The Tuskegee Airmen () were a group of primarily African-American military pilots (fighter and bomber) and airmen who fought in World War II. They formed the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group (Medium) of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). The name also applies to the navigators, bombardiers, mechanics, instructors, crew chiefs, nurses, cooks, and other support personnel. The Tuskegee Airmen received praise for their excellent combat record earned while protecting American bombers from enemy fighters. The group was awarded three Distinguished Unit Citations.
All black military pilots who trained in the United States trained at Griel Field, Kennedy Field, Moton Field, Shorter Field, and the Tuskegee Army Air Fields. They were educated at the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), located near Tuskegee, Alabama. Of the 922 pilots, five were Haitians from the Haitian Air Force and one pilot was from Trinidad. It also included an airman born in the Dominican Republic and one born in Jamaica.
The 99th Pursuit Squadron (later the 99th Fighter Squadron) was the first black flying squadron, and the first to deploy overseas (to North Africa in April 1943, and later to Sicily and other parts of Italy). The 332nd Fighter Group, which originally included the 100th, 301st, and 302nd Fighter Squadrons, was the first black flying group. It deployed to Italy in early 1944. Although the 477th Bombardment Group trained with North American B-25 Mitchell bombers, they never served in combat. In June 1944, the 332nd Fighter Group began flying heavy bomber escort missions, and in July 1944 with the addition of the 99th Fighter Squadron, it had four fighter squadrons.
The 99th Fighter Squadron was initially equipped with Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter-bomber aircraft. The 332nd Fighter Group and its 100th, 301st, and 302nd Fighter Squadrons were equipped for initial combat missions with Bell P-39 Airacobras (March 1944), later with Republic P-47 Thunderbolts (June–July 1944), and finally with the aircraft with which they became most commonly associated, the North American P-51 Mustang (July 1944). When the pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group painted the tails of their P-47s red, the nickname "Red Tails" was coined. The red markings that distinguished the Tuskegee Airmen included red bands on the noses of P-51s, as well as a red empennage; the P-51B, C, and D Mustangs flew with similar color schemes, with red propeller spinners, yellow wing bands, and all-red tail surfaces.
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the United States Armed Forces. During World War II, black Americans in many U.S. states were still subject to the Jim Crow laws and the American military was racially segregated, as was much of the federal government. The Tuskegee Airmen were subjected to discrimination, both within and outside of the army.
Contents
History
Origins
Before the Tuskegee Airmen, no African American had been a U.S. military pilot. In 1917, African-American men had tried to become aerial observers but were rejected. African-American Eugene Bullard served in the French air service during World War I because he was not allowed to serve in an American unit. Bullard returned to infantry duty with the French.
The racially motivated rejections of World War I African-American recruits sparked more than two decades of advocacy by African Americans who wished to enlist and train as military aviators. The effort was led by such prominent civil rights leaders as Walter White of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), labor union leader A. Philip Randolph, and Judge William H. Hastie. Finally, on 3 April 1939, Appropriations Bill Public Law 18 was passed by Congress containing an amendment by Senator Harry H. Schwartz designating funds for training African-American pilots. The War Department managed to put the money into funds of civilian flight schools that were willing to train black Americans.
War Department tradition and policy mandated the segregation of African Americans into separate military units staffed by white officers, as had been done previously with the 9th Cavalry, 10th Cavalry, 24th Infantry Regiment and 25th Infantry regiments.
When the appropriation of funds for aviation training created opportunities for pilot cadets, their numbers diminished the rosters of these older units. In 1941, the War Department and the Army Air Corps, under pressure — three months before its transformation into the USAAF — constituted the first all-black flying unit, the 99th Pursuit Squadron.
Because of the restrictive nature of selection policies, the situation did not seem promising for African Americans, since in 1940 the U.S. Census Bureau reported there were only 124 African-American pilots in the nation. The exclusionary policies failed dramatically when the Air Corps received an abundance of applications from men who qualified, even under the restrictive requirements. Many of the applicants had already participated in the Civilian Pilot Training Program, unveiled in late December 1938 (CPTP). Tuskegee University had participated since 1939.
The U.S. Army Air Corps had established the Psychological Research Unit 1 at Maxwell Army Air Field, Montgomery, Alabama, and other units around the country for aviation cadet training, which included the identification, selection, education, and training of pilots, navigators and bombardiers. Psychologists employed in these research studies and training programs used some of the first standardized tests to quantify IQ, dexterity, and leadership qualities to select and train the best-suited personnel for the roles of bombardier, navigator, and pilot. The Air Corps determined that the existing programs would be used for all units, including all-black units. At Tuskegee, this effort continued with the selection and training of the Tuskegee Airmen. The War Department set up a system to accept only those with a level of flight experience or higher education which ensured that only the ablest and most intelligent African-American applicants were able to join.
Formation
On 22 March 1941, the 99th Pursuit Squadron was activated without pilots at Chanute Field in Rantoul, Illinois.
A cadre of 14 black non-commissioned officers from the 24th and 25th Infantry Regiments were sent to Chanute Field to help in the administration and supervision of the trainees. A white officer, Army Captain Harold R. Maddux, was assigned as the first commander of the 99th Fighter Squadron.
A group of 271 enlisted men began training in aircraft ground support trades at Chanute Field in March 1941 until they were transferred to bases in Alabama in July 1941. The skills being taught were so technical that setting up segregated classes was deemed impossible. This small number of enlisted men became the core of other black squadrons forming at Tuskegee Fields in Alabama.
While the enlisted men were in training, five black youths were admitted to the Officers Training School (OTS) at Chanute Field as aviation cadets. Specifically, Elmer D. Jones, Dudley Stevenson, and James Johnson of Washington, DC; Nelson Brooks of Illinois, and William R. Thompson of Pittsburgh, PA successfully completed OTS and were commissioned as the first Black Army Air Corps Officers.
In June 1941, the 99th Pursuit Squadron was transferred to Tuskegee, Alabama, and remained the only black flying unit in the country, but did not yet have pilots. The famous airmen were actually trained at five airfields surrounding Tuskegee University (formerly Tuskegee Institute)--Griel, Kennedy, Moton, Shorter, and Tuskegee Army Air Fields. The flying unit consisted of 47 officers and 429 enlisted men and was backed by an entire service arm. On 19 July 1941, thirteen individuals made up the first class of aviation cadets (42-C) when they entered preflight training at Tuskegee Institute. After primary training at Moton Field, they were moved to the nearby Tuskegee Army Air Field, about 10 miles (16 km) to the west for conversion training onto operational types. Consequently, Tuskegee Army Air Field became the only Army installation performing three phases of pilot training (basic, advanced, and transition) at a single location. Initial planning called for 500 personnel in residence at a time.
By mid-1942, more than six times that many were stationed at Tuskegee, even though only two squadrons were training there.
Combat assignment
The 99th was finally considered ready for combat duty by April 1943. It shipped out of Tuskegee on 2 April, bound for North Africa, where it joined the 33rd Fighter Group and its commander, Colonel William W. Momyer. Given little guidance from battle-experienced pilots, the 99th's first combat mission was to attack the small strategic volcanic island of Pantelleria, code name Operation Corkscrew, in the Mediterranean Sea to clear the sea lanes for the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943. The air assault on the island began 30 May 1943. The 99th flew its first combat mission on 2 June. The surrender of the garrison of 11,121 Italians and 78 Germans due to air attack was the first of its kind.
The 99th then moved on to Sicily and received a Distinguished Unit Citation (DUC) for its performance in combat.
By the end of February 1944, the all-black 332nd Fighter Group had been sent overseas with three fighter squadrons: The 100th, 301st and 302nd.
Under the command of Colonel Davis, the squadrons were moved to mainland Italy, where the 99th Fighter Squadron, assigned to the group on 1 May 1944, joined them on 6 June at Ramitelli Airfield, nine kilometers south-southeast of the small city of Campomarino, on the Adriatic coast. From Ramitelli, the 332nd Fighter Group escorted Fifteenth Air Force heavy strategic bombing raids into Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and Germany.
Flying escort for heavy bombers, the 332nd earned an impressive combat record. The Allies called these airmen "Red Tails" or "Red-Tail Angels", because of the distinctive crimson unit identification marking predominantly applied on the tail section of the unit's aircraft.
A B-25 bomb group, the 477th Bombardment Group, was forming in the U.S. but was not able to complete its training in time to see action. The 99th Fighter Squadron after its return to the United States became part of the 477th, redesignated the 477th Composite Group.
The only black air units that saw combat during the war were the 99th Pursuit Squadron and the 332nd Fighter Group. The dive-bombing and strafing missions under Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin O. Davis Jr. were considered to be highly successful.
Tuskegee Airmen bomber units
With African-American fighter pilots being trained successfully, the Army Air Force now came under political pressure from the NAACP and other civil rights organizations to organize a bomber unit. There could be no defensible argument that the quota of 100 African-American pilots in training at one time, or 200 per year out of a total of 60,000 American aviation cadets in annual training, represented the service potential of 13 million African-Americans.
On 13 May 1943, the 616th Bombardment Squadron was established as the initial subordinate squadron of the 477th Bombardment Group, an all-white group. The squadron was activated on 1 July 1943, only to be inactivated on 15 August 1943. By September 1943, the number of washed-out cadets on base had surged to 286, with few of them working. In January 1944, the 477th Bombardment Group was reactivated—an all-Black group. At the time, the usual training cycle for a bombardment group took three to four months.
The 477th eventually contained four medium bomber squadrons. Slated to comprise 1,200 officers and enlisted men, the unit operated 60 North American B-25 Mitchell bombers. The 477th went on to encompass three more bomber squadrons–the 617th Bombardment Squadron, the 618th Bombardment Squadron, and the 619th Bombardment Squadron. The 477th was anticipated to be ready for action in November 1944.
The home field for the 477th was Selfridge Field, located outside Detroit, with forays to Oscoda Army Air Field in Oscoda, Michigan. Other bases were used for various types of training courses. Twin-engine pilot training began at Tuskegee while the transition to multi-engine pilot training was at Mather Field, California. Some ground crews trained at Mather before rotating to Inglewood. Gunners learned to shoot at Eglin Field, Florida. Bombers-navigators learned their trades at Hondo Army Air Field and Midland Air Field, Texas or at Roswell, New Mexico. Training of the new African-American crewmen also took place at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Lincoln, Nebraska, and Scott Field, Belleville, Illinois. Once trained, the air and ground crews were spliced into a working unit at Selfridge.
The new group's first commanding officer was Colonel Robert Selway, who had also commanded the 332nd Fighter Group before it deployed for combat overseas. Like his ranking officer, Major General Frank O'Driscoll Hunter from Georgia, Selway was a racial segregationist. Hunter was blunt about it, saying such things as "...racial friction will occur if colored and white pilots are trained together." He backed Selway's violations of Army Regulation 210–10, which forbade segregation of airbase facilities. They segregated base facilities so thoroughly that they even drew a line in the base theater and ordered separate seating by race. When the audience sat in random patterns as part of "Operation Checkerboard", the movie was halted to make men return to segregated seating. African-American officers petitioned base Commanding Officer William Boyd for access to the only officer's club on base. Lieutenant Milton Henry entered the club and personally demanded his club rights; he was court-martialed for this.
War accomplishments
In all, 992 pilots were trained in Tuskegee from 1941 to 1946. 355 were deployed overseas, and 84 lost their lives. The toll included 68 pilots killed in action or accidents, 12 killed in training and non-combat missions and 32 captured as prisoners of war.
The Tuskegee Airmen were credited by higher commands with the following accomplishments:
1578 combat missions, 1267 for the Twelfth Air Force; 311 for the Fifteenth Air Force
179 bomber escort missions, with a good record of protection, losing bombers on only seven missions and a total of only 27, compared to an average of 46 among other 15th Air Force P-51 groups
112 enemy aircraft destroyed in the air, another 150 on the ground and 148 damaged. This included three Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighters shot down
950 rail cars, trucks and other motor vehicles destroyed (more than 600 rail cars)
One torpedo boat put out of action. TA22 was an Italian World War I-era destroyer (Giuseppe Missori), that had been seized by the Germans and put into service. It was attacked on 25 June 1944, and damaged so severely she was never repaired. She was decommissioned on 8 November 1944, and finally scuttled on 5 February 1945.
40 boats and barges destroyed
Awards and decorations included:
Three Distinguished Unit Citations
99th Pursuit Squadron: 30 May – 11 June 1943, for actions over Sicily
99th Fighter Squadron: 12–14 May 1944: for successful airstrikes against Monte Cassino, Italy. The first two Distinguished Unit Citations received by the 99th Fighter Squadron were awarded to the groups to which the squadron was attached. At the time, when a group received the honor, it was shared with the squadrons that were assigned or attached to the group.
Postwar
Contrary to negative predictions from some quarters, Tuskegee Airmen were some of the best pilots in the U.S. Army Air Forces due to a combination of pre-war experience and the personal drive of those accepted for training. Nevertheless, the Tuskegee Airmen continued to have to fight racism. Their combat record did much to quiet those directly involved with the group, but other units continued to harass these airmen.
In 1949, the 332nd entered the annual U.S. Continental Gunnery Meet in Las Vegas, Nevada. The competition included shooting aerial and ground targets and dropping bombs on targets. Flying the long-range Republic P-47N Thunderbolt (built for the long-range escort mission in the Pacific theatre of World War II), the 332nd Fighter Wing took first place in the conventional fighter class. The pilots were Captain Alva Temple, Lts. Harry Stewart, Jr., James H. Harvey III and Halbert Alexander. Staff Sergeant Buford A. Johnson (30 August 1927 – 15 April 2017) served as the pilots' aircraft crew chief. Lt. Harvey said, "We had a perfect score. Three missions, two bombs per plane. We didn't guess at anything, we were good." They received congratulations from the governor of Ohio and Air Force commanders across the nation.
After segregation in the military was ended in 1948 by President Harry S. Truman with Executive Order 9981, the veteran Tuskegee Airmen found themselves in high demand throughout the newly formed United States Air Force. Some taught in civilian flight schools, such as the black-owned Columbia Air Center in Maryland. On 11 May 1949, Air Force Letter 35.3 mandated that black Airmen be screened for reassignment to formerly all-white units according to qualifications.
Tuskegee Airmen were instrumental in postwar developments in aviation. Edward A. Gibbs, a civilian flight instructor who helped launch in the U.S. Aviation Cadet Program at Tuskegee, later became the founder of Negro Airmen International, an association joined by many airmen. USAF General Daniel "Chappie" James Jr. (then Lt.) was an instructor of the 99th Pursuit Squadron and later a fighter pilot in Europe. In 1975, he became the first African-American to reach the rank of four-star general. Post-war commander of the 99th Squadron Marion Rodgers went on to work in communications for NORAD and as a program developer for the Apollo 13 project.
In 2005, seven Tuskegee Airmen, including Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Carter, Colonel Charles McGee, group historian Ted Johnson, and Lieutenant Colonel Lee Archer, flew to Balad, Iraq, to speak to active duty airmen serving in the current incarnation of the 332nd, which was reactivated as the 332nd Air Expeditionary Group in 1998 and made part of the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing. "This group represents the linkage between the 'greatest generation' of airmen and the 'latest generation' of airmen," said Lt. Gen. Walter E. Buchanan III, commander of the Ninth Air Force and U.S. Central Command Air Forces.
Legacy and honors
On 29 March 2007, the Tuskegee Airmen were collectively awarded a Congressional Gold Medal at a ceremony in the U.S. Capitol rotunda. The medal is currently on display at the Smithsonian Institution. The airfield where the airmen trained is now the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site.
Thurgood Marshall, the future Supreme Court justice, got his start defending Tuskegee bomber trainees. The 477th Bombardment Group was formed in 1944 to extend the so-called "Tuskegee experiment" by allowing black aviators to serve on bomber crews. The aim was to send pilots—many of them veterans of the original Tuskegee fighter group—back to the States for training on B-25 bombers. While in Indiana, some of the African-American officers were arrested and charged with mutiny after entering an all-white officers' club. Marshall, then a young lawyer, represented the 100 black officers who had landed in jail as a result of the confrontation. The men were soon released (although one was later convicted of violent conduct and fined).
Robert W. Williams Jr., a navigator/bombardier in the 477th Bombardment Group, became a judge in the First Judicial District, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In 1979, he was elected to the Commonwealth Court, an appellate court, and the first African American to serve on that court. In 1985, he resigned from the court to run for the District Attorney of Philadelphia County. He was the first African American to successfully become a city-wide candidate for that office. On 3 July 2023, Williams reached the age of 100, making him one of the last Tuskegee Airmen alive.
Other members of the Tuskegee Airmen have made contributions in the world of business. Eugene Winslow founded Afro-Am Publishing in Chicago, Illinois, which published Great Negroes Past and Present in 1963.
Daniel "Chappie" James Jr. started his career in the early 1940s at Tuskegee, joining the Army Air Corps in July 1943. After the war ended, James stayed in what became the Air Force and flew missions in both Korea and Vietnam. In 1969, James was put in command of Wheelus Air Base outside of Tripoli.
Four Tuskegee airmen went on to become generals. For keeping his cool in the face of Qaddafi's troops, James was appointed a brigadier general by President Nixon. He was not the only Tuskegee graduate to make flag rank. James followed in the footsteps of Benjamin O. Davis Jr., the original commander of the 332nd Fighter Group and the first black general in the U.S. Air Force. Another Tuskegee aviator, Lucius Theus, retired a major general after dedicating most of his 36-year career in the Air Force to improving the military's bureaucracy, helping to implement a direct deposit system for service members. In 2019, at 100 years of age, Colonel Charles McGee was promoted to honorary Brigadier General.
Artistic depictions
The Legend of the Red Tails, by artist Ray Simon is displayed in the Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum.
Red Tails Escorting the B17s, a watercolor by Kay Smith is in the collections of the Pritzker Military Museum & Library.
There is a mural depicting the Tuskegee Airmen and their contributions at 39th and Chestnut Streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Tuskegee Airmen, a watercolor mural by Andrew J. Woodstock has been displayed at the Air Zoo Aerospace and Aviation Museum in Portage, Michigan.
Richmond, Kentucky's seven Tuskegee Airmen who served during World War II are honored with an artist's rendering of airman Frank D. Walker at the Madison County Public Library.
In popular culture
The Homestead Grays (1978), a wartime novel by James Wylie, loosely based on the combat exploits of the 99th Pursuit Squadron and the 332nd Fighter Group.
Wings for This Man (1945), a propaganda short about the Tuskegee Airmen, was produced by the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Forces. The film was narrated by Ronald Reagan.
"Graveyard", an episode of Twelve O'Clock High (1966), starring Ossie Davis, Jon Voight, Lloyd Haynes.
The Tuskegee Airmen (1995), a film starring Laurence Fishburne, Andre Braugher, Cuba Gooding, Jr, and John Lithgow was produced and aired by HBO.
"The Tuskegee Airmen", a season two episode of the documentary TV series Dogfights, was originally aired on the History Channel on 6 December 2007.
The Tuskegee Airmen (1997) are represented in the G.I. Joe action figure series.
The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys who Flew the B-24s over Germany (2001), a book by Stephen Ambrose, describes the Tuskegee Airmen in a tribute to their achievements.
Silver Wings & Civil Rights: The Fight to Fly (2004) is a documentary that was the first film to feature information regarding the "Freeman Field Mutiny", the struggle of 101 African-American officers arrested for entering a white officer's club.
Red Tail Reborn is a documentary film about the restoration of an aircraft that was flown by the Tuskegee Airmen and its use as a flying memorial to them.
Red Tails is a film about the Tuskegee Airmen produced by Lucasfilm and released in January 2012. The film was written by John Ridley and Aaron McGruder, and directed by Anthony Hemingway.