[Posted Feb. 6, 2008]

Black History Month Feature

The USS Mason

The Navy’s “Experiment” That Worked

Leonard E. Colvin
Chief Reporter
New Journal & Guide
 
       Sixty-four years ago, with the commissioning of the USS Mason (DE-529), it became  one of the warships which would help protect the ships and material headed for Europe during WWII.
       The ship was part of a very important experiment, but not to determine the effectiveness of some new weapon or a surface war maneuver  to be used to  defeat the Axis powers. This experiment  was designed to  determine the fitness of black men to be effective manpower aboard American  naval vessels.

Mr. DeFau gets a thumbs up from today's Navy men and women for his role in history.

      The Navy’s so-called “experiment” aboard the USS Mason was akin to that of the now famous Air Force’s “experiment” with the Tuskegee Airmen. These efforts proved that black men could succeed in performing a variety of military jobs that had been denied them because of their race.
      The story of the men of the USS Mason is less well known than that of the Tuskegee Airmen, and could have been lost in military history without the stories and coverage given them by the Norfolk Journal and Guide and its war correspondent Thomas W. Young.
Young, the son of founding publisher P.B. Young, Sr., was given special permission by the U.S. Navy to travel aboard the USS Mason as a photojournalist. In that role, he wrote the stories of the Navy’s first ship manned by a mostly African American crew.

     It was the Navy’s “experiment” to determine if black men could serve as radiomen, quartermasters and signalmen. The 144 black men proved they could.
   Come February 17, Norfolk’s Nauticus, in conjunction with the New Journal and Guide, will host a special Black History Month presentation of a 1994 movie “Proud” that depicted the service of the crew of the USS Mason. The film can be seen until February 28 for those purchasing tickets to Nauticus. However on Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Nauticus Theater, the event is free to the public with admission tickets available inside the New Journal and Guide newspaper. (See Nauticus ad, this issue on page 9)
Further on Sunday, February 18, one of the USS Mason crew members, Lorenzo A. Dufau, will be present at the Nauticus showing, along with Mary Pratt Kelly, the author of the book “Proudly We Serve”, upon which the movie version is based.
       It was Kelly who unearthed the story of the Mason when she was doing research for a book on Northern Ireland. She discovered that on the ship’s maiden voyage across the Atlantic escorting cargo ships, the vessel landed in Dublin, North Ireland.
       “The people there welcomed these  sailors with open arms,” said Kelly. “There was a fear that once the Blacks arrived in northern Europe that there would be rejection and worse. But the Irish treated those sailors with great respect.”
       Kelly said her research led her back to the States, where she ran across a number of the crewmen who served on the Mason, including Dufau and James W. Graham.
       “I would attend reunions of crews from ships which served in the Atlantic  escort units,” recalled Graham, who was the first black man to receive a rating as a Radioman  in the Fleet.
“Most of them were white. But they also talked about how their individual ships would hold reunions.  I wanted to see my old buddies from the Mason. So that’s how the USS Mason Association was formed. Since then we have been trying to  make sure that our historic mission is known to present and future generations. It is very important for us to know our history.”
       Both Dufau and Graham, who is the chair of the Association, live near New York City.
       Both are very proud of their military service, especially aboard the first ship which was manned by a mostly black crew.
       Most of the members of the 162-member USS Mason crew were black enlisted men who were from poor and working class backgrounds. Not until the last months of its service did the ship have any black officers or supervising chiefs.
       “This was a social, political and military experiment to determine if Blacks could be effective crewman aboard a vessel like the Mason,” said Kelly.

“If it failed this would bolster the idea in the U.S. Navy and among politicians who argued against integration. Were Blacks trainable first to be servicemen? Down the road, could black men serve in close proximity with Whites?  Of course, we have discovered  the answer to those answers are a resounding yes.”

Young Defau and his Navy mates.

       With the exception of the Revolutionary War, black troops fought in separate units from Whites. At the onset of the WWII, black sailors were drafted or volunteered to serve in uniform as cooks, servants or janitorial staff. But organizations like the NAACP, with the help of social progressives like First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, pushed for using black manpower  in roles beyond such menial activities.
      DuFau, Graham and Kelly said much more credit must be awarded to  Norfolk Journal and Guide correspondent Thomas Young for his onboard coverage of the USS Mason.
Kelly said Young, who died four decades ago,  revealed the historic experiment and helped to dispel the idea that Blacks could not serve in a military.
       Kelly said she unearthed the articles by Young in archives maintained by the U.S. Navy and in Ireland.  There were very extensive writings and images from photographs.
       “I think he was aware of the history which was being made more than anyone,” said Kelly. “He was very sensitive to the reason why it was being done and the ideals which stood against it as well. He knew the risk if it failed or if there were too many problems. I think he did a good job of detailing it all.”
       Young, according to Dufau, was aboard the USS Mason during several of its missions to the Northern Atlantic. He was the only African American war correspondent to be assigned to a U.S. Warship.
       “The entire story of the USS Mason, in detail, was captured by Mr. Young,” said Kelly.  “He not only looked at the operational life of the men on board, but he talked about their personal lives, what they were dealing with under the stresses of war and the adversity of   racism in the Navy.”
       “Thomas was a very down to earth man,” recalled DuFau.  “He knew what we were going through and he wrote about it. He would come to the mess decks and the fan tail of the ship to interview us for histories and he got a better look at our lives and activities on the ship. I think history owns Thomas Young a great deal for what he did.”
       Graham said that the members of the Mason were the first African Americans to get ratings in technical jobs in the Navy. He was a Radioman.
       Norfolk Naval Base was the site of  the Navy’s top technical schools and DuFau recalls his days seeking to evade  Jim Crow racism in the city in Norfolk.  He said that he often avoided riding the trolley from the base to downtown Norfolk’s Church Street.  He said that he would often attend Vesper Music Concerts at the Norfolk Unit of Virginia State, which is NSU today.  Or instead of going out on the town,  he stayed on base. Instead of regular housing, black sailors attending service training schools lived in quonset huts. He said Blacks were escorted to their housing areas, to the exchange and to medical facilities.
About ten years ago a new version of the USS Mason was commissioned. It is stationed in Norfolk and has an African American commander.
       There are only a few of the USS Mason original crew alive. Graham says the average age of the remaining crew members are in their mid-80s.
       “I used to try to call a few of the fellas out West,” he said. “Recently I called and I got no answer. That is not a good sign.”
       Dufau said before the World War II ship he served on was decommissioned in 1947, efforts to give members of the crew a Medal of Commendation, the Navy’s highest honor, were sought from the U.S. Defense Department, which had desegregated by then. He hopes that before he dies, it, along with a commemorative stamp, will honor the Mason crew.
       Graham is 88-years-old himself and was born in South Carolina.
       DuFau is a native of New Orleans. A year into the War in Europe, he had a wife and child. He also wanted out of New Orleans for he  feared for the safety of his family. He could have gotten an exemption because of his family.
       “But I believed that it was my duty to protect my country and my home,” he recalled. “There were problems, but I think what I did  paved the way for people after me.  I am 88-years-old. I am glad to see the change that I had help bring along for a new generation. I just hope they understand what we went through to get us this far.

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