Tuskegee Airmen

The Tuskegee Airmen  is the popular name for a group of African-American military pilots (fighter and bomber) who fought in World War II. Formally, they formed the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the United States Army Air Forces. The name also applies to the crew members and supportpersonnel. Their units were all black and all segregated.Alan Axelrod, The Real History of World War II: A New Look at the Past (New York: Sterling Publishing Company, 2008), p. 319 They had an outstanding record. As fighter escorts they had the reputation that not a single bomber was lost to enemy action while being escorted by Tuskegee airmen. 

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the United States Armed Forces. During World War II, Black Americans in many U.S. states were still subject to the Jim Crow laws.Barry M. Stentiford, Tuskegee Airmen (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2012), pp. 7–9 Most Tuskegee pilots were trained at Tuskegee Army AirfieldJoseph Caver, Jerome A. Ennels, Daniel Lee Haulman, The Tuskegee Airmen: An Illustrated History, 1939-1949 (Montgomery, AL: NewSouth Books, 2011.), p. 83 in Tuskegee, Alabama. Training bomber crews took longer than training fighter pilots and the war was won before they finished. Navigators and other crew members trained at various army based in the US.

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Category:United States Army
Category:1940 establishments in the United States
Category:1950s disestablishments in the United States
Category:1952 disestablishments
Category:History of the United States