A tank from Able Company, 761st Tank Battalion, crosses the Seille River on Nov. 9, 1944.
Photo Courtesy Patton Museum February 09, 2007

On 16 January 1941, the Army Air Corps was open to blacks after decades of segregation.  Tuskegee, Alabama, was chosen for flight school. This area of the country was noted for intolerance, racial violence, and segregation. In the spring of 1941, Flight Instructor C. Alfred Anderson took First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for a flight around Tuskegee. Flight training began in June, 1941, with the class 42-C-SE of 13 men. Only five graduated including Captain Benjamin O. Davis junior, who became the commander of the 99th fighter squadron, and later of the 332rd fighter group. The 100th fighter squadron soon followed and later the 301st and 302nd in mid-1942. Tuskegee Army Air Field was a hell-hole of prejudice. The blacks squadrons were not sent to combat after training, but stayed in the States and kept training. Because of delays, the 99th had much more training than white units, with most pilots having 250 hours in the P-40 fighter, when the 99th Fighter Squadron arrived in North Africa on 9 June 1943. The first combat mission was escorting A-20 Havoc Attack Bombers, when a mission to the island of Pantelleria. On his 18th combat mission, Lieutenant Charles B. Hall was the first 99th pilot to shoot down a German fighter on 2 July 1943 in his P-40L. The 99th moved first to Sicily and then to Italy, where it was deployed for ground attack more than an escort fighting.

In February 1944, the 100th, 301st, and 302nd fighter squadrons joined the 99th to form the 332nd Fighter Group. These squadron's flew of the P-39 Airacobra fighters, which were very good at ground attack. In mid 1944 and 332nd got P-47 Thunderbolt fighters to replace the P-39 and P-40 fighters. On 25 June 1944 eight P-47s attacked a German destroyer escort with machine-guns, sinking it.

Transition to the P-51 Mustang fighter happened in June, 1944, and Mustangs tails were painted red and thus were born the "Red Tails." On 8 July 1944, the 332nd Fighter Group shot down 11 enemy aircraft. Ground attack and escort missions were the work of the Red Tails, for the rest of the war. The Germans call them Schwrtze Volgelmenschen (black birdmen). Most white pilots were rotated home after 50 missions, but the Tuskegee could not train enough black pilots. Walter Palmer of the 100th Fighter Squadron was not rotated home until after completing 158 missions in November 1944.

The 332nd Fighter Group was among the first to combat the ME 262 German jet fighter, and gun camera photos were used to train other pilots on how to combat the much faster jets. The Tuskegee pilots, 450 in all, flew their fighters over 1500 missions, destroying 111 enemy aircraft in the air, plus 150 more on the ground. One destroyer escort and 57 locomotives were destroyed plus numerous rail cars in river barges.

The Red Tails escorted 200 bomber missions without the loss of any bombers to enemy fighters, a record on equaled by any other fighter group. 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses plus other medals were awarded. The group lost 66 pilots killed in action and another 33 captured by the Germans.

The courage and devotion to duty of the Tuskegee Airmen influenced President Truman's desegregation of the military in 1948. Within 45 years of the end of WW II, General Colin Powell was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.