U.S. At War: Easy Way Out

The War Department, anxiously trying to hold down the lid on its simmering race problem, at least until the war is won, retreated last week from a stern stand in the case of four mutinous Negro WACs.

An Army court-martial had sentenced the four, who were stationed at Lovell General Hospital, Fort Devens, Mass., to a year at hard labor and dishonorable discharge (TIME, April 2). No one denied that the four had disobeyed an officer, or that the trial had been fair. But on the basis of their testimony that they and other Negro WACs at Lovell had been victims of racial discrimination, the Negro press, Negro and radical leaders started a furious protest, loudly demanded an investigation.

The troubled War Department hastily went into reverse. On a technicality—that Major General Sherman Miles of the First Service Command had not been legally authorized to convene the court—the War Department vacated the case, rescinded the sentence, sent the four WACs back to their posts.