Photo by Dana Amihere. Tuskegee Airman William Fauntroy Jr. answers a question from the audience while Lt. Col. Ivan Ware autographs "Red Tails" movie posters.
Published on: Thursday, February 16, 2012
Six of the original Tuskegee Airmen attracted hundreds of visitors to the College Park Aviation Museum Saturday to hear first-hand accounts of life in the all-black aviation squadron.
While a fictionalized account of the segregated unit has made it big in theaters, real-life “Red Tails,” ranging in age from 89 to 98 years old, gave oral histories detailing their struggles with discrimination at home, the danger of missions abroad and the impact it made on the men they became.
The famous black aviators who fought in World War II fought under the banner of the U.S. Army Air Corps’ 332nd Fighter Group, whom the Allies nicknamed “Red Tails” for their aircraft’s distinctively painted tail section, and the 477th Bombardment Group, whose bombers were called the more illustrious “Red-Tail Angels.”
“One of the greatest things that ever happened to me, before I met my wife, is flying,” Tuskegee Airmen William Fauntroy Jr. said.
Photo by Dana Amihere. Two generations of the Williams family present photos and memorbilia of Eugene and LeRoi Williams, Tuskegee Airmen who were killed in combat during World War II, Saturday at the College Park Aviation Museum's Black History Month event.
But a common misconception is that every Tuskegee Airmen was a pilot who saw combat. While the 332nd Fighter Group of black aviators fought overseas, their fellow servicemen fought an equally important war back home.
Despite placing in the top 10 percent of Army classification test takers, Lt. Col. Ivan Ware USAF (Ret.) was twice denied the desired opportunity to train as a pilot. The second time his company commander said he wasn’t willing to give up quality soldiers to “an experiment that was expected to fail.”
“If I couldn’t become a pilot, I would choose the next best thing,” said Ware, who joined the Army Ordnance Medium Auto Maintenance Company. Though non-pilots, Ware’s company earned battle stars for vehicle and small arms maintenance for the battles of Normandy and Northern France.
Similarly, when the 332nd departed Michigan for an overseas assignment in December 1943, remaining black airmen personnel, including officers, were treated as “trainees” and faced blatant discrimination, said Lt. Col. Alonzo Smith, Jr. USAF (Ret.), a member of the East Coast Chapter Tuskegee Airmen. For entering the Freeman Field Base Officers’ Club in opposition of direct orders to keep out, 103 officers were arrested, charged with insubordination and faced court martial. The charges were dropped against all but one officer whose record was later expunged in 1973.
“As the Tuskegee Airmen destroyed the enemy, they also destroyed the belief that a man should be judged by the color of his skin,” the nonprofit Commemorative Air Force said.
While many of the nearly 1,000 pilots who were trained at Tuskegee from 1941 to 1946 and served overseas racked up impressive combat commendations, Fauntroy noted one aviator who holds an especially esteemed niche in military history. Serving in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, Col. Charles E. McGee fought more than 400 combat missions, more than any pilot in U.S. Air Force history. In doing so, McGee logged over 6,000 flying hours.
Some audience members had their own personal experiences to share with the Airmen.
Diane Kent Treat, 65, of Rockville, had pictures and stories to tell about two of her great-uncles who served in the 332nd Fighter Group. A third great-uncle was an administrator at the Tuskegee Air Force base.
Though she was a little girl when LeRoi and Eugene Williams were killed in action, Treat still has vivid memories of her great-uncles’ bodies shipped home and honored with a full military funeral.
Treat’s grandmother, Geraldine Williams Twitty of Silver Spring, said she was proud to have three of her four older brothers part of the Tuskegee Airmen’s legacy and inspired by the work they did.
“They represented the kind of person I always wanted to be but never could be. I really wanted to fly, but I was the wrong sex and so that wasn’t possible,” said Twitty, a retired Howard University biology professor.
Fifth-grader Jacob Thompson, 11, was enthralled by the prospect of learning more about this part of black history. Thompson’s Pack 450 of Reid Temple A.M.E. Church in Glenn Dale, was one of several Boy Scout troops and dozens of other youths in attendance.
Thompson, who aspires to be a rocket scientist and gospel rapper, said, “I came here to memorialize the Tuskegee Airmen. I saw the movie ‘Red Tails,’ but I didn’t get to see the actual people. I wanted to see how they looked and how they dressed and what they had on their uniforms.”
Though this was a special event arranged by the museum, the Tuskegee Airmen have more than 50 chapters throughout the United States, the latest organized by Norman Artis, USAF (Ret.) in Hawaii. The 79-year-old East Coast Chapter member says part of the mission of the chapters is to “keep the ball rolling” on youth and scholarship programs established by the original Tuskegee Airmen.
Twenty-year veteran Artis, who enlisted just days before the Korean War broke out and was stationed in Turkey during the Cuban Missile Crisis, was convinced he couldn’t join the Tuskegee Airmen’s organization because he spent his career on the ground doing logistics work.
In 2003, however, three-war ace pilot Col. McGee urged him to join and explained, in a literal and figurative sense, “If it wasn’t for the ground support, the plane would never get off the ground and into the air.”
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