page_title: Tuskegee Airmen
section_title: Controversy over escort record
hierarchical_section_title: Tuskegee Airmen / War accomplishments / Controversy over escort record
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph shows members of the 332nd, from left to right: Robert W. Williams, Ottumwa, IA, Class 44-E; (leather cap) William H. Holloman, III, St. Louis, Mo., Class 44-?; (cloth cap) Ronald W. Reeves, Washington, D.C., Class 44-G; (leather cap) Christopher W. Newman, St. Louis, MO, Class 43-I; (flight cap) Walter M. Downs, New Orleans, LA, Class 43-B. (Source: Photographer's notes and Tuskegee Airmen 332nd Fighter Group pilots.)
context_page_description: The Tuskegee Airmen
  were a group of primarily African-American military pilots and airmen who fought in World War II. They formed the 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the United States Army Air Forces. The name also applies to the navigators, bombardiers, mechanics, instructors, crew chiefs, nurses, cooks and other support personnel.
  All black military pilots who trained in the United States trained at Griel Field, Kennedy Field, Moton Field, Shorter Field and the Tuskegee Army Air Fields. They were educated at Tuskegee University, located near Tuskegee, Alabama. Of the 922 pilots, five were Haitians from the Haitian Air Force and one pilot was from Trinidad. It also included a Hispanic or Latino airman born in the Dominican Republic.
  The 99th Pursuit Squadron was the first black flying squadron, and the first to deploy overseas. The 332nd Fighter Group, which originally included the 100th, 301st and 302nd Fighter Squadrons, was the first black flying group. It deployed to Italy in early 1944. Although the 477th Bombardment Group trained with North American B-25 Mitchell bombers, they never served in combat.
context_section_description: On 24 March 1945, during the war, the Chicago Defender said that no bomber escorted by the Tuskegee Airmen had ever been lost to enemy fire, under the headline: "332nd Flies Its 200th Mission Without Loss"; the article was based on information supplied by the 15th Air Force.
  This statement was repeated for many years, and not publicly challenged, partly because the mission reports were classified for a number of years after the war. In 2004, William Holton, who was serving as the historian of the Tuskegee Airmen Incorporated, conducted research into wartime action reports.
  Alan Gropman, a professor at the National Defense University, disputed the initial refutations of the no-loss myth, and said he researched more than 200 Tuskegee Airmen mission reports and found no bombers were lost to enemy fighters. Dr. Daniel Haulman of the Air Force Historical Research Agency conducted a reassessment of the history of the unit in 2006 and early 2007. His subsequent report, based on after-mission reports filed by both the bomber units and Tuskegee fighter groups, as well as missing air crew records and witness testimony, documented 25 bombers shot down by enemy fighter aircraft while being escorted by the Tuskegee Airmen.
  In a subsequent article, "The Tuskegee Airmen and the Never Lost a Bomber Myth," published in the Alabama Review and also by New South Books as an e-book, and included in a more comprehensive study regarding misconceptions about the Tuskegee Airmen released by AFHRA in July 2013, Haulman documented 27 bombers shot down by enemy aircraft while those bombers were being escorted by the 332nd Fighter Group. This total included 15 B-17s of the 483rd Bombardment Group shot down during a particularly savage air battle with an estimated 300 German fighters on 18 July 1944 that also resulted in nine kill credits and the award of five Distinguished Flying Crosses to members of the 332nd.
  Of the 179 bomber escort missions the 332nd Fighter Group flew for the Fifteenth Air Force, the group encountered enemy aircraft on 35 of those missions and lost bombers to enemy aircraft on only seven, and the total number of bombers lost was 27. By comparison, the average number of bombers lost by the other P-51 fighter groups of the Fifteenth Air Force during the same period was 46.
  A number of examples of the fighter group's losses exist in the historical record.  A mission report states that on 26 July 1944: "1 B-24 seen spiraling out of formation in T/A [target area] after attack by E/A [enemy aircraft]. No chutes seen to open." The Distinguished Flying Cross citation awarded to Colonel Benjamin O. Davis for the mission on 9 June 1944 noted that he "so skillfully disposed his squadrons that in spite of the large number of enemy fighters, the bomber formation suffered only a few losses."
  William Holloman was reported by the Times as saying his review of records confirmed bombers had been lost. Holloman was a member of Tuskegee Airmen Inc., a group of surviving Tuskegee pilots and their supporters, who also taught Black Studies at the University of Washington and chaired the Airmen's history committee. According to the 28 March 2007 Air Force report, some bombers under 332nd Fighter Group escort protection were even shot down on the day the Chicago Defender article was published. The mission reports, however, do credit the group for not losing a bomber on an escort mission for a six-month period between September 1944 and March 1945, albeit when Luftwaffe contacts were far fewer than earlier.
caption: Men of the 332nd Fighter Group attend a briefing in Italy 1945
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "2541", "Image ImageLength": "3125", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "Sinar", "Image Model": "54H", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "400", "Image YResolution": "400", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2009:03:25 20:19:59", "Image Artist": "Library of Congress", "Image ExifOffset": "316", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "454", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5580", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2381", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2989"}