History+of+Tuskegee+Airmen

The Country was now at war, fighting on two sides of the earth, against the strongest armies in the world. After the hard years in the Pacific, and now the uprising on the war on Germany, the United States needed all the help they could get. Every war America had fought, blacks were completely segregated. Now that the country had lost countless lives, it seemed foolish to leave blacks at home while the whites were killed consecutively. Assistant Secretary of War McCloy analyzed blacks during war. He was setting a goal to have just as many blacks in future wars as whites, and they actually surveyed soldiers confidentially knowing it would spark glory to black activists. However, McCloy's idea failed, and the army still believed blacks were bad thinking technically, and should stick with manual labor. A strong activist named Col. Parish who was a former commanding officer at Tuskegee Institute, insisted blacks should be guranteed the same rights under the constitution. He believed that if anything, 10% of the army must be black soldiers, because it is their country as well. General Alan Gillem suggested a more inclusive admittance of blacks in the armed forces, base on the percentage of them in the country. Harry S. Truman approved of Gillem's idea. Once past the severe racism from before blacks were aloud to fight, intergrated air force was not a exactly a difficult issue, as oppose to a later issue and broader issue about whther armed forces in general should be intergrated. The superior 99th squadron who were training and ready for action were then split into the 100th, 301st, and 302nd squadrons. The original 99th was the first squadron to leave Moton Field. The Airmen were pilots with distinction of the 332nd Fighter group. No other navy pilots had been black, this was considered an experiment. A number of legisltative moves from Congress in 1941, literally forced the Army Air Crops to form an all-black combat unit. White Racists attempted to rid the unit, so instead the Army Air Corps decided to only accept extremely educated men and masters of the sky. Expecting to have a small number of men, Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama, happened to have a vast amount of blacks who passed the tests proving their equality of whites in terms of intelligence. The 99th squadron was placed at Booker T. Washington University on Moton Field due to it's climate and superb airstrips for training. They were officially under command of Benjamin O. Davis Jr., who was the "Talk of the country." The Tuskegee Airmen were placed in their duties by their intelligence and skill. The United States needed all the help it could possibly get while entering North Africa to fight off the Germans, and especially, the superior Luftwaffe. In the short time to prepare the Tuskegee Airmen for North Africa/Mediterranean, and especially to prepare for the Luftwaffe, they literally beat the men into transforming them into robotic warriors through bigotry and racial slurs. Although you would expect most human beings to be scarred and shocked from such a traumatic event in a lifetime, it boosted confidence and anger in the men, which resulted in the idea of pure victory and domination over the Nazi airmen. They were trained by all White and Puerto Rican military officials, who were determined to produce successful pilots in Casablanca, Morocco. However, the instructors trained them very poorly, taking advantage of being allowed to use as much racism at will, so the instructors do not receieve nearly an inch of credit for producing the best pilots of all time. By the time battle was right at their feet, the media was stunned and overwhelmed by the unexpected success and victory the Tuskegee Airmen produced. The Tuskegee Airmen were flying P-51 Mustangs escorting bomber in enemy aircraft, in North Africa (first warzone). They maintained their unknown skills and perfection while fighting in Italy, and now losing a single bomber while there. Also, they Tuskegee Airmen were expected to fly from Rome to Berlin for a long escort mission that seemed suicidal, not a single bomber was lost.