The Tuskegee Airmen were dedicated, determined young men who enlisted to become America's first black military airmen, at a time when there were many people who thought that black men lacked intelligence, skill, courage and patriotism. They came from every section of the country, with large numbers coming from New York City, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Detroit. Each one possessed a strong personal desire to serve the United States of America at the best of his ability. The Tuskegee Airmen were initially equipped with P-40 Warhawks , briefly with P-39 Airacobras (March 1944), later with P-47 Thunderbolts (June-July 1944), and finally with the aircraft that they became most commonly identified with, the P-51 Mustang (July 1944).
great story and photos.it's interesting going to air shows especially when there's ww2 era aircraft involved.they are quite intimidating even without bombs and weapons onboard.there are many airfields left from that era.some in better condition than others.also the airfields around the country and world where civilians worked building and adapting these aircraft for combat purposes.hats off to the men and women who flew and maintened them.
The Tuskegee Airman also went down in history as the first fighter pilots to down a a jet fighter (ME 262). I may be mistaken but I believe that they never lost a a bomber to the Luftwaffe.
Personally, this is why I think intergration, hurt the progress of blacks in many ways... After military intergration, all such units were dissolved...and it was no longer about living up to ones potental...instead it become about living down to others low expectations of you... And taking on a 'subservant' role.... Even now, as I look at different communities in America...I notice the ones that developed seperatly, but next to the majority, seem to do the best...economically and socially.... And the groups or group that insisted on forced intergration...well just look at the inner cities and high incarceration rates ect ect and food stamp programs... I think independence makes you more hardy and self reliant...it's a mindset many blacks in this country use to have, pryor to the civil rights era... Once intergration was passed, blacks simply became footstools for society at large...
I just watched Night At The Museum 2 and thought of this thread. "The Tuskegee Airmen are on the move."
My first thought was the Tuskegee Experiment The United States government did something that was wrong—deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. It was an outrage to our commitment to integrity and equality for all our citizens. . . . clearly racist. —President Clinton's apology for the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment to the eight remaining survivors, May 16, 1997 For forty years between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service conducted an experiment on 399 black men in the late stages of syphilis. These men, for the most part illiterate sharecroppers from one of the poorest counties in Alabama, were never told what disease they were suffering from or of its seriousness. Informed that they were being treated for “bad blood,” their doctors had no intention of curing them of syphilis at all. The data for the experiment was to be collected from autopsies of the men, and they were thus deliberately left to degenerate under the ravages of tertiary syphilis—which can include tumors, heart disease, paralysis, blindness, insanity, and death. “As I see it,” one of the doctors involved explained, “we have no further interest in these patients until they die.” Hotwater
