The 99th Fighter Squardon often used hand-me-down and second-rate equipment to train its pilots in 1941.
That`s because the members of the unit at Tuskegee, Ala., were second-class citizens. The military was segregated and the ”Tuskegee Airmen” as they were known, were black.
But this week the tributes to them at the 40th Convention of the Experimental Aircraft Association were definitely first class.
”It is difficult to believe that just 50 years ago the great majority of people in the U.S. did not believe blacks could be taught to fly airplanes,” said Benjamin O. Davis, commander of the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of 966 aviators trained at Tuskegee Institute during World War II.
Davis retired from the Air Force in 1970 as a lieutenant general.
The Tuskegee Airmen learned to fly, all right, but more important, they learned to fight. In the center of the 1,200-acre exhibition area in Oshkosh at the world`s largest aviation event, a pavilion chronicles the history of the 99th which, along with three more all-black squadrons, the 100th, 301st and 302nd, became the 332nd Fighter Group, doing battle in North Africa and Europe. The unit was known as the ”Red Tails” because of the distinctive markings on the P-51 Mustangs they flew.
It is a history filled with excitement, adventure, heroism and victory. More than 15,000 combat sorties were flown and 250 enemy aircraft were shot down.
On Tuesday evening at a formal program, the nation`s first African-American governor, L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia, introduced Gen. Davis, now 79.
The standing-room-only crowd of 3,500 in the EAA`s Theater in the Woods gave a collective moan of disbelief when Wilder said that Davis, who in 1936 was the first black to graduate from West Point in this century, was never spoken to by any of his classmates during his term at the military academy.
”It was like he was an invisible man,” Wilder said.
For the several hundred Tuskegee Airmen present it was more than just recognition and awards.
”These people are like family,” said R.P. Orduna, one of 35 Tuskegee Airmen from Chicago.
”The experiences we shared, the time we spent together, the trials we all went through, it is a bond cemented over 50 years. It is wonderful to be together again.”
