Tuskegee Airmen: American Heroes

is a good one. Yeah, and it's uh, I mean, this is what we typically like to do, stuff that's like your very little known history. I would say Tuskegee Airman is is does not fall into the little known category, yet still undersung. I think even after two not very good feature films. Oh did you see any of them? I had? The only one I'm familiar with was um, I think it's just called the Tuskegee Airman, and I

kept confusing it with Memphis Bell. Yeah, Tuskegee Airman was an HBO movie with Larry Fishburne and other Malcolm Jamal Warner. I think, yeah, good seeing him, sure always, but uh, I mean that one was okay, but I think better than the Red Tails movie was. Uh yeah, Red Tails just wasn't very good, which is a shame. Sure. But speaking of shame, let's talk about how the Tuskegee Airmen retreated.

Just to get started, Um, we should kind of briefly go over like the history of African Americans in the military, because where we really pick up with our story the Inner War period between World War One and World War Two. Um, the military was very much segregated still officially, just like America was. It was law. Segregation was law at the time. But that's not to say that, um, African Americans hadn't served in the military and US previously, uh, in some

pretty substantial roles too. Yeah, I mean dating back to like when they were not even considered Americans, Like when when uh, I mean, I keep wanting to say black Americans, but they were not considered that, like during the Revolutionary War, um, on both sides. Actually, as you'll learn in a short stuff about black loyalists, it's interesting that slaves fought for and against the revolution, really interesting all the way up through.

And you know, we should do podcasts on a lot of these things, but they fought in the War of eighteen twelve. They fought as the Buffalo Soldiers in many of the conflicts against Native Americans all the way up through World War One, where they joined the army, despite the fact that there was segregation at home and in the military um, notably the Harlem hell Fighters who fought with the French, and even though Americans did not fully

recognize that as an accomplishment, the French government did. Ironically, Yeah, if that sounds kind of weird to you, the the American military had an all black regiment and said here, you take them to to France, and France was like, sure, we'll take them, We'll use them and awarded them the Quada Gair for Heroism in combat um, which is like,

if you'll remember our Native American code talker episode. France, especially World War One, had kind of a history of awarding and recognizing bravery among minorities that were just totally shown to the United States, you know, yeah, And I mean there was even a study conducted by the Army War College in nineteen five about the fitness and suitability of black soldiers in the military, and it was just it was brutal and racist, and you know, just said

the worst things you can imagine about the lack of fitness for a black man to serve for the Americans in the American military. Yeah, and I think this Army War College study was basically just a an official position paper that that summed up the sentiments among military officers and most of the military at the time. Um that they just wanted to get it down on paper. It's like an official position so that that it wouldn't be eroded, that they could say this is the military's official position

on black people. And essentially what it said was black people are not intellectually capable of receiving like theoretical training. They they can probably be you know, um worked into uh like combat troops, but it's going to take a lot more effort and you really have to dumb it down and then maybe you can organize them into a combat troop. But really, we don't have high hopes for this, so we should probably just not mess with the whole thing and just keep it in all white military. Yeah.

That that was And despite all of this, there were still black soldiers who a achieved in the military, uh, most notably in the reason we bring this Uh, this gentleman up. Benjamin O'Davis sr Uh became the first black general in the U. S. Military. He figures prominently in the Tuskegee Airmen story, and that his son, Benjamin Davis Jr. Uh, Well, we'll we'll tell you what he did, but he figured

very prominently in the formation and story of the Tuskegee Airmen. Yeah, he's huge, he's um one of the leading figures, and he gets most of the glory and the press and everything, but there were plenty of others who who served quite valiantly. Yeah, so that that's like the briefest of summations. I definitely think we should do one on the Buffalo Soldiers at some point. Tots agree like, I don't understand why Bob Marley drew that that um line between Prasta's and Buffalo soldiers.

I'm not kidding, Like I know that it sounds like a hilarious thing that Josh would say, but I have always always wondered that, like what is he talking about? What's the you know, were they were they rostas or something like that, or is it do they have the spirit of the roster vice versa. I'd love to get to the bottom of that. Alright, let's do it. Okay, alright, I'm excited. So that brings us to World War two. UM. And like you said before, segregation is still, uh the

law in the United States. Race racism was rampant, and it still is in a lot of places in this country, but back then very much rampant. Uh. And despite all that, there were still plenty of African Americans who wanted to be in the army and wanted to fly planes. And this was pre Air Force. It was called the uh, the Army Air Corps. Yes, and we should say like

this was extremely prestigious to be in the Army. Air Corps was far and away the most prestigious branch of the military, although it wasn't technically its own branch, but the UM. The it was the most prestigious part of the military. UM because it was widely considered and rightfully so you had to be really really sharp, really smart, really quick on your toes, and just really large and in charge. Basically to fly planes in the military. It

was still pretty new. It was a fairly new thing, and the whole the whole world, but also the US really looked up to aviators at the time because this is at a time where if you flew across country, you just you just made history kind of thing. So to to UM to be a part of the Army

Air Corps, that was a that's a sweet plum right there. Yeah, And so you know, we we move over to Alabama at the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, and this was a place where you if you were a Black American and you wanted to go to college and get a higher education, that was a great place to start. Uh. Founded in

one by Lewis Adams and Booker T. Washington UM. And during this period they had something called the Civilian Pilot Training Program, which is it was established basically to get a pool of pilots with experience, uh, people who could train pilots in the United States. And there were black colleges participating in this program, and Tuskegee was one of them. Yeah.

The Howard University also had a program. UM. There were also like by this time, there was some UM black aviation history that had been established and it was small, but it was really proud, and rightfully so, because if you were an African American and you said, you know what I really look up to all these pilots too, I want to go be a pilot. The first story you went to got slammed in your face. The next

door you went to, slamming in your face. And again, like the idea that black people couldn't learn how to fly a plane, So how are you going to let one fly a plane or try to teach them? What's the point? It's also probably pretty dangerous and expensive. Um, Like you could not as an African American get into a flight school. And so some of these earliest African American pilots in aviation history and like the say, like the twenties, the early thirties, like some of them were

self taught. There's a guy, see Alfred Anderson, who taught himself how to fly in land planes because no flight school would teach him, no white pilots would teach him. He had to save up biz own plane and teach himself, and he became a legend. He's known as the father of black aviation in America. Yeah, and there's a like you said, a very small but proud list, Bessie Coleman. It was a black woman who went to France to learn to fly. She was black and Native American yeah,

we should, she should get her an episode two. Uh. In NY two, James Banning and Thomas Allen became the first black pilots to fly across the US from l A to New York, and they as well. At least Banning could not go to flight school, so he basically found a white pilot who would give him private lessons,

which is pretty remarkable. Um. And the cool thing about this story is they, uh, it cost a lot of money to fly across the country at any point, so they would stop in black communities and raise money basically and say, hey, get you know, donate some cash. You can sign our airplane and that will allow us to buy fuel to get to the next stop as we go across country. Yeah. So they became the first black pilots to fly all the way across the US as

a result, which is that's pretty great. But it was like it was, it was stories like this and people like these um who were profiled in the black press at the time that I don't want to say, I guess the press was pretty much segregated at least, but for all practical purposes, African America had its own um pressed and I guess the standard establishment press was just writing stories about white people only, uh or things that related to white people. So African Americans had their own press.

So stories of people like this UM spread throughout the country and inspired like whole new generations of pilots. And it also inspired, like you said, the Tuskegee Institute and Howard University and some other private schools like one formed by Cornelius Coffee and Willi Brown in Chicago to actually

start training black pilots. And so this is a this is already established by the time the drumbeat, the earliest drumbeat to World War Two started and UM, the the US, led by Franklin Roosevelt, said we need to get the civilian pilot training program going because we need a pool of people who already know how to fly in case we need to turn them into military pilots as well. Yeah, And the the idea here with these uh, with the black journalists and newspapers was here, here's what we want.

You know, there's the V for victory slogan and campaign. Let's start up something and get the word out called the double V campaign, which is basically victory in Europe but also for black soldiers, victory at home and trying to make a dent and discrimination and racism. If we go over there and we can fight and we can fly planes and serve our country, maybe that might make a difference when we come back home that we were

you know, distinguished with our military service. So that was a double V campaign trying to get victory at home against racism as well as in Europe on the ground with the military. And none of this might have happened had it not been for one Eleanor Roosevelt. And maybe we should take a break there. Yeah. What does Eleanor Roosevelt have to do with all this? We'll find out in just a minute, all right, Chuck. So, I mean,

I'm just gonna say it, Eleanor Roosevelt, give it up. Yeah, man, I mean she was a great lady in a lot of ways. But uh, what she did in the case of the eventual Tuskegee Airmen was she visited Tuskegee. Um, they had a training airfield called Moten Field m O t O N. Yeah. Because remember this is like they're they're they're flying program that they already established. Yeah, so she visits, Uh, she's watching the pilots take off, fly around land, and she was like, good argue in one

of those planes. That is a bitch in Eleanor Roosevelt man, And they said sure, So she went up with an African American pilot. She she went up with that, see Alfred Anderson, the self taught father of aviation. Yeah, and everything went great and she had apparently a good time, went back home and got in her husband's ear and was like, Hey, these these guys can fly planes. They're doing a great job. They're fit for military service. So let's let's get this thing going in earnest And he

did so, uh in January. So here's the thing. This is what I'm on clear on, Like it's it's doubtless that Eleanor Roosevelt played a role in making sure that this this actually happened, that that um African American pilots were eligible to fly for the US military, the Army Air Corps. Right, But the timing of it I can't

quite suss out either. The US military said, yeah, we're going to establish a black pilots training program at Tuskegee UH in January nine, and then Eleanor Roosevelt showed up a couple of months later to make sure that this actually happened, or she showed up and then they established it. I can't quite suss that out, but either way, she's a pretty cool lady, Like she went down and saw for herself and then came back and said, hey, we

really should make this happen. Or she knew that this was happening but also could see people just dragging their feet, so she went down to shine light on the whole prosper the project, and uh, it kind of took off from there. I feel forgive the pun. Either way, she she played some sort of pretty cool role in getting it going. Yeah, and when it first started, there was sort of a joint affair between Tuskegee and the Army Air Corps as far as uh providing funding and equipment personnel.

They all sort of chipped in a little bit. Um. There were flying a few different planes for training, one biplane, the Steerman PT seventeen. Eventually they were able to move over to the Tuskegee Army air Field a few miles away from Moten Field, where they had access to the P forty Warhawk, and then they were like now we're talking right, But also, I mean the initial primary training at motion field was this kind of quasi university military training,

almost like an r OTC air training program. And then once you graduated from primary, you moved over to the Army field and you were full on on a military base in military life. Yeah, and this like this, this wasn't the first time that black pilots tried to apply. Like pre Tuskegee, they were applying. Recruits were applying and getting rejected every time they tried to get into the Air Corps. Eventually the N double A CP got involved,

a lawsuit was filed UM. And even after that, when they started admitting black men into the Air Corps, it was ten cadets every five weeks, so they were you know, it looks like they were purposefully just sort of stymying the process through red tape and bureaucracy to still not

allow them to train. Yeah. And initially so that that lawsuit UM was by a Howard University student named Yancey Williams who wanted to be a just straight up Army Air Corps cadet, and the N double A CP back back the lawsuit UM, and the result was apparently the military saying, okay, we'll just start to segregated all Black Pilot program where the n double a CP and most black leadership wanted just integration in the Army Air Corps.

So they were like, okay, fine, we'll take it, but we're not like, this is not what we were going for, but we'll take this. It's better than nothing. I guess, yeah, that's that's probably a good way to put it. Um. But the program starts up in earnest. However few cadets they were allowing. It started to build up. These men

are getting trained. Um men from the north came down and this is you know, this is an Alabama during the Jim Crow era, and there are there's one documentary called They Fought Two Wars, which basically was like, you know, they're getting trained, they're serving their country, and then they go out like on the weekend maybe for a little R and R and then met by the southern whites of Alabama who basically, you know, treated him exactly how

you would expect. There was even a petition to end the program just because they were like, there are so many black men in our town. Now, we don't want them in our community, right, Surely something bad will happen to our community. Because of this, there was also apparently at least one incident where black military police were disarmed by white locals around Tuskegee civilians Yeah, who just refused to recognize that they had any authority over them whatsoever,

military police or not. UM. And the at the time this this happened early on, the commander of the UM of the base, UH Ellison, James Ellison, Major James Ellison, was UM. He protested very loudly and very vocally and said this is messed up. I won't stand for this. And they said, hey Ellison, UM, yeah, we need somebody who is on the side of the recruits, but maybe not quite so much of a true believers. So you come over here with us and we're gonna relieve you

of your post. And instead they brought in a guy named Colonel Noel Parrish, and he was maybe a little less gung ho about civil rights and equality and desegregation. UM. He very much withstood and stood up with the segregationist policies of the military. He didn't fight against it, but within this framework he's very much credited for UM being very fair, very even handed UM and giving like full throated, legitimately good UM quality training to these black recruits at Tuskegee,

like he wasn't. They weren't getting um like subpar or or less than adequate training compared to their white counterparts elsewhere. They were getting just as good training to be trained. Like he was taking it seriously and he was being

fair about it. So um, he's he's suspected for for that to to have overseen this, um this this project, I guess fairly, rather than he very easily could have gone to the other side and just dragged his feet to or put up unnecessary roadblocks and obstacles too, but

he didn't. Yeah, And one of the uh, I guess you could call it one of the silver linings of the segregation in the military was there was already a ninety nine pursuit Squadron was already established, which were black cadets to get training on maintenance and tech support for UH, for the for the air patrol. So they were already in place. So by the time Tuskegee gets rolling and these cadets are being sent in to learn to fly, they were like, let's just give them the ninety nine

pursuit squadron. So it was basically an all black unit, from the maintenance, to the to the technical support to the pilots that were training. Obviously not the instructors. But I get the feeling, you know, from research at that lent Um some sort of uh kind of led to camaraderie and that they had their own guys on the ground and training you know, oh yeah, yeah for sure. I mean like it was an basically an all black squadron and not all the commanders um or trainers were

white like that. My favorite guy, chief Alfred Anderson UM, he was the ground commander in chief that self taught father of aviation he UM. He was the head of the ground commanders at Tuskegee. So there was a mixed But one of the things I think you kind of hit upon that gets overlooked is when you talk about Tuskegee and the Tuskegee Airmen, UM, you're talking about four hundred to five hundred ish pilots fighter pilots typically UM

that are thought of as a Tuskegee airman. But there were so many more people that made up like this whole project, this whole movement basically UM that I think there was something like twelve housing, like people trained in aviation through the that that are really technically Tuskegee airmen. They they are considered um so and they get overlooked a lot because the fighter pilots get all the glory. But I mean these are all these people played a

huge significant role in the whole thing. Yeah. So we mentioned uh at the onset the first African American general Benjamin O'Davis Sr. And that his son figured prominently. So that's Ben Jr. Uh, he comes in. He went to he followed in dad's footsteps. He went to West Point, where, you know, despite it was sort of like a Lord's of Discipline sort of seen there. Oh man, I forgot about that book. Yeah, man, that was good. Good movie. Um, I make brutal to watch, but a really good movie.

But Davis basically went to West Point, didn't give him a roommate, made him eat by himself. Uh. They say that he was like literally not spoken to by anybody unless they absolutely had to speak to him. Yet he persevered through all this. He graduated and uh went to teach at Tuskegee instead of going to command for enlisted troops. So it was a bit of serendipity that he ended up there. I think kind of right. At the same time,

this Air Corps began, which is really really kind of cool. Yeah, one of the first things he did was um as he was I think he became the commander of the ninety nine Pursuit Squadron. Um. He also was one of their first graduates. He was in the first class to graduate from flight school there. So, um, I don't know that he had much flight training prior to that, but he went and learned it. Became pretty distinguished as a pilot either way. But he he was immediately assigned the

ninety pursuit squadron. He was in charge of it, which is pretty cool, right. So um as the as the um the Tuskegee Airman started to distinguish themselves, which we'll talk about more in a minute. Um Davis kind of became distinguished as well because he was leading the whole show. Yeah, and you know, he he had been through West Point. He knew what the deal was. He was like, he knew that there was a lot more riding on this

than just forming an air squadron. He was like, black people all around the country are looking at us, They're banking on our success. Um, we have to like we have to be better than the best, UM, and so he was really tough. He tough but fair, but he would not put up with with anything that took away from their ultimate goal, which was to be the best

airman in the country, black or white. Um. Apparently there were black pilots who would wash out of the program that historians say, like, you know, if that was a white pilot, that he would have been allowed to keep going. Like that's how high the standard was that Davis set for the Tuskegee Airman, Right, Well, it wasn't just Davis, I think. I think they were saying like they were unfairly not given their wings, whereas a white pilot elsewhere

in another base undergoing training wouldn't have washed out. So some of the pilots that that did wash out probably did because they were being held to unfair racist standards, not necessarily by Davis, but by some of the white commanders and trainers. You see what I'm saying. Yeah, but I saw where Davis was very quick to give someone the aust if they didn't think they were living up

to their position. Yeah. So the upshot of that, though, Chuck, was that, UM, the people who graduated from this program at Tuskegee were really really good pilots. I mean really good pilots. They were just held to, whether fair or unfair, higher standards. They had to prove themselves more than say, their white counterparts at other bases, and so the ones who actually did manage graduate were just as good as

it got. But what's said is for the people who washed out, they might not have washed out of some of the other programs, like if they had been white elsewhere in another program. Um. So that and of itself

is kind of demoralizing. But what really getches when you step back and realize, like the the the men who were going through pilot training program were the face of black America, and so not only were they being watched by you know, um, by racists whites and supportive whites too, but but say from racist whites to just watch for them to fail. I think Henry L. Stimpson, who was the Secretary of War, said sure, we're going to give him a shot, but I expect nothing less than disaster

to be produced by this. And I think he met like literal disaster, like planes crashing everywhere kind of thing. So not only did you have like that kind of observation going on you at all time. You also carried with you the hopes and dreams and expectations of Black America, and not just Black America something big, in amorphous and vague like that, but your family and your church group and your community back home. We're all like pulling for

you but also really expecting everything from you. And if you graduated, that was huge, and if you washed out, I'm sure that was equally huge in the other direction. Yeah. So March uh two was when the first class of cadets graduated. Um, it would take another like four months or so five months to get enough pilots, you know, graduating through the program that they were a full fighter squadron.

And the early results you know they were. There were very high ranking US officials that were pretty impressed early on, including that Secretary of War Stimpson that you you talked about that predicted disaster. Yeah, he had a change of heart. Yeah, he visited Tuskegee and said, the outfit looks as good as any I've ever seen. Major General James Julio said, from results so far obtained to believe that the squadron

will give an excellent account of itself in combat. And that it would be a credit to its race and two Americans everywhere. Um. And despite this, it still took a long time to get the full confidence to actually send them into the theater of war in Europe. Well. Yeah, and I don't even know if it was confidence. I think, well, I guess it was confidence in a way. But there were other commanders of at the time they call them air forces, where it was like squadrons and groups just

put together like a huge mass of of UM. Air Corps subdivisions were called air forces at the time, So if you were running the show in an air force, you'd be like, I don't want them, I don't want them. And all of them were saying I don't want them. They couldn't give them away, so they were just stuck in America, while um, the United States had already joined World War two and was all fighting in places like

North Africa and the Mediterranean. Yeah, and I think, you know, I don't know if this is confirmed, but some say that Eleanor Roosevelt got in her husband's ear once again. Uh. And finally, in what April ninety three, they got their first orders thee to go to North Africa. Uh. In nineteen forty three, which was what is up like two

years after the first graduated class. So you know the upshot to this though, is they're still training this whole time, right right, They're just getting better and better in training. But can you imagine like having to sit around and wait waiting for the order to get out there? Yeah? So UM, some of the first assignments they got when they were running sorties off of North Africa. Um, they were there was an island called Panatella, I believe into

a knee cap Uh it's Pantalaria, Pantellaria. Wow, that was way off, Thank you for correct Yes, Um, Pantellaria was occupied by the Italian Army and they gave up. They surrendered the island without any ground forces having to land because the Tuskegee airmen were bombing them so bad. They

were sent dive bombing campaigns. And that usually consists of attacking a ground position, whether it's like um, some sort of transport like transport planes and an airfield or rail cars or um, you know, gas or water, infrastructure, just stuff to make the enemy rather uncomfortable or unable to operate in this place that they've occupied. Um. And it very rarely, uh requires any kind of aerial dog fighting

like we think of with fighter fighter pilots. It's more just attacking the enemy where they are rather than trying to battle for domination of the skies. That's what a dog fight is, It's what um fighter to fighter combat is. So this is different. So you're not gonna encounter other fighters typically, so you're not gonna have as many kills. They don't count like blowing up a set of rail cars as a kill, you have to shoot another fighter plane out of the sky, and that's what they really

count when you're a fighter pilot it. But if you're not being assigned those kind of sorties, you're not gonna rack up kills like that. So everybody understood this. This was fine, But apparently somebody was talking to the press back in America and ended up getting a story out of Time magazine that questioned the ninety nine fighter squadrons bravery because they've been flying all sorts of authorities, But

where were all their kills? All these other white pilots had all these kills, Where was the Tuskegee Airmen's kills? And the the context of that wasn't put into that that magazine. So what the rest of America read was the Tuskegee Airmen or cowards. And all of a sudden, Benjamin O'Davis Jr. Finds himself being called back to Washington to explain why his squadron are being called cowards in the national press. That's right, so let's pick that up

right after this message, because things changed in January. All right, So the Tuskegee Airmen are over there, uh doing these um you know, they're dropping bombs. They did get a little bit of um fighter to fighter action, but not enough, you know, to toward the press off. Uh. This is despite the fact that they had virtually um you know, they were still segregated. You know. What they usually did was say, here, let's mix in these uh, these new guys with some experience guys, and they can sort of

mentor them and help them out. Because it was segregated, they kept them separate. And yet they still persevered through all this. Uh. Like you said before the break, Davis comes home to the US to sort of battle these reports. Uh. And then things took a real change. In January. There was a uh patrol unit of twelve planes flying over

on CEO and they spotted these German fighters. Um, just like like Maverick and Goose and Top Gun although they were just training, right battle and top Gun right, No, there wasn't a battle, but they did engage that MiG Remember he flew upside down and flipped him off and took a polaroid. So dumb. So we're doing a sequel to that, you know, like a sequel with Tom Cruise and really yeah, yeah, and it's exactly what you would think.

It's Tom Cruise is now the veteran instructor and a and a young Maverick comes under his watch, and I don't even know, I'm not even sure, but it's I'm sure it's one of those deals where you know, Cruise gets to say, like I was you. Yeah, I'm gonna toss Christian Navarro's hat in the ring. How about that? I think they've already cast it, but uh, you never know. Maybe maybe we've got some whole chuck and we're just influence. Yeah, Christian,

if you're listening, we we're rooting for you, my friend. So, uh, they see these German fighters, these twelve planes, and they're like, let's go get them fellas. Uh, and they get into a dog fight, pretty legendary dog fight, and they record five kills in about four or five minutes, no losses, no losses. That's a big one too, Yeah, And it was a very big deal for the ninety nine after that. And this was like after these reports had come into

the US. They weren't like they were fairly dejected, but that made him hungrier than ever. And this is why they sort of flung themselves headlong into this attack and they made the news and they became known all of a sudden as these pilots that would really go after the Germans. They have a high kill rate, and it was a big deal. Yeah. So there's two other things. So not only um were they were they not being assigned missions typically that would rack up high kill rates,

so how can you criticize them for that? But secondly, when they were in North afric in their first assignment, they were given really old, really obsolete planes and they were um when they did engage German UH fighter pilots, they were out out classed as far as the planes are concerned. And they were still taking out Germans and dog fights, so like they had a lot going against them and still managed to prove themselves and then something

really big change. They got transferred over to the UM I believe, the fifteen Air Force and the nine hundred first and the three hundred and second, the four Tuskegee UM fighter pilot squadrons were all brought together under the three hundred and thirty second Fighter Group under the command now of Benjamin O'Davis Jr. Is a colonel at this point yep who and then placed under the fifteen Air Force and the Benjamin O'Davis Jr. And the guy who

headed up fifteen their force. They they had the same philosophy for the kinds of assignments that the Tuskegee Airmen would be carrying out from now on, which were bomber escorts, and it was don't leave the bomber squadron. Like when you're escorting bombers, that's the point. You don't you don't peel off and chase after any other jets that are like any German jets that are coming towards you. And there were German jets, but German fighter planes, UM, And

you don't chase them away. You just stay with the bombers. That's your point. And UM that's another thing that's not like you're not going to rack up a ton of kills in that respect. Yeah, I'm sure it was tough, like, especially given their reputation, they wanted to go shoot down German planes and Davis was like, no, man, you gotta like, uh, you gotta be disciplined in these these bombers are under threat and you gotta stick with them and so um.

As a result of this, they developed like a really great reputation for for safely escorting bombers to their destination. I mean, if you're part of a bomber fleet, you're flying behind enemy lines to go bomb a city or an oil refinery or something like that. And the purpose of these planes is not to shoot other planes out

of the sky. It's to drop bombs. So you need fighter jets to escort you, fighter planes to escort you to these drop sites, and um shoot away any other planes that are going to try to shoot you out of the sky. So it's pretty hairy, but it's also um like you're protecting the bombers. That's the point. So the reputation that they developed Chuck actually became legendary. There was a false, a false myth that generated around it. But one that even when you peel away the myth

and look at reality, it's still pretty impressive. Yeah. And the other thing that helped too was in you know, we mentioned that they were flying um, I mean, they weren't obsolete planes, they were just not as good as what they were flying against. Uh. They finally get the fifth one Mustang and they were like, now we're talking dudes, like this is this is go time? Really cool airplane. One of my favorites of all time is that fifty one Mustang. That's the World War two fire plane that

everybody thinks of. Yeah, I mean it's it's I want to use words here, I can't use on this show to describe it because I get so excited about it. But it's pretty sweet. So they now finally had and you did mention the jet, you know, the MEU the m E two six two from Germany was the first jet that used in combat like that. And if you look at this thing, it looks like I would rather have the Mustang. This thing looks dangerous to me. It

may well have been. I don't know much about it. Oh, you mean to be like the pilot of it, Yeah, I mean it was just an early small jet like I can't. I don't know. It was probably pretty scary to fly, or maybe it was great. I don't know. I'm but the three thirty second Now with their P fifty ones, they start painting there. You know we mentioned the movie Red Tails. That can comes from what they did on their wing. They painted their the tail of their plane red and that they became known for that.

It was very distinguishable from the air and there were a lot of bomber pilots who were like, we want these red Tales because these guys are awesome. And some of them didn't even know that they were black pilots. They just knew that they were Red Tails, right. And and again the Red Tails had developed a really good reputation for escorting bombers to their bomb sites. Um and what was their rank? What did they lose? Uh? I know that for many many years they said they never

lost a bomber, which is not true. They didn't. One of the newspapers in Chicago, the Chicago Defender, published a story in that of more than two hundred bomber escort missions, the Tuskegee Airmen never lost a bomber. Today is in people not the airmen. But that was the that was the myth that developed that they never lost a bomber. That is basically impossible over something like two hundred missions. Um. But that's the myth that stood for um like fifty

sixty years something like that. And then finally in a story and with the Air Force like actually dug in and did the shoe leather work on it and found, um, no, actually they did lose some bombers. They lost something like, uh, I think twenty six or twenty seven bombers, but out of like the two hundreds something missions, that is still

a ridiculously small amount. And that other um squadrons and fighter groups in the fifteenth Air Force they average something like forty seven, so almost double what the Tuskegee Airman saw in losses. So they had paltry losses. But yeah, the idea that they just wouldn't have ever lost a bomber is it's it's impossible. You just couldn't not lose a bomber over that many missions. So you know, we all know how World War two ends. UM spoiler alert,

the Allies. Uh, the Allies did their job, and so the Tuskegee Airmen start to get sent home like with other troops over the years. And here's the you know that the double V campaign. They were hoping they come home and they are more accepted, and they might even be revered, they might get good jobs, they might become

commercial airline pilots. None of those things happened. Very sadly, that did not equate to equality back home, which is one of the troope like black eyes on this country's history. You know, yeah, um, some of them, I mean yeah,

that was it should have just automatically triggered. Well, they shouldn't have This should have never happened in the first place, right, like dragging feet on segregation and making African America jump through these hoops like this, um, rather than just integrating, like making a segregated Air Air Corps squadron first and letting them prove themselves like that and then once they proved themselves still not opening doors or anything like that. Um.

It that it should have never happened. But the fact that it didn't happen automatically is pretty pretty shameful. It

did they It's not like they weren't successful. Though. They laid the groundwork and they laid the foundation, and they began the momentum for a lot of people, say the civil rights movement that, um, they they what they the groundwork that they laid, the way that they changed America's minds about black people in general, like oh, they actually can fly planes, and oh they can't shoot Germans out of the sky, and oh look at this, they can

actually do better at bomber escorts than white counterparts. Right. Um, that change and mentality that they were able to take advantage of in this circumstance and history, that changed everything. So they were very much successful in that. It's just shameful that that they had to just keep fighting and keep pressing on that this was really just the first step rather than the last. Yeah, for sure, But I mean I think that wording is is perfect picked. It

was the groundwork, absolutely, the foundation. Foundational groundwork was laid. Um. As for Colonel Davis, he uh after the war in ninety is when Truman ended segregation in the military. Uh. Colonel Davis advised on that integration and had a great career. He retired in nineteen seventy and in very cool was made an honorary General of the Air Force, four star general.

So he'd made it to lieutenant general before he retired, UM, and I think a four star lieutenant general, and then Clinton advanced him to general, so he was a four star general of the Air Force after retirement. That's right. Yeah, pretty great story. Yeah, it is a pretty great story. There was also something called the Freeman Field Mutiny, which is kind of happening in the off to the side

the UM. The Tuskegee Airman also formed a bombardier group, a bomber group of bomber pilots that never saw any action, but saw a lot of races and segregation in back at home during training. And there was one event that's called the Freeman Field Mutiny where they basically protested segregated officers clubs, segregated and unequal officers clubs. And the way that they protested it um through basically civil disobedience, but in the military at a time when you could be

executed for disobeying and direct order, which they were given. UM, they stood up for their civil rights. And that's another way that that another thing that's pointed to as laying the foundation for the civil rights movement, peaceful civil disobedience, and that actually came out of the Tuskegee Airman's story as well. Absolutely good stuff, good stuff. Check. This is a good idea to cover this one. Yeah, I mean

this was long overdue. But uh, like I said, I don't think we had an article on the House of Fork site, so we just went out and had it commissioned on our own. Nice work. Uh. Well, let's see. If you want to know more about the Tuskegee Airmen, apparently, go watch a couple of so so movies. There's some documentaries out there. One of them is called They Fought Two Wars, which is perfectly titled. Um. And there's also I think an American experiences a lot of stuff. Start reading,

go to Tuskegee, Alabama. Do all that stuff? Okay, yes, And since I said do all that stuff, it is time for listener man, I'm gonna call this, uh the Tits Project. Hey, guys, just listen to the elephant episode. And Josh mentioned that typically groups of birds and deer don't actually know each other like elephants and recognize one from the other. However, I just read an article in

a recent Audubon magazine. Um, I know, he said typically, but I wanted to point you towards this study that is really interesting, the with Them Tit project in Britain. It is a very long running study where they're looking at the relationships between tits in Britain and they have found that they run in social groups and appear to have friends. I highly recommend giving a read appearent when

these guys must recognize each other. And I actually read it, and that's why I'm recommending it because it's a really great article. It's uh, it's called It's from Audubon Magazine, Audubon dot com or I'm sorry dot org the Surprising connection between Birds, Facebook and other social networks. Very cool article. So that is from Miranda and Duluth, Minnesota. Nice. You can go read that and have fun, fun, fun on the Audubon magazine until Daddy takes your laptop away. Weird.

That was great, Chuck. I don't think we can improve on that. So we're just going to say, if you want to get in touch with us, you can um join us on all of our social media networks. UH, go to stuff you should know dot com. It's basically the clearinghouse for links to find us hanging out on the social meds. UH. And you can also send us an email, send it to stuff podcast at that's the AT symbol how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works

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