It is hard to believe that I had the incredible honor and privilege of meeting several of the surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen. Still, I really had to think carefully before posting this. Despite the title of this post, it would be an unforgivable sacrilege to turn this into a self-aggrandizing story. And it would be too easy, if not outright pointless, to merely echo the usual well-deserved although long overdue accolades these gentlemen are receiving these days. Better to save it all as a wonderful memory to share with family and friends in private if that were the best I can do. But I was going to write something one way or the other even if only for my file. I decided to post it for posterity. I can’t lose it if I post it. Think of it as my personal testimonial honoring some of the greatest heroes America has ever produced.
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THIS WEEK, I had the singular honor of meeting and talking with seven or eight of these gentlemen and their families while performing my duties as a “white suiter” for the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association. It was a very noisy and hectic environment (Lot I Tent outside of the Rose Bowl) so I needed time to reflect once the shouting ended. In the end, it wasn’t those conversations so much as those I had overheard by chance that revealed a more complicated human story. The glory needs to be reconciled with the anguish.
The Airmen themselves were nothing if not humble, a very classy group who must certainly be busting with pride. But I picked up on a quiet strain of deep resentment mixed in with gratitude among some of their families. I am not a reporter and it was not my place to pursue this by asking questions so I let it stew in the back burner of my mind for a while. Through no fault of their own, theirs is clearly a more complicated story than it should have ever been.
As we all know, few things are ever crystal clear in life and this is no exception. The story I finally decided to tell was that of the shining opportunity lost when America failed to recognize these men in their own time. Because of that, their survivors risk having the glory of their fathers tarnished by opportunistic historians rewriting the story to serve today’s race agenda hoping to influence current events. For the sake of the Tuskegee Airmen as well as for all Americans, it is very important that this remain a great American story, not merely a great Black History story reserved only for our black citizens.
Let’s begin with an abbreviated history of the Tuskegee Airmen. They got their name from Tuskegee University which had won the U.S. Army Air Corps contract to train the first black military aviators as part of the Civilian Pilot Training Program begun in 1939 per order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Tuskegee University had already invested in the development of an airfield, had a proven civilian pilot training program and its graduates performed highest on flight aptitude exams.
Most of the airmen had volunteered rather than get drafted hoping to thus avoid being assigned to the lowly quartermaster corps which is where most black soldiers were assigned. The program produced 992 pilots who would be assigned to four fighter squadrons, the 99th, 100th, 301st and 302nd, and which were eventually combined to form the legendary 332nd fighter group also known as the “Redtails”. The 332nd was distinguished by flying over 200 missions escorting bombers into battle during which not a single bomber was lost. Not one. Among their most notable feats was the disabling of a German destroyer off the coast of Trieste Italy with their machine guns. These guys were the best of the best.
Nevertheless, they had to contend with a segregated military which at one point resulted in an incident at Freeman (irony alert) Field in Indiana whereby 101 of them were arrested for barging into an illegal “whites only” officers club. The USAAF had a rule mandating that ALL officers had free access to officers’ clubs yet the camp commander tried to make these men sign an agreement that they would only visit the “blacks only” club. They all refused. Despite the mass court martial, only one was found guilty, Lt. Bill Terry, and only for the minor charge of pushing the Provost Marshall who had blocked their access to the club. The incident was depicted in the movie starring Laurence Fishburn.
The Tuskegee flight program was discontinued soon after the war and by 1948, the armed forces were desegregated by executive order. For more, here is another good link. The wikipedia site is pretty good too but keep in mind the usual disclaimers.
And I got to meet a few of them. One of the biggest thrills of my life. I thought I was well-versed in their history but this experience made me rethink a lot of things. Is theirs an epic inspirational story about Americans overcoming life’s impossibly humiliating challenges while maintaining a commitment to personal honor, a sense of duty and the virtue of doing what is right for its own sake? Or is theirs a cautionary tale of how utterly futile life is in America for black people? After all, what were the Tuskegee Airmen risking their lives for during World War II? They were fighting a war on two fronts, at home and abroad. They could not have been expecting to come home to the same America as everyone else. If they were hoping that they would be returning to a grateful America, they were to be disappointed. They returned to the same America they had left. In a couple of stories they told me in our conversations, it was clear that they changed the attitudes of many people during the war but not enough to penetrate the upper reaches of American culture. Even though several of them went on to attain remarkable success, something important in America would be long in changing. Most of the Airmen did not live long enough to get the recognition they deserved. I just don’t understand why it took so long.
After all by the 1960s, surely by the 1970s, hadn’t America’s popular culture changed the political landscape enough to have found a way to tell this story in a Hollywood movie or television special? Or by the award of a Congressional honor? Or Presidential honor? It is very bothersome that it took almost 60 years. There is no rationalizing this away. It would have done all Americans and the country a great deal of good to recognize these great men when they were still alive and when most Americans still remembered WWII because most lived through it. To recognize them now seems oddly gratuitous. I’m not sure what it means to them for my generation to be honoring mostly dead heroes who have been horribly wronged. I certainly don’t feel that I owe anyone an apology. Obviously, America is grateful today but we are not the generation whose obligation it was to thank them for their enormous contributions in saving the free world. A point that I suspect is not lost on the Airmen’s families. I would be at least as resentful as I imagine they must be in their quiet way. I don’t know for sure whether they are bitter nor how deep it might be but they sure have good reason to be.
A couple of the Airmen I talked to quietly stated that it is too bad that “the greatest of them” are all gone. Among themselves, they still honor the memory of their “greatest” by reminding us of who they were and what it was that made them great men worthy of being emulated by all Americans. By failing to honor these men in their own time, there is a great risk that what should still be one of the greatest of all great American stories might eventually be reduced to being just a great Black American story. The difference speaks volumes about what is wrong with us, black and white.
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This is Lt. Col. Alexander Jefferson who spent 9 months in a German POW camp, eventually in Stalag Luft III in Sagan Germany which was later to be immortalized in the film “The Great Escape”. That escape had occurred six months before. He was freed by Patton’s 3rd Army for which my uncle had served as a tank driver. He might have met my uncle. (Update: Couldn’t happen. My uncle was seriously wounded during the Battle of the Bulge in Bastogne Belgium and so was already out of the war by the time Patton’s 14th Armor Division liberated Stalag VII on April 29, 1945). He told me about how his German interrogator knew everything about him, including his school grades, which it turns out was because he was also from Detroit. Mr. Jefferson assured me that the Germans treated him no differently than they treated other Allied POW pilots. Reflecting later, I remembered watching “Hogan’s Heroes” with my father, another WWII Army veteran, who commented that a black Sgt Kinchlow would never have been imprisoned with white counterparts. That all blacks were either assigned to kitchen duty or to loading and unloading ships and trains. Turns out he was wrong. But shouldn’t Sgt. Kinchlow have been an officer? All pilots were officers and he was in a stalag for captured Allied pilots.
Mr Jefferson published a book in 2005 that I have ordered. I can’t wait to read it.
That’s Lt. Col. Harland Leonard on the left and Lt. Robert Rose on the right. I don’t know much about Lt. Col Leonard other than he enlisted in October 1944 and went on to fly for the US Air Force for 22 years. Lt. Rose authored a book titled “Lonely Eagles: Americas Tuskegee Airmen” that was published in 1976 but is probably no longer available. I noticed that Lt. Rose was not listed among the Airmen who would be riding the float and so I asked him why. He joked slyly: “I’m too good looking! It would ruin it for the other guys!” Hahahaha!
There were more photos but either I don’t have them yet or they are very likely copyrighted by the Tournament of Roses Association.
Here is a listing of all of the Tuskegee Airmen who rode on the float.
Above left is former (as of 12:01 am, 1/1/10) President of the LA Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen Lt. Col Theodore “Ted” Lumpkin presenting a specially commissioned and limited issue poster listing everyone (as far as possible) who served as a Tuskegee Airman. Mr. Lumpkin was a ground intelligence officer in the 100th Fighter Squadron stationed inItaly. I can’t remember who the man on the right is but I believe he is affiliated with the Tuskegee Airmen.
UPDATE: Just received this picture of three Tuskegee Airmen posing with the Tournament Queen and Court and, naturally, a couple of friends of mine.
“Pasadena” Phil Boucher
