Airmen Flew High

soldiers for a bite at the station cafe. The corporal was told they would only be served if they ate in the kitchen. They were in Louisiana and these American soldiers were black. They had black failers underloading ammunition and loading ammunition and it blew well and killed over a hundred of them. The black they were just given almost many of jobs. I get in sense before we get to camp, show me we see white person walk and a black person was walking there. The black person and

jump off the curb were Dumfountain. Welcome to Service, Stories of Hunger and War, a production from I Heart Radio and Me your host Jacquelin Reposo. So what are we fighting for? Call to serve in World War two for those with specific racial and ethnic identities contained huge levels

of hypocrisy. We should be rightly appalled by the Nazi concentration camps, but as well here in detail in our episode with laws in Ichirosakai, Japanese American citizens were being interred here and Jim Crow's segregation laws didn't evaporate when African Americans entered the armed forces. For most of the war, troops were entirely segregated, with most black units led by white officers and many barriers delaying their advancement, but victory

was still the word during this time. We heard Frank DaVita referred to victory al in his episode in East Jackson, Mississippi. The Food for Victory Association set up a fair in August of to educate civilians about how, as the local Jackson Advocate newspaper put it, without the proper food, we

cannot win the war. And a few months later, a letter from a reader published in another African American newspaper, the Pittsburgh Courier, inspired citizens to fight a double V campaign, a promise to actively support war efforts and encourage not only victory over fascism abroad, but also victory over racism at home, those servant were to push and prevail, and those state side were to keep pressure on politicians and

to keep publishing. George Hardy, a retired lieutenant colonel who started his career as one of the prestigious Duskegee Airmen the All African American Fighter Pilot Group, leads us into this double V world today. Of the one million African American men who served during World War To, George is somewhat of an outlier as well. Hear most African American troops were put into support positions like supply and those

requiring manual labor, but George was a combat pilot. He doesn't mince words when it comes to some of the hardships he faced in his pursuit of higher rank. But like many of his greatest generation, he does brush off some of this history too, and you'll hear heavy silences as he reflects. And so. Now, from his quiet home aside a pond in Sarasota, Florida, let's slow and sit and spend some time with George Hardy. My name is George Hardy, and I'm a retired lieutenant colonel, United States

Air Force. However, in World War Two. I was in the Army because it wasn't a separate air force at that time, part of the United States Army Air Corps and then United States Army Air Forces. I was born in n phil If he was divided in many areas, you had areas of Africa Americans live, Italians live, Irish and whatnot. And growing up on Red Street in South Philly,

I went to all the George Smith Elementary School. Now that school wasn't all Africa American school teachers principles everybody who goes right on the edge of a black area. Then I went to Junior High school predominantly white, mainly Italians. Then I went to Celphodofia High School to ins and eighty one of my graduating class, only four were Africa American. So you see how the race was divided into the city. There was racial tension, but I didn't feel it too much.

I made several friends down there. One of my best friends was a Jewish kid, and then a couple of Italian kids, but the only contact A with them was at school. Two separate lives, two separate friends. Those friends at school and then those friends at home. And that's the way life was, but you get used to that after a while. There were seven of us in my family. I was next to the oldest. My older brother was born three. My mother always always at home. She did

the cooking, she did the ironing, she did everything. My father he had worked and he had come home, and my father was a disablinaria. But my mother wasn't. What she would do most is wait until your father comes home. We got along very well, and I love my father. I used to tink it with everything around the house, and I would take things apart. And I remember I got to the nice clock off the mantelpiece and got it behind a chair, and my mother caught me. Oh, George,

come here, well, I'll put it back together. No, no, no, leave it alone, and wait till your father gets home. And I sweated the rest of the day because he got home. Eddie, come on and show you what George did. He looked at me and he shook his head and he said, you know, Alma, I think he's going to be an engineer. And he picked up the pieces and took him to the table, sat down, and while they put them together that he was talking to me, who

was such wonderful sitting with him. We were just good friends, and at that moment I decided I wanted to be an engineer. But when you talk to kids, you've got to be careful what you say and how you say, because it may affect them. One little moment can make the difference in the child's life. They'll tell him which will be the important point, And that changed my life. Rather I did anctually get to graduate engineering degrees. Who

my father was from Philadelphia. My father now and then would fix a special dish that I love, kidney Stu beef kidneys. When he fixed that, I love to eat a delicious My mother's from the Bahamas. She's English, from Spanish and some Indian. But she drank tea, so in our house we didn't have coffee with at tea. When I went in the service. For years, I never drank coffee before I went on a mission. I just drink a glass of water or glass of milk and fly

my mission. My brother and two of his friends joined the Navy. My father was upset because of Afro American background. The Navy own accept them as mess attendants and they made my brother cook on a small destroyer. I remember December seventh, Sunday, I was upstairs doing my homework and I had the radio one to the Eagles football game. Didn't want my mother to hear it. They interrupted to

mention that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. I didn't tell any boy about it because I won't ful be listening to radio in the first place. So my brother been three in the air few years out over the North Atlantic in that tin can. A lot of my classmates, some of them over eight team, so they joined the service. Remember Pearl Harbor, Remember Pearl Harbor. I couldn't join because still too young to go into service, but I wanted

to beggest my brother. I got that slip the parents signed for you, the Navy would take you at seventeen. Talked to my father. He shook his head and said, no, I'm not going to sign it, but let's talk about it. And we talked about it. That is he did to talking. All I wanted was being engineer. Took science courses, I made it in math, and now to go around preparing food. They said, that's real come down, And by time he finished, I had no desire to go into the Navy as

Miss Attendant. I realized he made sense. I love listening to him. This country, it all came down from slavery. After the Civil War, the South, when they got their rights back, put in play segregation laws and a lot of those people in the South were in the military, and so the military was segregated. And that's the way

the country was at that time. You travel through the South Afri American, you couldn't stay at hotels with whites or eating any restaurants that separate entrances for Afro Americans and movie theaters. But it all boiled by the fact that the slavery was the basis of it, slaves, and then now people in the South didn't want to mix with them. That's the way the country was at that time. No matter what it is, it still our country. We were not Hitler over here or Jesus. Thing would be

even worse. The Japanese, the way they treated the Chinese, it was awful. You know that they came here. They would be after you too because you're different. And so the thing is you wanted to fight for what you know rather than what you don't know. You're ready to fight for your country through all wars we had Afro Americans fighting for this country just the way life is.

I guess President Roosevelt talking to the military about Afro American pilots, nay share what we can't have are for American pilots because the services segregated and all the flying squadrons of white President of why can't we have a black flying squadron. So they prepared for a black flying squadron ninety nine and they've selected Tuskegee because TuS Key had been involved in the civilian pilot training program to prepare pilots because of what was happening in Europe and

someone decided to do this. They felt that Tuskey had the best program and good flying weather. And Tuskey you had to hire civilian instructors, black instructors to train them to fly. And now I wanted to fly an airplane. The Battle of Britain, the fighter planes save Britain, and Germany is going to invade Britain, but they're going to soften it up with the Luffwaffe. The English were first

people who use radar. They were able to keep their fighter planes on the ground until the German planes got close enough than the fighter planes took off and they had full fuel tanks. Germans flying from France. They have to go back before too long. The fighter pilots beat them back, and so the Battle of Britain was wanted the fighters. In June forty two, the Japanese is going to take the island of Midway and came with these four carriers. We ended up sinking all four of those carriers.

So the air, hey, that's that's great center. As Churchill said, never in the field of human country for so much owed by so many to show too. And so I decided in forty three I wanted to fly watching forty three the Army and the Navy said, if you are seventeen and a high school graduate, you can take the example. He averred that, and what did I do? I'm still think Navy past exam and they realized who I was from my birth certificate, and they failed me on my

physical because some problem with my wisdom teeth. I went to the dynasty. He said, there's nothing wrong to your teeth. He said, they just don't want you. Then said, well, I'll go to the Army. They sent me home until I turned eighteen to report of July active duty orders to go to Keyston Army Airfield and Bloxy, Mississippi, for basic training. They put us on the train, three of us from Philadelphia. We're all going to Tuskegee after the break.

And then the captain turned to the driver and said, where can he eat, pointing to me. Stay with us. MHM. Welcome back to service stories of hunger and war from my Heart Radio. I'm Jacqueline Roposo and we're here with retired Lieutenant Colonel George Hardy. He's on a train leaving Philadelphia and route to becoming a fighter pilot in the U. S. Army Air Corps. There's actually more to Corporal Trimmingham's train

station story. Back at that cafe, two dozen guarded German POWs then sat in the dining room, eating, talking, smoking, having what appeared to be a swell time. What is the Negro soldier fighting for? He then questioned, in a letter to Yank Military Magazine. Are we not American soldiers sworn to fight and die if need be for this our country? Then why are they treated better than we are?

Rather than the specifics of what was in his k rations or base camp food, George is more apt to similarly recall the circumstances around which he was able to eat were not to eat, And as Trimmingham noted, whether or not you're included really matters when you're putting your life on the line for all of your fellow citizens and being asked to trust those around you with it. Let's continue with George's journey. Now, this isn't the first

time we've boarded a train with a serviceman. Check out our first episode with Pat d Ambrosio and you might hear a difference in how they recount their experiences. They gave us Pullman tickets, which surprised us. Three privates from Philophia Vienno Railroad to Cincinnati, and that was really great. We're in a Pullman car at the two berths on each side, so we had that section and the other people were in the rest of the car, most of

them are white. But then when we got to Cincinnati, they switched to the L and N Railroad and we still had Pullman tickets and we were the only Afro Americans in this car. So everything was fine, except when we went to eat to the dining car. Leaving Cincinnati go to the South and the laudess I'll say white and colored must be separated as far as eating. So they had a heavy curtain across with a few tables

behind it. For Afro American we had to go through to the dining car and then sit behind the curtain. And the curtain was waited so that someone went through it with blows on the bottom. And that's where we had to eat. When we went through the South do we got to be LuxI, Mississippi. But that's okay. Well we got the Keyston and then things got worse because once they got the keys the ups face we were absolutely segregator. We're on em barracks. We trained separately. We

had a separate mess hall. We'd go to the firing range. Whenever we were there, we were the only ones there. Other time whites would use it. And then went to Tuskegee in September called his Training Attachment. We had some good instructors of for American guys. They taught us in the pt nineteen and that's what I flew in. It was just a lot of fun. I was still eighteen when I learned to fly a received my wings as a pilot and my commission as a second lieutenant, and

you know, the racial problems keep coming in here. I was selected to go to a gunnery mate out in Texas. They have a competition with the top gunners. Somehow they picked me to go, and that was the experience I I didn't like to go to the gun remat. We went out in two T six is. A captain flew one and I rode in a back seat with him and a lieutenant, both of them a white instructors. I'm the one in the contest. So the first thing we do is went to a naval basset La puncher train

just outside of New Orleans. Well, I knew the navy was segregated, but captain went ahead and I got out to him and said, well, he can sleep around there. I went and washed up and got dressed, put my uniform on, and went to the captain's door to find out what we're gonna do about eating, because he's in charge. He wasn't there. I went down, I said, you know where the captains? Oh, he and the lieutenant they went into New Orleans. They left me. Didn't you tell me

where they're going? So I caught the bus win in New Orleans and got something to eat and came back the next day. Of the meat went off and I didn't win anything. It was just not the nicest affair. They wanted to go to Houston before they went back to Tuskegee, so we went to Ellington Field and landed there. I guess they realized what happened, and the captain said, I have a vehicle that's gonna pick us up and

take us into town. You can ride with us, and after we dropped off, you can go to where you want to go. And we got in this vehicle and the driver, the captain and lieutenant and meet and they asked where's the best stakes in town? And he said, well, you go to ship ahoydu. Most people go there, So he took him there and then he pulled up in front of the ship Ahoy and a lot of officers standing around. And then the captain turned to the driver

and said, where can he eat? Winning to me and the drivers looked at me and said right in there, And the captain looked at the lieutenant and they said, come on, let's go, So the three of us would in there. So I eat in that restaurant with them, and that night a lot of dancing in an egg and as glad lights were dark, but they had a good steak. I went over in February a fighter Squadron three second Fighter Group station in a base called Rama Telly. I just ate in the miss hole. Everything they had

where they had, I ate it. You had to have a good meal first thing, breakfast and breakfast. I would fill up on breakfast and I just ate anything I could get, except that the military had powdered eggs, and I hated those powdered eggs. I got a cigarette ration. I didn't smoke cigarettes, so I would take my cigarettes and trade them to the Italians for eggs. I forget how my eggs you can get for a pack of cigarettes, and I would take my eggs to the cook and

ask them to fix my eggs sunnyside up. And that's what I did for breakfast over there. I hate everything else they had, but I didn't like booth powdered eggs. If you look at the map of it Le, there's a spur out on the eastern side. We're just right at that point. That's where Ramatelli was. We talked to the east. By time gear came up, you out over the Adriatic. I flew a fight airplane fight. Airplane is a plane that has guns on it. The D models we have six machine guns on it. Only one person

in the airplane, and so it's a fast airplane. When you're flying airplane, if you look straight ahead, you're looking through your gun sight and you aim your airplane and you have your gun sight up there. You just put the thing on the target and the triggers on your stick that you use a control airplane. Every time you pull the trigger, the six guns would fly through anose plane. Now, the bomber airplanes they carry bombs to bomb over Germany.

We had those scoops in Italy. They would take off, get in formation and fly at high altitude to drop bombs on factories and things not in Germany, and the Germans would send up fighters to shoot them down. We would escort the bombers to fight the German airplanes in the air. That was our job to protect the bombers. So that was what I did. By the time I got over there, there weren't many German airplanes left. The only time I fired my guns was on strafeing missions.

Sometimes on a short mission. After the bombers are safe, you'd go back over Germany and look at targets of opportunity, trains, barges or trucks on the highway. You want to make sure the Germans can't move equipment and stuff around. Or I love to shoot an engine because they tend to blow up. But sometimes the targets fired back at you. So there you could see the shells coming back. You can't see the MAXI. But yeah, I tell you that

something is happening. It pumps up the Germans and that's the reason they want to get younger people to do that. A guy forty some years old, so are you crazy. I'm not gonna go down there. There's guns down there. But a guy eighteen, nineteen years old, he's going down. The captain says, do this. You're going to turn in and go down and space people because the guy head you said, listen, and you follow him down. And that's the way you learn. You don't have the fear of

I can't do that. When you go to pilot training, I can do anything. I went over in February nine and I flew twenty one missions in March and April, and then the war ended in maya forty five. I got up to Milan and places like that, but the Italians didn't have the restaurants and things like that that they had today, so you didn't enjoy that much. Most of the people they had very little, and a lot of them would come around to try to work to do things for you. That's how I got my eggs,

people coming to bar the things they wanted to get cigarettes. Remember, they fought a lot in Italy up the East coast and was tough fighting. The Germans have destroyed a lot of stuff before they would give it up. The Italians had a real rebuilding job to recover from that. In World War One, the other Germans didn't think they were really beaten. They felt they were betrayed by their leaders because they still had a full army and they surrendered.

But in World War Two they were completely devastated and so no more of that. And the Japanese we weren't sure about invading a pan We estimate and we would lose at least half a million man because the Japanese wouldn't surrender on these islands. But once they were completely beaten, now it's a different world. They've got to survive. I survive, and good Lord boldly through so I survive. I can

survive anything. We're leaving George mid story. He returned home from Italy and moved to New York to continue his education and be closer to his future wife, Beatrice, and they started what would be their family of four children. But then there was many moving parts of the Double V campaign started coming together. Trimmingham and Yank Magazine received hundreds of letters in response supporting Trimmingham's questioning of democracy, and it was later considered a milestone for moving the

cause forward. Then there were the accomplishments of African American troops abroad. As a group, the Tuskege Airmen flew fifteen thousand sorties over two years. Sorties are short attack missions. They captured or destroyed two hundred and seventy five German planes, one thousand trains or trucks, and a German destroyer, and the Germans only downed twenty five of the group's bombers. The next successful squadron had an equivalent average of forty

six downed planes. Then the Army conducted a classified survey of two hundred and fifty white officers who had served with black soldiers. Sixty four percent admitted to initial skepticism about integration, but after having served together, seventy seven percent had a more favorable view, and while sixty nine percent said they performed the same as white troops, seventeen percents

said they performed even better than them. Yet, from all branches of service, no African American World War Two veterans were given the Medal of Honor until when seven were, with only one, Vernon Baker, still alive to receive it. Still, the double V campaign triumphed when President Truman finally signed Executive Order one into effect in desegregating the armed forces entirely, and George was recruited to return and help fortify the

now independent Air Force. He joined back up soon, flying combat missions on bombers in the Korean War, and as a forty five year old lieutenant colonel, he then flew in Vietnam. So we're going to hear more from George incoming seasons. There is so much about the landscape behind George's story that was omitted from our classroom history books. You can find some links to archival newspapers, photos, and

more on our Instagram and Facebook. We are at Service Podcast and at George's page at Service podcast dot org and You can hear more of George in our for the Mechanically Minded episode, a short primer on military production. In our next episode, we board a ship with William walk Her, Chief Petty Officer first Class of the Navy. As William travels the Pacific, will incidentally hear more about the double V campaign from his ship's food holds back

to the diner counter. I want to share one more clip. George was married to Beatrice for twenty five years and then to his second wife, Bonnie for almost the same before she passed, and he's close with his children and two stepchildren too. Considering how our first six veterans this season are all widowers, I asked George how he keeps going after so much time fighting it ends up. While the mess hall life wasn't for him all those years ago, it is food service now that helps to keep him

in the light. I work in the food pamtry two days a week, serve up the nineties some people and do what I can. I will help anybody who someone needs help. Someone's got to do. It just won't be me Service. As a production from I Heart Radio and Me. Coln Riposo, our supervising producer, is Gabrielle Collins. Our executive producer, Christopher hasiotis Steven Satterfield voice Corporal Trimmingham for us, and I urge you to check out steven show Point of Origin right now on the I Heart Radio app or

wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you to Joe Faust of Tuskegee Airman, Inc. For connecting us with George for this episode. I highly recommend you explore more at Tuskegee Airman dot org. And thank you to Mike at the Sarasota Airport Hurts rental desk. He told me that when veterans come through, everyone in rentals comes out to stand in their appreciation. And I think these gestures of respect matter.

Let's keep doing them and talking about them. Thank you for listening, and thank you those who are serving and those who have served