All Blood Runs Red The Tuskegee Airmen

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All Blood Runs RedThe Tuskegee Airmen
Presentation by Robert L. Martinez Primary
Content Source American Greats, edited by R.
Wilson S. Marcus. Images as cited.
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• The Germans called them Schwartze
  Vogelmenshen, Black Birdmen.

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• The all-white American bomber crews whom they
  escorted with courage and distinction during WWII
  referred to them as the Black Redtail Angels
  after their P-51s stabilizers, which were painted
  bright red.

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• History has come to know these black pilots as
  the Tuskegee Airmen, 926 men who earned their
  wings at Tuskegee Army Airfield from March 1942
  through June 1946.

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• They flew more than two hundred bomber escort
  missions without losing a single bomber to the
  enemy.

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• Sixty-six Tuskegee Airmen were killed in
  action, another thirty-two shot down.

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• Theirs is the story of black men fighting for the
  right to fly in a segregated military, for a
  country still reluctant to grant them certain
  freedoms, especially freedom of opportunity.

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• We were fighting two battles I flew for my
  parents, for my race, for our battle, for
  first-class citizenship and for my country.

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• We were fighting for the 14 million black
  Americans back home. We were there to break down
  barriers, open a few doors, and do a job.
• Maj. Joseph P. Gomer, USAF (ret) and
  member of the Tuskegee Airmen

Maj. Joseph Gomer
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• African Americans had shown their ability to
  fly before WWII. During WWI, Georgia-born ace
  Eugene Jacques Bullard flew for France. Known as
  the Black Swallow of Death.

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• Bullard earned the highest French medals for
  valor.

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• Following WWI, black citizens had earned
  pilots licenses, owned planes, and made
  record-breaking cross-country flights.

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• Yet, in 1939, when President Roosevelt started
  the Civilian Pilot Training Program to train
  20,000 college students a year for private
  flight-level licenses, not a single black was
  allowed to participate.

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• It took the efforts of Americas most
  prominent African-American leaders and a
  little-known senator from Missouri (Harry S.
  Truman) to persuade the Congress to accept and
  train black pilots.

Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri.
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• The Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, a black
  vocational college founded by Booker T.
  Washington, was selected as one of the training
  sites.

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• First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited the
  institute and flew with Tuskegees black flying
  instructor Charles Chief Anderson.

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• What she saw and that flight convinced her that
  the school deserved the governments full support.

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• President Roosevelt declared Tuskegee an official
  training site for African-American pilots and the
  99th Pursuit Squadron was established.

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Barracks inspection at Randolph Air Force Base,
Texas.
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• In March 1942, the Tuskegee Airmen began
  flying combat missions.

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• Four hundred and fifty of the 926 pilots who
  earned wings at Tuskegee would participate in the
  battles to control the sky during WWII.

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• On July 26, 1948, Truman, by then president,
  desegregated the military. The Tuskegee Airmens
  performance helped accelerate the decision.

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• It was a wondrous sight to see those escort
  fighter planes coming up to take care of usThey
  were flown by men with enormous skill and
  coordination and competence.
• WWII Veteran, Former Senator, and
  presidential candidate George McGovern

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