Black Sailor, White Navy Racial Unrest in the Fleet during the Vietnam War Era 

By John Darrell Sherwood ISBN 0814740367 360 pages, 14 illustrations $35.00

The choice of trying to a write a history of racial unrest in the US Navy is a good one. The United States of the 1960s, in fact most of the western world, was beset by racial tensions and the growing realization that was going on was not good. 

The title of the book somehow gives the impression that Vietnam had something to do with racial unrest in the military. These incidents would likely have happened in any event. The real tie in, that the author brings up numerous times, is the lowering of recruitment standards after President Nixon's abolition of the military draft. Subsequent to this event, both the US Navy and Air Force all had highly educated volunteers who enlisted to avoid ground combat in Vietnam by being drafted into the US Marine Corps or Army. After the abolition, a higher percentage of poorly educated blacks were recruited for what were mostly menial jobs.

Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Chief of Naval Operations from 1970-74, was instrumental in bringing about real change. Zumwalt established programs for racial sensitivity and awareness. In addition he paved the way for eventual integration of all groups by preparing for the assignment of women to seagoing positions. 

His successor, James Holloway III brought in new ways of increasing black and minority participation in NROTC, US Naval Academy and other naval entry methods.

The book recounts incidents on USS Hassayampa, Kitty Hawk and Constellation in fairly good detail. Why more ships were not included should have been identified. These minor race riots continued to at least 1977 with an event on destroyer USS Davis in Roosevelt Roads PR. 

The author has made a number of errors which should be an embarrassment to an official historian of the US Naval Historical Center:

• Three short blasts on a ship indicates it is going astern
• A US Air Force Base "northwest" of San Francisco
• Use of the term "wall" instead of the correct "bulkhead"
• USS Miller misidentified as USS Doris Miller and USS Jesse L Miller as USS Jesse Miller
• Command Duty Officer incorrectly named Chief Duty Officer
• Selected Restricted Availability (SRA) misnamed as a Ship's Restricted Availability

Such errors always leave a reader with a feeling of unease about the accuracy of other topics within the text. Author Sherwood appears to have guessed at certain things instead of coming up with the right terminology. It seems that the US Naval Historical Center should bring in a policy of vetting works by their historians for accuracy in both fact and terminology.

With sharper effort and a good grounding in naval technology and terminology, hopefully Mr Sherwood's next work will be worthy of recommendation.

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