The Tuskegee Airmen:
332 Fighters, Zero Bombers Lost

In 1940, the Army Air Corps commissioned a study at the Army War College to determine whether Black men were capable of flying military aircraft. The study concluded they were not — citing intelligence scores, supposed emotional instability, and cultural inferiority. The conclusion was predetermined: the Army had no intention of integrating its air corps. The study was used to justify a policy of total exclusion. In 1941, under political pressure from the NAACP, Black newspapers, and Eleanor Roosevelt — who took a flight with Chief Civilian Instructor C. Alfred "Chief" Anderson to demonstrate that Black pilots could fly — the War Department relented and established an experimental all-Black flying unit at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

The choice of location was deliberate: deep in Alabama's segregated heartland, far from the political pressure of northern cities. The facilities were inferior. The trainees were subjected to the full apparatus of Jim Crow off base. And the military fully expected them to fail, providing justification for permanent exclusion.

The 99th Pursuit Squadron deployed to North Africa in April 1943. Despite initial resistance from white commanders who tried to remove them from combat duty based on fabricated performance complaints, the 99th's record spoke for itself. The four squadrons of the 332nd Fighter Group — flying P-51 Mustangs with distinctive red tails — flew escort missions protecting B-17 and B-24 bombers on raids over Romania, Austria, and Germany. Bomber crews actively requested the Red Tails as their escorts, saying they had earned a reputation for staying with their charges rather than breaking off to chase German fighters for individual kill credits.

The Airmen received 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 14 Bronze Stars, and 744 Air Medals. Sixty-six were killed in combat. When they returned home, they were required to use segregated facilities at Southern bases. In Freeman Field, Indiana, in 1945, 101 Black officers were arrested for entering a white officers' club. Their court-martial — the "Freeman Field Mutiny" — became a catalyst for the postwar desegregation push.

In 1948, President Truman signed Executive Order 9981 desegregating the U.S. military. The Tuskegee Airmen's record — and the broader record of Black military service in WWII — was a direct factor. The military's own efficiency arguments made segregation indefensible: the Army could not argue that Black soldiers were incompetent when their combat record documented the opposite. The desegregation of the military became the first major federally mandated desegregation of any American institution — seven years before Brown v. Board of Education.

The Airmen's story was suppressed in mainstream accounts of WWII for decades. The 2012 film Red Tails brought it to wide public attention — but with significant historical liberalization. In 2007, the surviving Airmen were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. The oldest was 108 years old. Several noted that the honor came 60 years late.