The Tuskegee Airmen

The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of primarily Black-American military pilots (fighter and bomber) 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 Institute (latterly 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.

War accomplishments

In all, 992 pilots were trained in Tuskegee from 1941–1946. 355 were deployed overseas, and 84 lost their lives. The toll included 68 pilots killed in action or accidents, 12 killed in training and non-combat missions and 32 captured as prisoners of war.

The Tuskegee Airmen were credited by higher commands with the following accomplishments:
-1578 combat missions,1267 for the Twelfth Air Force; 311 for the Fifteenth Air Force
-179 bomber escort missions,with a good record of protection,losing bombers on only seven missions and a total of only 27, compared to an average of 46 among other 15th Air Force P-51 groups
-112 enemy aircraft destroyed in the air, another 150 on the ground and 148 damaged. This included three Me-262 jet fighters shot down
-950 rail cars, trucks and other motor vehicles destroyed (over 600 rail cars)
-One torpedo boat put out of action. The ship concerned was a World War I-vintage destroyer (Giuseppe Missori) of the Italian Navy, that had been seized by the Germans and reclassified as a torpedo boat, TA22. It was attacked on 25 June 1944 and damaged so severely she was never repaired. She was decommissioned on 8 November 1944, and finally scuttled on 5 February 1945.
-40 boats and barges destroyed

The Congressional Gold Medal was collectively presented to approximately 300 Tuskegee Airmen or their widows, at the U.S. Capitol rotunda in Washington, D.C. by President George W. Bush on 29 March 2007.