Needing to quell the unrest, Armstrong ordered Richmond to write an essay on what he had learned at the Naval Academy about following orders. Richmond turned in a paper on Admiral Horatio Nelson, the British naval hero who disobeyed an order to withdraw that had been communicated by signal flags. Nelson destroyed many enemy ships and later said he hadn’t seen the signal flags because he put the telescope to his blind eye, giving rise to a popular phrase, “to turn a blind eye,” that seemed particularly relevant to the Martin incident.89
Richmond walked away from the episode terribly impressed with Martin, telling anyone who would listen that the young sailor from Indiana “was a better man than I.”
His white peers couldn’t believe their ears and asked if he could possibly mean what he was saying.
“My God, the record looks that way,” Richmond responded. “He’s done a hell of a lot more than I have.”90
CHAPTER 8
“YOU ARE NOW MEN OF HAMPTON.”
John Reagan was a member of the first class to arrive at Hampton Institute, a segregated Class A naval training school (the next class after basic training), where black men would spend sixteen weeks training for the below-deck ratings such as machinist’s mates, electrician’s mates, metalsmiths, carpenter’s mates, cooks, and bakers.
He was one of 128 newly graduated boots to make the two-day trip from Great Lakes, stopping first at Chicago before heading southeast to Richmond, and then south to Hampton.
The men exited their Pullman cars at 5 a.m. Saturday September 19, 1942, and marched in formation through the darkened streets of Hampton to the gates of the school that Samuel Chapman Armstrong founded seventy-five years before to educate newly freed slaves.
Lieutenant Commander Edwin Hall Downes, the man in charge of their training, stood just inside the entrance watching the perfect procession. A reporter who was there to chronicle this historic first remarked, “They’re a fine-looking body of men.”
A smile spread across Downes’s clean-cut face.
“You bet your sweet life they are,” he said.
The men marched to James Hall, the college dorm, recently leased and renovated by the Navy, which would serve as their new home. Then came sick call, muster, and, finally, breakfast at Virginia-Cleveland Hall, which served as the mess.
College boys from Hampton Institute eagerly greeted the new arrivals and showed the Navy men around their campus. Far more exciting was when the co-eds arrived to extend the tour.
That afternoon, the men filed into Ogden Hall, where Downes made his first formal remarks.
“You are now men of Hampton,” he said. “We want this training program to be so good and so successful that all ship’s captains will, in a few months, be asking for ‘men of Hampton.’“1
On Sunday, the men of Hampton attended services at Memorial Church, the college chapel. Physical training began Monday morning with reveille at 5:30 a.m., followed by calisthenics, room inspections, drills, and commando practice. Roscoe Howard Bigby, a twenty-four-year-old cement finisher from Cleveland, worried that the obstacles on the commando course at Hampton didn’t seem that tough, certainly not when compared to those at Camp Robert Smalls.
That would “be taken care of,” Downes assured him.2
Hampton’s campus, like Great Lakes, had been expanded to meet wartime demands. The Navy had built a new field house, which held executive offices, a gym, an indoor drill hall, and a swimming pool. There was also a one-story diesel engine and machine shop where men learned welding, electrical science, and motors.3 A boathouse was built after a coxswain course was added to the curriculum.
Hampton Institute had been chosen to host the Navy’s segregated training school the previous June. The announcement, coming just days after the first black boots arrived at Great Lakes, had been made by Dr. Malcolm Shaw MacLean, Hampton’s sixth president.
MacLean was a white man, which was not strange for someone running a black college. He was also a firebrand, which was very strange. His appointment to lead Hampton had come just a few days after Frank Knox’s Senate confirmation in July 1940 as secretary of the Navy, but whereas Knox deemed it unwise to challenge his admirals’ views on segregation, MacLean immediately “locked horns with the . . . status quo who hate his method, fear his pace, and tremble at the boldness of his vision.”4
Hampton is about seventy-five miles southeast of Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, and MacLean’s striking pronouncements on racial equality stood in stark contrast to the views of his five predecessors, who supported training and educating black men but dared not challenge Southern norms.
That bred resentment from some members of the board of trustees, “who wanted the old pattern of kindly but paternalistic treatment of the Negro continued,” and they complained that MacLean had “not conformed with the Virginia pattern of race relations.”
MacLean made it plain that his administration would not be content with baby steps toward racial equality or symbolic shows of good faith. For decades, Hampton had run an all-white school for the children of faculty. MacLean abolished it. “Every form of racial distinction on the campus, which had been created in deference to the opinions and prejudices of white Virginia, which contributed little or nothing to the support of Hampton, was thrown into discard,” Walter White, executive secretary of the NAACP, later said.5
The white ruling class of southern Virginia considered MacLean far too progressive, even dangerous. His calls to increase African American participation in the war effort and for white colleges to employ black professors were bad enough, but it was his habit of inviting both white and black guests to his home and dancing with a Hampton coed that really challenged Southern traditions.6
MacLean did not care. He was not of the South. He was born in Denver and went to school in Michigan, Chicago, and Minnesota. He had no patience for the racist preachers he encountered in Virginia, referring to them “bible-pounding bastards.”7
Only five months into his tenure, MacLean hosted Robert Lee Vann’s Committee on Participation of Negroes in the National Defense, which presciently warned that “sound morale among Negroes” could not be maintained if the forces of racism and exclusion continued to dominate the discourse.
When war did come, MacLean was determined that Hampton’s hosting the naval training school for black men and its participation in the national defense would be his legacy.
An ardent supporter of the Double V campaign, MacLean was certain that this war would be “the greatest break in history for minority groups,” and his school, built on the site of a former plantation in the heart of the Confederacy, would train black naval servicemen in all manner of technical skills and become the launching pad for a generation.
It didn’t take long for the first class to see that Hampton was nothing like Camp Robert Smalls. There was no dust, no mud, no lack of
clothing. Hampton’s grounds were picturesque, especially when the weather was warm and the sun was high in a blue sky, casting shadows along ivy-covered walls, while pretty college girls sought refuge from the heat under the cool shade of the leafy trees that dotted the seventy-acre campus.8
The morale and caliber of the men at Hampton were also different from those of the men in boot camp at Great Lakes. Like wheat separated from chaff, the men coming to Hampton had shown an aptitude for these assignments and demonstrated a demeanor necessary for study. A high percentage of these men already had professional degrees. Many were teachers, newspaper reporters and publishers, and doctors and medical school students.9
Every day—from 5:30 a.m., when they woke, until 10 p.m., when they got back in bed—was rigidly scheduled.
Reagan and his classmates spent the morning learning math and engineering. They studied Newtonian physics and then put theory to use in the shop, working on diesel engines in the afternoon. They mastered electrical equipment, machinery, ship fitting, and metalsmithing and practiced on sixty-one landing barges and seven motorboats.10 At night there was study hall, which nearly all took seriously, as it provided the foundation for the material that would be covered the next day.
Outside the classrooms, the men learned boat handling, taught by a chief boatswain’s mate who had a penchant for spitting tobacco without regard for where the wind might blow it and gave honor to the expression “cursed like a sailor.”11 There was plenty of recreational activity, including boxing, wrestling, basketball, and swimming, as well as a rifle team. Every Wednesday evening, there was a happy hour featuring guest lecturers and performances by the renowned Hampton glee club, directed by Charles H. Flax, a nationally known baritone.12
And though this was no longer boot camp, there was still quite a bit of military drill and focus on discipline.13 The men were expected to keep their person and their quarters spotless.
The highlight of these inspections came the morning Brigadier General Benjamin O. Davis arrived at Hampton. Seeing Davis, the first black general in the Army’s history, was like seeing Joe Louis or Marian Anderson, an African American whom no one could deem inferior.
The men of Hampton stayed up until 1 a.m. the night before, determined that no space in the whole United States would be cleaner. Windows were washed; lightbulbs were unscrewed and wiped. The floors were steel-wooled, waxed, and polished. Beds were taken apart so that each bedspring could be cleaned.
When Davis finally arrived, the men lined up in formation, chests extra puffed for the special occasion. Davis inspected the crew, put on white gloves, and went inside the dorm with Downes.
They emerged one hour later. There was dust inside the fuse box, Downes said. The men of Hampton must do better next time.14
Frank Sublett arrived from Great Lakes in that very first class with Reagan in September 1942. He was, in so many ways, Reagan’s twin, and the two men, both born March 5, 1920, began a friendship at Hampton that would last the rest of their lives.
Frank Ellis Sublett Jr. was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a small town about thirty-five miles southeast of Nashville, and was reared in Highland Park and Glencoe, Illinois, the latter a mostly white Chicago suburb on the shore of Lake Michigan. Oftentimes, Sublett was the only black boy in his class, but overt racism was not a part of his day-to-day life.
Like many young boys who grew up during the Great Depression, Sublett worked odd jobs to help the family make ends meet. He cut grass. He was a busboy and janitor in a tearoom where his uncle worked.
His parents, like Reagan’s, were divorced, and, like Reagan, Sublett had been a standout high school athlete, excelling in football and track, specializing in the discus throw and shot put. He attended the University of Wisconsin on a football scholarship, followed by a year at Northwestern and a year at George Williams College in Wisconsin. His transcripts show mostly Cs and Ds, and as with Reagan, the war had kept him from completing a diploma.15
Also like Reagan, Sublett had wanted to enlist in the Army Air Forces after the attack on Pearl Harbor, even dropping thirty pounds to meet the weight requirement. And like Reagan, he had been rejected.
He loved the water—swimming and fishing—so the Navy seemed a logical second choice, particularly because the general service was now open to black men. Had messman remained the only option, Sublett would have joined the Merchant Marines because he’d be damned before he’d be anyone’s servant or cook.
Sublett enlisted at the naval recruiting station in Chicago on July 7 and arrived at Great Lakes three days later, ready to be trained to save the world for democracy, while sitting, for the first time in his life, in a segregated setting.
Boot camp wasn’t too hard for Sublett and he received good enough marks to finish in the top third of his class. He was a shade over six feet tall, barrel-chested, and weighed nearly two hundred pounds—a heavy-set athlete who didn’t mind the drilling. As a teenager, he had spent two weeks in the Citizens’ Military Training Camp at Fort Riley in Kansas. The Subletts didn’t have the money to send Frank to a lakeside summer camp in Wisconsin or Minnesota where his friends spent summers, but Fort Riley offered a free program to anyone who passed a physical and mental health test.
At Fort Riley, he learned how to handle a .30–30 Springfield rifle, and at home he used a .22 rifle to hunt rabbits, ducks, and pheasants. So he came to the Navy already versed in drills, marksmanship, and military discipline. That served him well, and he was appointed apprentice chief petty officer, a leader of the company who helped other recruits learn cadence and discipline.
His aptitude test showed that he had a talent for machinery, which wasn’t too surprising. He had spent summers working at a Buick dealership installing radios and heaters and making other repairs. He was sent to Hampton, where he would learn to be a machinist’s mate.16
He adapted rather easily at Hampton too. Some of the other men, most of whom were from the South, teased him over his Midwestern accent, but it was all in good fun.
As soon as there were enough men at Hampton to form a battalion, Sublett and Reagan were assigned leadership roles.
Sublett was named battalion commander. He had a booming voice and would bark out orders. Reagan, his adjutant, would about-face and give the orders to the battalion. The pair kept the barracks in shape, marched the men to chow, and led the exercises and drills. And they were there to greet the second contingent of apprentice seamen when they arrived at Hampton from Camp Robert Smalls.17
Leadership had its perks. When Marian Anderson performed at Hampton Institute’s Ogden Hall in October, Reagan was tasked with bringing the world-famous contralto a bouquet. Star-struck and entranced by her flowing silver gown and ruby red shoes, Reagan knocked over the vase. Luckily, the shoes were spared being soaked.18
Anderson’s concert was one of the many efforts Downes made to boost morale, which he defined as “that something that makes people eager to do and to do well those things required of them.”19 Morale was particularly important in 1942, when the war in the Pacific was not going as well as many in the Navy had hoped. It was concerts and comedy shows, movies and jazz that gave men respite from the unending monotony of training and the unrelenting fear of battle and death.
And one particular October concert would long be remembered: Anderson had been scheduled to perform on a Saturday evening, but a terrible storm caused the Rappahannock to flood, stalling her train. She arrived at Hampton after 1 a.m., exhausted from her frustrating journey, but she insisted the show must go on and rescheduled her concert for that same afternoon.
On very little rest, Anderson “held her audience spellbound through her last two spirituals” after singing songs by Purcell, Haydn, and Schubert. Even when a fire broke out on the top floor of Cleveland Hall, the building next door, filling Ogden Hall’s auditorium with gongs and sirens, no one stirred, save for the men appointed to the fire service. Though Anderson was so exhausted that her voice gave out during the concert, she performed mul
tiple encores.20
Sublett’s and Reagan’s positions placed them in regular contact with Lieutenant Commander Downes, a Naval Academy graduate who had resigned his commission after serving in World War I and had gone on to earn a master’s degree in education from Columbia University. Back in the Navy after being recalled to active duty, Downes set a high bar. He showed up to work an hour early and stayed an hour late. And he had a fantastic memory, which endeared him to subordinates. He asked each man who came to Hampton where he was from and what schools he had attended, and he seemed to remember it all. He could walk the halls and ask Joe how his mother was feeling or Tom if he had beaten back that pesky flu.
Downes called Sublett’s mother to personally inform her of her son’s progress. It was a call he made for the men he held in high regard, one to make nervous parents proud and bestow upon them some of the glory deriving from the importance of the mission. And Downes held few men in as high regard as he did Sublett.
“If I have one wish in this life,” he once told the young sailor, “it is that my own son grows up to be as fine a gentleman as you,” which is just about the highest praise Sublett could imagine, a grace he would cherish until the day he died.21
With his balding head, Downes looked a bit like the Hollywood actor Pat O’Brien. He didn’t bark and rarely raised his voice. He was straight with his men, and they respected him for his candor. He was friendly but firm, never forgetting a courtesy but also never letting anyone forget that they were in the presence of a commanding officer.
Like Armstrong, Downes had the air of a great white father, but he was softer than Armstrong, more human.22 Much of the Navy considered disrating—demoting—a particularly effective punishment for black men, but Downes thought that too drastic for all but the most extreme disciplinary cases. Disrating, he worried, could be seen as discriminatory and could damage the whole team’s morale. Instead, Downes punished badly behaved men by limiting them to bread and water, which the Navy deemed a suitable punishment for black men because of “their heavy eating habits.”23
