The Tuskegee Airmen

If you’re not acquainted with the history surrounding the renowned “Tuskegee Airmen” of WWII, pull up a chair. Here it is in much-condensed form; historical data provided in large measure by (Tuskegee/retired) Col..William J. Smith:

Amid the rigid pattern of racial prejudice and segregation that still prevailed in the United States during World War.II, an experiment was inaugurated by the Roosevelt administration and the Pentagon to train young African-American men as airmen/officers; 992 of these aviators were trained at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, and at an isolated training complex and airfield near the college. The first class graduated on 7 March 1942. Those young airmen trainees were up against not just one, but two adversaries: the Axis enemies overseas (mostly the German Luftwaffe), and rampant racial prejudice and denied-opportunities in their own country. Briefly put, they excelled in their training and in their subsequent service roles.

Under the command of (then Colonel and African-American himself) Benjamin O. Davis, 450 “Tuskegee Airmen” black fighter pilots fought in the aerial war over North Africa, Sicily and Europe. They piloted, in succession, the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, the Bell P-39 AiraCobra, the Republic Aviation P-47 Thunderbolt and the North American Aviation P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft. They flew 15,553 sorties and completed 1,578 missions with the 12th Tactical and 15th U.S. Army Air Force. Think about it: with those P-39s and P-51s on their combat record, these guys were squaring off their own Cobras and Mustangs against The Luftwaffe’s Messerschmitt 109s and Focke-Wulf 190s at a time when the Shelby/Ferrari duel wasn’t yet a twinkle in ol’ Carroll’s eye…

Their German adversaries soon labeled these airmen “die schwarze Vogelmenschen” (the black birdmen) by the Germans who both respected and feared them. White American bomber crews reverently referred to them as “the red tail angels” and the Luftwaffe pilots similarly called them “roten schwanz Teufel” (red tail devils) because of the squadron’s trademark red-painted tail assemblies. The squadron established an unparalleled record for losing not a single bomber to enemy fighters as they provided fighter escort for B17 Fortresses and B24 Liberators on bombing missions over Europe. American pilots often specifically requested ‘red tail escort fighters’, although the American bomber crews had no idea that the ‘red tail’ pilots were African-American, since any and all details of The Tuskegee Airmen was a closely-held secret for most of the war. Of those Tuskegee/Red Tail pilots, 66 were killed in action and another 32 were shot down behind enemy lines and taken as POWs by the Germans. Col. Davis eventually rose to the rank of Lt. General (3 stars)… the nation’s highest-ranking African-American military officer until General Colin Powell.

Here’s a link to Wikipedia’s history of The Tuskegee Airmen: Click Here!

And a link to Wikipedia’s coverage of The Red Tail Squadron: Click Here!

And a link to the trailer for the 2012 LucasFilm flick “Red Tails“: Click Here!

Make it a point to download or rent Red Tails, and invite your friends and family to watch it with you. It’s a thoroughly inspiring moment in American military history (and civil rights history), captured for the ages by LucasFilms.