The famous “Tuskegee Airmen” of the 332nd Fighter Group became part of the 15th Air Force, escorting American bombers as they flew over Italy. As escorts, flying P-47s and later P-51s, they were responsible for protecting larger bombers from German fighter planes.

At home, abroad and in the military, the airmen were challenged by racism, bigotry, segregation and limited opportunities for advancement, despite their heroic achievements. In 1948, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, which imposed equality of treatment and opportunity in all U.S. Armed Forces.

In the North, black freedmen who rushed to join the Union Army were refused due to a 1792 law barring African-Americans from enlisting. These laws were rescinded in the North by the Militia Act of 1862, and ultimately by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

These black Airmen managed to destroy or damage over 409 German airplanes, 950 ground units, and sank a battleship destroyer. They ran more than 200 bomber escort missions during World War II. Yet, these same men returned to the US only to face continued discrimination.

Willie Rogers, the last member of the original Tuskegee Airmen, dead at 101. The oldest surviving member of the original Tuskegee Airmen, Willie Rogers of St. Petersburg, Florida, died Monday.

The last known member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen from Omaha has died. Robert Holts was 96 years-old when he died Friday and had spent his final years at an assisted living center in Bellevue.

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General Charles McGee

66 Tuskegee

The film notes, correctly, that 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses were awarded to the unit and 66 Tuskegee Airmen were killed in action.

The Tuskegee Airmen overcame segregation and prejudice to become one of the most highly respected fighter groups of World War II. They proved conclusively that African Americans could fly and maintain sophisticated combat aircraft.

Arkansas’s original Tuskegee Airmen were a part of a segregated group composed of African-American Army Air Corps cadets, personnel, and support staff known as the Tuskegee Airmen. There were twelve Arkansans documented who performed and maintained various roles at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

Benjamin O. Davis Jr.

Before 1940, African Americans were barred from flying for the U.S. military. Civil rights organizations and the black press exerted pressure that resulted in the formation of an all African-American pursuit squadron based in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1941. They became known as the Tuskegee Airmen.

‘Red Tails,’ the movie based on the historic Tuskegee Airmen starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terence Howard opens today. View Photo Gallery: The new George Lucas film is inspired by the true World War II story of the nation’s first African American aerial combat unit. The director, also a black man, is Anthony Hemingway.

The Tuskegee Airmen once shot down three German jets in a single day. Davis, commander of the Tuskegee airmen, set out on the longest escort mission their crews would fly during World War II.

The 332nd Fighter group was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for its’ longest bomber escort mission to Berlin, Germany on March 24, 1945. During this mission, the Tuskegee Airmen (then known as the ‘Red Tails’) destroyed three German ME-262 jet fighters and damaged five additional jet fighters.

During World War II, the Civil Aeronautics Authority selects 13 black cadets to become part of an experimental program at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The program aims at training “colored personnel” to become fighter pilots for the Army. However, discrimination, lack of institutional support and the racist belief that these men lacked the intelligence and aptitude for the job dog their every step. Despite this, the Tuskegee Airmen, as they become known, more than prove their worth.

Aaron McGruder

January 20, 2012 (USA)

“Red Tails” is entertaining. Audiences are likely to enjoy it. The scenes of aerial combat are skillfully done and exciting. It makes the point that the airmen were skilled and courageous, and played a historic role in the eventual integration of our armed services.

The Spitfire entered service with No. 19 Squadron at Duxford in August 1938. Production was slow at first, but by September 1940 it was in service with 18 RAF squadrons. Spitfires shot down a total of 529 enemy aircraft, for a loss of 230 of their own.

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1941

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Flak-Bait

More than 50,000 Airmen lost their lives in the four years of WWII and the majority of those losses were on bomber missions over Nazi Germany in B-17s and B-24s. The average age of the crew of a B-17 was less than 25, with four officers and six enlisted Airmen manning the aircraft.