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[North Chicago], Illinois, 29 July, 1943. Panoramic silver print photograph, 7.35” x 17.25” plus margins. CONDITION: Very good, strong tonality, light creasing throughout, light scuffing along edges of right and left margins.

An evocative World War II-era photograph showing some 106 African American Navy servicemen and one white officer of Company 831 at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station on Lake Michigan in Illinois. 

Organized in five lines, the uniformed company is shown here standing on bleachers in front of several buildings and trees, projecting an image of unified manpower. A soldier on the left in the front row holds a flag featuring an anchor and reading “N.T.S. [Navy Training Station] Great Lakes,” while a drummer stands on the right. The white officer wears a badge on his uniform that indicates the rank of Sergeant.

Opened in 1911, the Naval Training Station Great Lakes is located on over 1,600 acres and overlooks Lake Michigan. The Navy’s largest training facility, it is also home to the Navy’s only Boot Camp. Shortly after the Attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, the Navy announced a $33 million expansion to increase its recruitment capacity from 10,000 to 45,000. When the U.S. entered World War II, the Navy’s Black sailors had been limited to serving as mess attendants for nearly twenty years. However, this soon changed due to the need for wartime personnel and the willingness of thousands of patriotic Black men to participate in the war. 

In mid-1942, the Navy started accepting African American enlistments for general service, and by the end of 1942 some 75,000 servicemen, Black and white, were at the Great Lakes base. During World War II, Great Lakes supplied over a million Bluejackets—just over a third of all personnel who served in the Navy. Black seamen were trained at a segregated base within Great Lakes called Camp Robert Smalls (named after a Civil War hero and former slave), and Navy service units were also segregated. Camp Smalls was seen at the time as an important step because it was the first actual training camp opportunity for African Americans. While many of those who trained at Camp Smalls served in non-combat roles, in 1944 a group of African Americans, nicknamed the Golden Thirteen, became the first to enter the regular naval officer candidate school. 

An evocative image reflecting an important development in the history of Black service in the U.S. Navy.

REFERENCES: “African-Americans and the U.S. Navy -- World War II” at Ibiblio online; “Great Lakes Naval Training Station” at the Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago online.

Item #9605

Price: $675.00