The way Puerto Ricans view themselves can differ quite a bit from the way we are viewed by outsiders. This was surely a relevant topic during the base-building years of World War II, when the segregated armed forces of the United States increased its presence on the island. This column discusses some of the impact these institutions had on Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans during those years.
American troops started arriving in Puerto Rico soon after the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. On September 14, Brigadier General Daley announced that 1,700 troops from Texas, California, New Jersey, Iowa, Vermont, Delaware, and Virginia would report for duty in the Army’s new Puerto Rico Department. These troops served to reinforce the infantry garrison already stationed on the island.
After the transfer order was signed, Secretary Woodring made public the names of the army units assigned to Puerto Rico. These included field artillery, coastal defense, ordnance, signal, medical, and quartermaster units. In addition to the troops, a reinforced anti–aircraft gun battery from Fort Winfield Scott, California was shipped from San Francisco.
Once the Naval Base at Isla Grande was commissioned on May 1, 1940, the Navy was able to accommodate its contingent of sailors. The base, under the command of Captain V. C. Griffin, had a total capacity of 963 officers and 6,475 enlisted men. It was designed to service 48 seaplanes and 150 landplanes; though an additional 90 planes could be accommodated in an emergency.
Registration of Puerto Ricans for the draft began on November 20, 1940, five weeks later than in the United States. Selective Service was established under Lt. Col. Harry Besosa, and administered by 122 local boards. By 1941, 525,000 men, ages 18 to 64 were registered. An army reception and induction center was set up at Fort Buchanan, a basic training station at Camp O’Reilly, and an advanced training center at Camp Tortugero.
An “interesting feature in the program” was the assigning of inductees to racial categories. Puerto Ricans were separated into “white” and “black.” This distinction was indicated as a reference in all sorts of lists or reports kept by the Army. Furthermore, quotas were set up. The ratios used at the time were “about four whites to one black.” “Whites” were described as light–colored people of Latin origin, while “blacks” were said to be dark-skinned and of a different racial origin, such as Jamaicans or blacks.
According to Army records, by the end of 1941, “it had become apparent that Puerto Rican men inducted under U.S. standards were drastically inferior to continental troops. They were inferior physically, mentally, and in other ways.” In order to “weed out the most undesirable men,” the War Department authorized the Commanding General of the Puerto Rican Department to release from active service “those Puerto Rican men who were ineffective or inefficient.” Under this authority, by late 1943, about 3,250 Puerto Ricans had been released to the enlisted reserve. The language utilized in the Army reports racialized Puerto Ricans in such a way as to equate “darker” with “undesirable.”
Implicit assumptions about the supposedly inferior character of darker people, which made them supposedly unsuitable for combat in the armed forces, make it difficult to distinguish the lack of specific skills from just being of a darker complexion. The conflation of racial categories and skill categories hindered the process of sorting out the actual problems the army may have confronted based on low literacy and lack of knowledge of the English language, from racial classifications.
Throughout the war years, Gov. Rexford Tugwell continued to urge Besosa to accept more Puerto Ricans into the Army, as a significant number were being rejected. A study titled Preliminary Analysis of Puerto Rican Selective Service Rejections was commissioned after the war ended, and directed by Clarence Senior, the research director at the University of Puerto Rico, confirmed Gov. Tugwell’s concerns regarding the Army’s reluctance to accept Puerto Ricans.
According to Senior’s study, the general rejection rate for Puerto Rico was higher than for the U.S. The rejection rates in the U.S. for the period between November 1940 and September 1941 was 52.8 percent for whites and 59.4 percent for blacks. Between April 1942 and December 1943, the rejection rates for whites decreased to 42.4 percent while that of blacks increased to 60.7 percent.
From April 1944 to August 1946, a total of 163,141 Puerto Ricans were rejected by the Army; of these, 136,445 were classified as “white” and 24,696 as “colored.” Almost 50 percent were rejected due to “mental deficiency,” which according to Senior, could be caused by the fact that the testing was done in English.
Fortunately, the Puerto Rico Induction Program report provided some insight regarding these rates. According to this report, from 1941 to April 1945, 91 percent of Puerto Ricans that presented themselves to the Selective Service were rejected and 79.1 percent of those screened and tested were also rejected.
Clarence Senior documents that this rejection rate is much higher than U.S. mainland whites or blacks. According to Army records, from 1941 to 1945, 525,000 Puerto Ricans aged 18 to 64 presented themselves to the Selective Service. The Army screened or examined 224,559 of them, and ended up with 47,000 inductees. This number corresponded to an acceptance rate of 8.9 percent of all those that presented themselves to the Selective Service and 20.9 percent of all those screened and examined. It is interesting to note that due to the huge unemployment on the island, the Army labeled the induction program in Puerto Rico a “glorified Works Progress Administration” or a “WPA in uniform.”
The performance of these men and women who served in the U.S. Armed Forces was exemplary.