Dan Snow's History Hit - Tuskegee Airmen: A WW2 Pilot's Story

Episode Date: October 23, 2021

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in American military history. They faced discrimination and segregation at home but in the skies of Europe, they became one of the most successful and feared fighter units as they escorted bombers on raids in Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Poland and Germany.As Dan discovers in this episode just becoming a Tuskegee Airmen was a dangerous business and several pilots were killed on training exercises in the USA. Two pilots went down over the waters of the Port Huron region during WWII. Flight Officer Nathaniel Rayburn died on Dec. 12, 1943, when he crashed into the St. Clair River near Algonac. Second Lt. Frank Moody died on April 11, 1944, when his plane crashed into Lake Huron. In this episode, we hear about a fascinating project to recover the wreckage of one of these downed planes and erect a memorial to honour those pilots who gave their lives whilst training to become Tuskegee Airmen. Dan speaks to Wayne Lusardi, State Underwater Archaeologist for Michigan and Erik Denson, Lead Instructor with Diving With a Purpose, about their important archaeological work.You will also hear from Col Harry Stewart Jr one of the last surviving Tuskegee airmen. They discuss his experiences of dogfights in the skies over Europe during World War Two, the discrimination he and his colleagues faced, the progress that he has seen in his lifetime and what it was like to get back into the cockpit of a P-51 Mustang after 70 years.

Some things just take too long. A meeting that could have been an email, someone explaining crypto, or switching mobile providers. Except with Fizz. Switching to Fizz is quick and easy. Mobile plans start at $17 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History. This is a great episode of this podcast, everyone. You are in for a treat. In the middle years of the Second World War, Michigan was where lots of pilots went to train before heading out to Pacific or Europe.

And that included the famous all-American Tuskegee pilot training program. These were African-Americans segregated, not allowed to fly with their white counterparts, but placed in an all-black unit, all-black pilot, all-black ground crew. And this unit ended up, as we're going to hear, becoming the best unit in the US Air Forces. Very recently, the wreckage of two aircraft were found in Lake Huron, in the waters off the coast of Michigan. And it was found that they were aircraft that had been flown by coast of Michigan. And it was found that they were aircraft that had been flown by trainee Tuskegee pilots. So in this episode, we're going to talk to Wayne Luzzardi. He's the state underwater

archaeologist for Michigan. He's been in charge of leading research, recovery of the plane wreckage. We're also going to talk to Eric Denson. He is lead instructor with Diving With A Purpose. That's an organization to encourage young African Americans beneath the waves and connect with maritime archaeology, particularly with maritime archaeological sites to do with the trade enslaved Africans across the Atlantic, the Middle Passage. He led on the fundraising for this operation and installing a Tuskegee Airmen Memorial. And then, very excitingly, we're also talking to Colonel Harry Stewart Jr. He is in his late 90s. He is one of the last of the Tuskegee Airmen.

He is a legend. It was a great honour to talk to him, and you're going to hear from him as well in this episode. So, I told you it's a goodie. It's coming up. If you want to listen to other amazing podcasts without the ads, if you want to watch history documentaries made for true history fans, not these rubbish things you get on mainstream TV, proper history documentaries,

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You're going to love it. But I'm hoping we're going to get a film together with Colonel Harry Stewart when we're allowed to travel again. So head over to historyhit.tv. You get 30 days free if you subscribe today. It's a tiny subscription, you won't even notice it. But in the meantime, everyone, here is our podcast on the Tuskegee Airmen. Enjoy. Wayne and Eric, thanks very much for coming on the show. Thank you.

Thank you for having us. Hey, it's important and a fascinating story. So listen, let's start by everyone will have heard the Tuskegee Airmen, but like remind us, who were they? Well, the Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American pilots that were trained by the United States Army. The training began in 1941. 1941. And over the course of the Second World War, about a thousand pilots, both fighter and bomber pilots, along with tens of thousands of crew members, navigators and radio men and armories and such, went through the program at Tuskegee, Alabama, and learned to fly, were commissioned officers for the United States Army. In 1943, the fighter pilots of the Tuskegee Airmen started training in Michigan, where they

received advanced training in aerial gunnery practice over Lake Huron, Lake St. Clair. And during the time period that they were in Michigan, 15 of the airmen were killed in training accidents. So Wayne, was the decision to recruit African-American pilots that time, and I guess especially maybe in Alabama, was that a politically courageous, controversial decision in some parts of the U.S. military and society at the time? The Roosevelt administration were very adamant about getting pilots trained. Most of the African-Americans that were in the United States Army at the time were relegated to tasks like cooking and cleaning and driving trucks and infantrymen, that sort of thing. And so the United States Army Air Corps had no interest in having Black pilots. And even after the training began and was kind of pushed to a point where it had to happen, it was still in a segregated form. And it was still the Air Force's opinion that the African-American pilots would never be integrated into the real army and that they would never see service overseas. And of course, all that changed. The men on an individual basis overcame incredible obstacles, both segregation here and fighting for a country that didn't want them to fight. And yet they persevered.

And ultimately, almost a thousand of them were trained. And a good many of them saw service overseas, first in North Africa in 1943, and then Sicily in Italy, and all throughout the European theater where they served primarily as escort pilots. And their air record was just unbelievably good. I mean, better than almost any other squadrons or companies that escorted bombers deep into Germany. What do you guys think is the reason for that performance? Was there a pride there? Was there a desire to overcome that prejudice? Yeah, I think so. There was definitely a sense of pride and a sense of commitment.

And again, these pilots, they were almost set up to fail. And I really believe in their heart that they believed in themselves and their capabilities. And you talk to many of them, they really wanted to be pilots. They dreamt about flying. And these were well-educated. Most of them, they really wanted to be pilots. They dreamt about flying. And these were well-educated. Most of them were college graduates. So they were really committed to doing their job. And they did it well.

And Wayne can talk even more about that. They performed so well that their white counterparts, especially the bombing crews, requested them to escort them into enemy territory. So, I mean, that is one of the biggest, if you will, confidence there and respect that they got from their white counterparts. And in a large sense, the segregation worked in their favor, I suppose, because they were relegated to only training for the first couple of years of the war. And whereas the average white American pilot would receive his wings, receive some advanced training, and then be in a combat situation, literally within months sometimes. And the first several batches, like Eric said,

of the Tuskegee Airmen that went through the program in 41, 42, and even 43, were mostly Carledge graduates. A good many of them in the beginning years were already civilian pilots. So they had that kind of flight time behind them. And then they got to train here stateside for several years before being deployed. And so they had that much more experience already in the air than their average white counterparts. Sounds like they were an elite, kind of an elite force. Eric, you mentioned meeting some of them. That must be an extraordinary experience. Have you had the privilege to meet lots of these guys and hear their stories?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's really amazing. Actually, back in 2005, I actually attended a Tuskegee Airmen conference in Orlando. I normally don't ask stars and athletes, movie stars, et cetera, for autographs, but I purchased a print of a Tuskegee Airmen picture, actually, and I'll talk a little bit more about that. I went around to every Tuskegee Airmen I could find in that convention center and had them sign

it. And I have it framed in my office and it's one of my most prized possessions. I don't have any other autographs really, but them. And one of my greatest experiences there too is one of their most famous fighter pilots there, Lee Archer. I worked for NASA at the Kennedy Space Center and actually got a chance to escort him around the Kennedy Space Center. So that was an honor to meet him and a few of the other airmen. And as well, I was mentioning earlier that too, during the memorial dedication, we were honored again to have two Tuskegee Airmen at the memorial dedication. So we had Lieutenant Colonel Harry Stewart, as well as Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Jefferson. Amazing. Lieutenant Colonel Jefferson was turning 100 years old. And so we

were able to give him a piece of cake to help him celebrate there. And I believe Mr. Stewart is not too far behind him. I think he's 97 or 98. And they're just amazing people. And they can still tell great stories. So it's been an honor to meet them again. They're my heroes. They are really my heroes. And are really my heroes. And they're American heroes. You bet. Were they motivated? I mean, do they just want to fly?

They want to do their bit? Or were they motivated? We found a recent podcast on the Harlem Hellfighters in the First World War who believed that by serving, they might advance the lot, the political and civil rights, economic rights of people of color within the US. Is that something that was uppermost in their mind, or do they just want to fly? They just wanted to take part? There were definitely some people that are motivated to show that you're wrong, your attitudes about them are wrong. There's no question. There are others that kind of feel that

they're the spearhead of a much larger movement, to be sure. But I think on an individual basis, most of the guys just wanted to fly. It was an attractive kind of career within military service. It still is. It's sort of the elite of the military or is looked at that way. And it's something that a lot of young men and women are really interested in doing. And so I don't think we can speak for all of the pilots that went through Tuskegee, but I would venture that they, just like most pilots today, you just want to get in the air and do it. Now, I'm actually half Canadian, so I usually look at Michigan from across that beautiful lake here on,

and I've spent a lot of time there, but I've spent time on the right bank, as you might say. Tell me about the connection there with Michigan and bring me up to speed on your extraordinary project. Well, the state of Michigan is the only state in the U.S. that is surrounded by four of the five Great Lakes. So there's a good amount of water offshore here. And it was an ideal location to train pilots and to train service people beginning in World War I. pilots and to train service people beginning in World War I. And so a field at Selfridge,

which is just outside of Detroit, was developed by the United States Army Air Corps in 1917 to train pilots that would then see service in the Great War in Europe. Selfridge at the time was the furthest northern military airbase in the United States. And it was chosen because it snows here, because it's lousy weather, because it's flying into very remote areas over large open bodies of water, that is the Great Lakes. And it was this sort of perfect shift then to go to Europe to send pilots to Europe. Whereas if you train them in the heat and the dryness of Arizona or something, they're not going to deal with all those kind of climactic and geographic conditions that they would experience in Europe. So Michigan was the ideal place. In the spring of 1943, the first detachment, the 99th Fighter Squadron of the Tuskegee

Airmen, were deployed from Alabama to the East Coast and to North Africa. And after that, all of the training did no longer occur just at Tuskegee, where they began receiving, pilots receiving advanced training at other bases around the United States. So a lot of the bomber pilots went to different places in the Midwest. Radio operators went to other places, etc. But all of the fighter pilots, beginning in the spring of 1943, they gained their wings at Tuskegee. But then they came to Selfridge Field, which was unoccupied at the time, and they started training out of Selfridge Field by Detroit and also Oscoda Army Airfield in Oscoda on the shoreline of Lake Huron. The Tuskegee Airmen were only here in Michigan for

about a year and a half, and by the summer of 1944, they were quite despicably evicted from Michigan, and they spent the rest of their time training in South Carolina for deployment overseas. But while they were here, there were 15 airmen that were killed. During World War II, in the United States Army Air Corps alone, there were about 15,000 air crews that were killed in training accidents on U.S. soil. So the magnitude of that whole war effort is just mind-boggling by today's standards. Today, when a helicopter goes down and there are eight or ten men that are killed in it, that's a national tragedy. To have 15,000 plus men and women killed in just airplane

accidents training on U.S. soil is just unbelievable by today's standard. So the Tuskegee Airmen Lieutenant Frank H. Moody was born in Oklahoma in the 1920s. He moved to California. He enlisted in the Army after high school from Los Angeles. He earned his wings at Tuskegee in February 1944. And then he came to Michigan for advanced training in an airplane called the Bell P-39 Air Cobra. And the Air Cobra was a special kind of airplane at the time. It had a cannon that fired through the propeller hub and a couple of 50 cals in the forward fuselage and one under each wing. It was the first tricycle landing aircraft in the United States Army arsenal. And it was pretty advanced in the 1930s. But by the time Lieutenant Moody was operating this, it was not obsolete, but it

was being phased out into only training kind of facilities here in the U.S. And a lot of the contract was sold to Russia under the Lend-Lease Agreements. And most of the Air Cobras ended up in the Soviet Union or Russia. So Frank Moody, on April 11th, 1944, departed Mount Clemens Selfridge Field to do aerial gunnery practice with three other pilots, three other Air Cobras over Lower Lake Huron. He discharged his weapons. Something happened to the airplane that we now know what actually happened. And it hit the lake at a high rate of speed. He was only flying about 100 feet above the water, so he had no time to react. The plane hit the water, broke apart, cartwheeled, and he was killed immediately. Lieutenant Moody's body was found a couple of months later near the entrance to the St.

Clair River, and he was returned home to his family plot in Los Angeles. Fast forward 70 years later to the day on April 11th, 2014, a diver by the name of David Leszczynski and his son, Drew, they were local charter operators that were looking at a shipwreckage debris field in the area of Lexington, Michigan, just north of Port Huron. And they came across what they first thought was an automobile door. And in fact, it was. The Hudson Motor Company built the car doors for the Air Cobra as a subcontractor to Bell Aircraft. And then they found the wing, and then they found the instrument cluster, which had the radio call sign 221-226 on it, which positively identified that aircraft, that specific aircraft, as the one that was lost by Frank Moody 70 years to the day when they found it, which was pretty amazing. So about six months into this

project or after the discovery, I was contacted by the Lisinski family, as I work as the state underwater archaeologist for Michigan. And there was an interest in re-articulating some of the aircraft to make it a more attractive dive site. The tail is about 400 feet away from the wings, which is about 400 feet away from the engine, that sort of thing. So it's spread out over many thousands of square yards of lake bottom. And before doing anything or issuing any kind of a permit like that, the first thing is to do an archaeological reconnaissance of the site. So I contacted Eric Denson, who I had worked with on shipwrecks up here in Thunder Bay area in the past and told him that a Tuskegee airplane was found. And Eric just lit up like a little kid and was absolutely, I want in. And so Eric helped organize a crew of

volunteers to come up and assist me with the documentation of that airplane in 2015. So Eric, you're obviously a diving guy, but the fact that you're also a Tuskegee fan, they were two separate things. So this is a dream for you. Yes. Like Wayne said, I mean, as I think about it right now, I still get chills. You know, when Wayne first contacted me about that and I was just like, are you kidding me? Of course I want to come up there. And so, like Wayne said, we formed a small team with the members from our organization Diving With a Purpose. And we were only up there about a week to document.

We didn't bring anything up at that time. We did some mapping, photographing, GPS coordinates. And again, when I said mapping, we did a site map and some of the artifacts there. So like Wayne said, it was just really documenting the site too. And it was incredible too. One of my favorite pictures and favorite images, and I always talk about this when I see Wayne there, I took a picture of Wayne. He was working on the wing of Lieutenant Moody's aircraft. And you could see the Army Air Corps star visible on the wing of Lieutenant Moody's aircraft. And you could see the Army Air Corps star visible on the wing. And every time I see that picture, again, it gives me chills, but also underwater

there, it almost brought to tears underwater there, because I realized these airmen gave their lives for this country. And like we mentioned before, even at a time when that country didn't believe in them, but they believed in what they were doing. So I felt so honored to be part of this whole project and to bring not only Lieutenant Moody's story to life, but the Tuskegee Airmen in general and their contributions and their sacrifice. So it was an honor to be part of this project. You mentioned Diving with a Purpose in passing, but Diving with a Purpose is a very, very cool project.

Perhaps you could tell us a bit more about it. Yeah, well, we've been together for about 16 years. Diving with a Purpose is dedicated to conservation and protection of submerged heritage resources. We provide education, training, certification, and field experience in the areas of maritime archaeology, but also coal restoration and also conservation. We do have a special focus too on the protection, documentation, and interpretations of African slave trade shipwrecks. We've done some work

with those too. So we have a little niche there, some of the work that we do. But again, our organization is dedicated to, you know, restoring our oceans and preserving our heritage. And this is just one piece of it. And so just going back to the plane, the aircraft in Lake Huron, what decisions did you guys make when you did your survey? Did you agree that it should be brought back together? Or when did you decide to build a memorial and turn this into something bigger the beginning documentation occurred in the summer of 2015 i wanted to do it in the spring but eric is a warm weather diver yeah eric can i just say eric never come to the uk we dive we dive in zero viz

in dry suits it It's brutal. Yeah, it doesn't sound like too much fun. So I've been trying to warm up the lake for Eric a little bit every year. And this year, it was really pleasant, about 74, 75 degrees. But in any case, we spent a little bit of time doing the initial reconnaissance of the site and some survey. And then over the course of the next couple of years, I did some side scan survey of the site. I put ROVs down, that sort of thing. And at that time, we began talking with Dr. Brian Smith, who is the head of the National Museum of the Tuskegee Airmen in Detroit. until the very big end of our 2015 project when we met with him. And then the ball just started rolling with that. And he became very interested in recovering and helping to preserve the aircraft wreckage.

So we kind of went through a permitting process. And ultimately, the state of Michigan issued a permit to do archaeological recovery of the aircraft to the Tuskegee Museum. do archaeological recovery of the aircraft to the Tuskegee Museum. And that started in 2018. And we went back to the site and began the systematic recovery of just a handful of materials at that time. As Eric alluded to the two sections of the driveshaft for the engine, the armored windshield, the starboard side door, which was the first artifact that was identified on the site, the starboard side door, which was the first artifact that was identified on the site, radio mass, the instrument console, and a couple of other things. And then we sort of decided how much time and effort that's going to take to conserve these materials, where exactly are they going to be exhibited, that sort of thing, kind of got all

those bugs worked out. And then in 2020, we decided to do a big push for the recovery and the archaeological documentation of the remainder of the aircraft site. Of course, 2020, the world shut down. And so that was the end of that. And so that got kind of punted until this season. And fortunately, everything was able to work out. And we were able to spend a solid three weeks this year documenting the aircraft and recovering about 400 artifacts that were distributed again all over the lake bottom. The memorial dedication, and Eric can tell you the whole story of this, but on our final day of 2015, we decided to lay a wreath in honor of

Lieutenant Frank Moody and of the other Tuskegee Airmen that were killed in training accidents. And then Eric can tell you how that developed. Yeah, that's exactly right. So that last day, we did lay a reef there and it was very moving, you know, for all of us again to be part of this. But at that point, I knew I wanted to do more to recognize Lieutenant Moody and all of the fallen airmen there. So not too soon after that, I started thinking about what we could do, put an underwater memorial, but I said, who's going to see that? And then I thought about the beautiful area that we stayed in there over there by the Blue Water Bridge and the International Flag Plaza. And I said, that may be a great place to put a memorial there. So I contacted the folks

in Port Huron. And I think the following year, it was 2016 or maybe beginning of 2017, but I think the 2016, I actually flew there to Port Huron, myself and Jay Higler. And we did a presentation to the city of Port Huron proposing that memorial. Didn't know what to expect from them, if they were going to be open to it or not, but they unanimously, you know, embraced the project. And actually, too, we partnered with folks there in the local community to put together a committee to help fundraising and get the project going. And again, we were COVID, put a snag in that, too. It delayed us a year. Actually, I think we needed that time to raise more money, and we did. COVID put a snag in that too it delayed us a year actually I think we needed that time to raise more money and we did we got a great grant from the state of Alabama and so

things just worked out and then we ended up that memorial came to fruition last month which is fantastic but I knew it was something we wanted to from the beginning I said I think we need to do more we need to do more. We need to do more. Well, one day I'm going to paddle over from Tobermory with my Canadian cousins. We're going to come look at that memorial. That'd be great to see. It sounds like there's a good team here. What's the plan going forward?

Well, as we were talking about earlier, part of the fieldwork of an archaeological project is literally maybe 5% to 10% of the overall project. So the fun stuff, if you will, occurs in the field is just a small fraction of that. So now we have some 400 artifacts that need to be studied, inventoried, evaluated, and conserved. And that's going to take years, even though they're in relatively good condition because they came out of a freshwater environment. They still have to be treated so that they don't deteriorate. They don't continue to corrode. And that will take a long time and a lot of personnel. So that's going to be the primary focus right now. I'm going through all the field logs and field notes and videos and photographs and that sort of thing and just getting that all kind of squared away. And just over the course of

a three-week field project, we have something around four terabytes of video and still imagery. It's an insane amount of data that was collected, not including the side scan data, the ROV data, that sort of stuff. So there's a lot of that kind of post-processing. There's also fundraising and grant writing and those sorts of things, getting money for upcoming field projects. But the ultimate desire is to recover the entire aircraft. And that means finding it first and recording it in situ and then taking it up systematically and then transporting the aircraft remains to the facility in Detroit, in Alpena, where the artifacts are conserved. those materials and putting the plane into a permanent exhibit so that everybody can see and share the story of Lieutenant Moody and the Tuskegee Airmen. Sounds great, guys. Well, listen, we'd love to come and watch as you do some or all of those activities. So let's stay in touch. Sounds good.

Well, and Eric, I got my eye on you, man, for some diving in Florida. I've tried the Great Lakes, and to be honest with you, I know it's freshwater, but I think Wayne will be disappointed in me too. I want to come a little further south. You're definitely welcome to come there. We've got some beautiful reefs and great wrecks as well, too. So come on down. Sounds like heaven. Well, listen, great to see you guys. Stay in touch and well done everything you've achieved. Thank you, Dan. Well, thank you for having us.

You're listening to Dan Snow's History. We're going to be hearing from Tuskegee Airman Colonel Harry Stewart after this. Hi, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb. And in my podcast, Not Just the Tudors, we talk about everything from sex to spying, wardrobes to witch trials. Not, in other words, just the Tudors,

but most definitely also the Tudors. Subscribe from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. Some things just take too long. A meeting that could have been an email, someone explaining crypto, or switching mobile providers. Except with Fizz.

Switching to Fizz is quick and easy. Mobile plans start at $17 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Land a Viking longship on island shores. Scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History,

we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. Colonel, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Can I ask, when you were a child, do you remember what first fired your ambition to fly?

My parents tell me that when I was about two years old, we lived near a military airfield. And they said that they'd put me out in the crib and I'd see these airplanes flying over and that I would get very excited and I would start cooing at the airplanes. So they said that might've been the first inkling of my desire to fly. But at two years old, the parents moved to New York City and they moved, oh, I guess it was within a mile or so of LaGuardia Airport. What's now LaGuardia Airport. And I used to go over to the airport as a youngster, teenager, and I used to watch the planes take off and fantasize about my being a pilot in a cockpit and flying the plane and taking it off and landing it and that type of thing. So then, of course, the war came along, World War II, and fantasy changed into reality. And I was able to get into the Army Air Corps as a trainee,

as a pilot trainee, and that was it. You made that sound very easy, sir. What about the discrimination that you faced? Well, yes, there was discrimination. And I guess the big thing was it. You made that sound very easy, sir. What about the discrimination that you faced? Well, yes, there was discrimination. And I guess the big thing was segregation because when the war came along or prior to the war, when they adopted the mandatory registration for the military for all males between the ages of 18 and 39.

And then they went into a lottery. The only openings that there were for Blacks was menial jobs in the service and no opportunity at that time for training as a pilot in the Army Air Corps. But that soon changed after that, after a lot of political maneuvering by a number of people. And the Air Force or the Air Corps relented and decided that, yes, we will go ahead and train Blacks as far as flying is concerned, but it would have to be on a segregated basis. So being on a segregated basis, even though I had to take the same examinations that the rest of the recruits were taking at the time there, I would be sent to Tuskegee, Alabama,

which was a field that was constructed and set aside specifically for the training of Black pilots. It can be hard for many people now to understand why you were so determined to serve, why you were so patriotic. You had a drive to work for this organization that was discriminating against you. What was the feeling like there at Tuskegee? Well, of course, even with the segregation, it was mandatory that any citizen that was within age bracket that I was talking about would be subject to the draft and going into the service. And going into the service as such would be placed anywhere that the services would want to put them. The only way that you could go into an elite type of training or something like that is to take an examination for that, such as a cadet for the Army Air Corps.

This was my country. This is where I was born. This is where my parents were born. This is where my grandparents were born. I knew no other country. I knew no other language or anything. So even with the segregation that I had to contend with, I accepted this as being my country and I accepted my being called into the service as the onus of being a citizen. And did you believe that by serving, by proving yourself,

that you might help to achieve those rights that have been denied to you for so long? It did. I think that the record that we brought about as far as our record of achievement in combat, that gave us a leg up on realizing a better status in the future. But also in 1949, the Air Corps resurrected a contest that they had before World War II started, and it had to do with competition of members in the black pilots from the three squadrons that they had, along with three top pilots from 12 other fighter groups in the country. They went out to the environs of Las Vegas, Nevada, and the contest involved aerial gunnery at 10,000 feet, aerial gunnery at 20,000 feet, skip bombing, dive bombing, strafing, and panel gunnery, I think it was. But after 10 days of competition there, the winners were announced, and the winner was the 332nd Fighter Group, or the black pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group, as I said.

I guess the Air Corps realized the folly of having a segregated force, not only the courts generated by having a segregated unit, but also that these pilots showed themselves to be just as good as any of the other pilots throughout the Air Force. How were you treated when you arrived in Europe? I was not in the UK, but I had a very pleasant experience with the British there. I was in the 15th Air Force, which was stationed in Italy. They were flying B-24s and B-17 heavy bombers. And my duty or the duty of the Tuskegee Airmen was to protect these bombers on their missions into Central Europe there. Also at the time, along with the 15th Air Force, there were a number of British contingents there flying Lancasters, and they were flying the Lancaster bombers at night. but also there were photo reconnaissance aircraft, which we escorted. We escorted a number of the planes that you had would go in as an after bomber run there

to make photographs of the damage that was done. And this was in 1945 that you arrived? I arrived late in the war. I arrived at the very beginning, January of 1945. But the squadrons that I'm talking about, the full complement of the fighter squadrons that were black fighter squadrons that were over there at the time, that goes back to May of 1944. And tell me about your first operational sortie. And tell me about your first operational sortie. Well, that was very interesting. And all of my training certainly had involved no escorting of bombers,

but there were a limited number of aircraft that could be serviced on the field that I was on. But going overseas there, there was a number of wings involved. And these wings on a bombing mission and I remember going to Vienna any number of times to Dresden and other in Central Europe but the bomber formations could be as many as three and four and five hundred bombers and of course the fighter formations it was other fighter groups that were there too. But we had a full complement of fighters. So it was a scene to behold. It was a real panorama in the sky with the bombers just coming and going and stretched out for miles in the sky. And you encountered the enemy on that occasion?

We did encounter the enemy. Of course, we encountered flak. Flak was being fired at the anti-aircraft guns, principally at the bombers there. But the fighters were in close enough at times there that they could be vulnerable to flak there. But our principal job was to protect the bombers from enemy fighters. And yes, we did run into the enemy fighters there. I did run into one pretty big skirmish over Linz, Austria. There were seven of us that were told to leave the bombers and go on a fighter sweep. And that would be to interdict any enemy aircraft or boats or vehicular traffic that we see, anything to go ahead and

disrupt the war effort. Seven of us were dispatched, and we were around the Danube, and we ran into a horde of enemy fighters. Focke-Wulf 190s, two of our members or three of our members were shot down. Two of our members or three of our members were shot down. One was managed to get back to friendly territory, but another was killed instantly. And the jailhouse, dragged Walter out and hung him from a lamppost. So he was lynched by the mob there and that's documented. And Colonel, do you think he was treated that way because he was an Allied airman or because he was a black man? Both. Absolutely both. There had been whites who had been lynched and whites who had been beaten by the mobs, especially bomber crews that weren't down near the targets where they were bombing there. But the story that I give you about one of our members that was lynched there is that the two days while

he was in the jail there, the Nazis had worked up the emotions of the crowd around Lenz quite a bit. And they used a lot of the American propaganda about lynching in America and things like that. But anyway, it's very well documented. How about when you're on the ground? Was your ground crew black as well? It was about 100% black. And all of the service troops that serviced the airfield and the mechanics that serviced the plane and everything were all black.

Okay, so everyone you're serving alongside is black. What about Allied units nearby, stationed nearby, or the Italian population? How were you treated? We were treated quite well by the Italian population that was there. And there were friendships that developed between the American pilots and even the British pilots that we met, and even some South African pilots that we met. It was like a conglomerate or polyglot situation as far as the nationalities were concerned. And I think we respected one another more for our skills, you know, being pilots and the kind of pilot to pilot rather than racial or that type of thing.

Tell me about that extraordinary day in April, right at the end of the war in Europe, when you had those encounters with enemy aircraft. Yes, and that was the day that I'm talking about, where one of our other pilots there was lynched in Linz, and it was on that mission that the dogfights occurred there, and I was involved in that dogfight there. And I was able to destroy a couple of the enemy planes. And I got back safely without any problem here. But out of the seven that ran into this encounter, three of them were shot down and two were killed.

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preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. Colonel, what made you a good pilot? Well, I think the instructors, I'll have to say, by the way, you were mentioning the racial makeup of the field and that thing, but all of my instructors were white. And I'll have to say that I think they trained me very, very well,

even though it was the off-duty times, there was segregation in effect. But as far as doing their job and training me as a pilot, I think they did an excellent job. So what aircraft were you flying there towards the end of the war? I was flying the P-51.

Ah, so you were in a Mustang. Three models of the Mustang, the B, C, and D. Well, that's the problem, Colonel, because we're talking to a Brit here, and we just go around saying how the Spitfire is the best piston engine aircraft of all time. But those Mustangs, they're an inconvenient fact for us. Well, I personally would have loved to have flown the Spitfire, especially the advanced models of the Spitfire there.

Spitfire, especially the advanced models of the Spitfire there. And of course, the plane that I escorted on a couple of occasions on photo reconnaissance was the all plywood plane, the Mosquito. And I would have loved to have flown that too, because that was a very fast aircraft. And I just thought it would be good if I could get my hands on the controls of that plane. How soon did you get back to the U.S. when the war came to an end? I got back into the U.S. but I stayed into the service for a few years after I got back home. I was in a fighter group flying a P-47 Thunderbolt. And I was finally discharged from the service in 1950, January of 1950.

I went back to my hometown, New York City, and decided to go back to school. I went to New York University and got my bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. That's the route I followed. Like so many veterans, you trod that path from the forces to university. Yeah, but you did stay in long enough to win that Top Gun trophy you mentioned. In 1949, that's right. And what I alluded to earlier about the contest that was involved, that was a Top Gun contest.

And yes, we won that in May of 1949. And we're still getting accolades from that demonstration. Your unit, well, as you say, your unit was pretty much the best unit in the Air Force by the end of the war. And yet, all too often today, it's remembered because of the racial element, the politics, the history that surrounds that. Is that something that sits easy with you? Would you rather that you were remembered for your wartime service or is the racial and political aspect important? You know, I look at the advancements that have been made since that time because when integration came along in 1949, the base that we were on, all of the black pilots that were in the service station on that base there, we were sent

to the four corners of the earth in different job assignments and that type of thing, overseas and at home. Over a period of the years there is that some of these black pilots there became top ranking officers in the Air Force, such as a fellow by the name of Chappy James. He became a four-star general, and he was in command of NORAD. We had General Davis. We had a number of other generals. And today, the top general in the Air Force there, the commanding general of the United States Air Force, his name is Brown, and he's the top guy. And your Secretary of Defense is an African-American as well. Did you ever think you'd live to see that,

that you'd live to see the head of the Air Force and the head of the U.S. military were both black men? No, I didn't. And, you know, just like I never expected to see a black president of the United States of America in my lifetime, but it happened. It's two steps forward and one step backward, I guess, that happens. You know, there's something chiseled into the archives building in Washington, D.C., and it said that the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance. And that's what I believe in,

and I'm vigilant today as far as rights and citizenship and all of that type of thing is concerned. Certainly, it's a lot different than when I was a child. And I remember that segregation was rampant and that type of thing, especially in the South, where segregation was mandatory and that you couldn't stay in a hotel or you couldn't ride on a bus any place on a bus or on a train or an aeroplane and that type of thing the schools were absolutely segregated and today it's just about complete integration as far as anything that we have can let me finish up asking you how old are you now 97 and when was the last time you flew uh i guess it was just before the shutdown i flew p51 and you still one of the best around oh i wouldn't i don't know if i'm one of the best around but i enjoyed it i hadn't been in a p51 and of course many many many

many years and what had happened i was down in down in Atlanta, Georgia, at a meeting that they had down there. And somebody brought in a modified P-51. They had taken the fuselage tank out and put a seat where the fuselage tank is and another set of controls. So it was like a dual control aircraft there. And I was asked if I'd like to go up and it was an airline pilot who was actually flying this P-51 at the time there so we went up and he turned the controls over to me and said well go ahead and do something so I did a slow roll and did a loop and it exhausted me and I came down and of course he landed the plane and that was it but it was a joy to get up there and just after so many years you know and I guess I was 90 something when I was up there

you've still got the touch yeah yeah thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing those experiences thank you okay then nice meeting you I feel we have the history on our shoulders all this tradition of ours our school history our songs this part of the history of our country all were gone and finished

thanks folks you've been to the end of another episode congratulations well done you I hope you're not fast asleep if you did fancy supporting everything we do here History Hit

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