Doolittle Board

The Doolittle Board convened in early 1946 to investigate complaints to the War Department about the state of relations between officers and enlisted men. The board issued a final report, known officially as “The Report of the Secretary of War's Board on Officer-Enlisted Man Relationships,” in May 1946. In that report, the Doolittle Board concluded that the rapid and massive growth of the Army from 1940 to 1945 had resulted in some cases of poor training and indoctrination in the officer corps. The board also concluded that some officers had abused enlisted men and privileges and that reforms were required. The recommendations made by the board were relatively benign but led to changes, most [Page 226]significantly to the rules of military justice—enlisted men could sit on courts-martial—and to allow officers and enlisted men to fraternize off duty.

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the Army rapidly demobilized its citizen army. Many of these discharged soldiers complained about conditions in the Army and, especially, about the officer corps. They focused on unfair officer privileges that enlisted men could not enjoy. Enlisted men made specific complaints about officer abuse of enlisted men and the existence of a caste system within the Army. Many of these complaints echoed similar grievances voiced against the Army after World War I and, indeed, every previous American conflict. In the earlier wars, the Army made only minimal changes to appease widespread civilian concern about officer abuses. This time, however, the War Department took these complaints more seriously. While many in the senior military considered these complaints to be nothing more than the grumblings of undisciplined and military-hating civilians, growing public criticism of undemocratic practices within the Army of a democracy put pressure in the military to respond.

The War Department's civilian leadership appointed a board to review the complaints. The board became known as the Doolittle Board after its most famous member, Gen. James H. Doolittle, who had commanded the Doolittle bombing raid over Japan in 1942.

The board interviewed witnesses, read letters, and reviewed laws, regulations, and military customs. It also surveyed other concurrent War Department studies concerning the military justice system, pay and allowances, and uniforms. The board concluded that while officers had some privileges that were necessary to good order and discipline, some distinctions made between officers and enlisted men had no place in a democratic society. It also concluded that these distinctions had become more pronounced with the rapid increase in the size of the officer corps during World War II and the concurrent lack of training that hastily mobilized officers received in proper officer conduct.

The board made 14 recommendations. The most important were: improvements in officer selection, training, and quality; equitable distribution of pay and allowances; better oversight of rank-associated privileges to reduce abuse; changes to the Articles of War and justice system to include allowing enlisted men to sit on courts-martial; elimination of the hand salute when off duty; and elimination of restrictions on social interaction between officers and enlisted men. The board further determined that “all military personnel [should] be allowed, when off duty, to pursue normal social patterns comparable with our democratic way of life” (19–22).

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