History Of The Tuskegee Training Program

The Tuskegee training program was started at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1939 (Moye 2010). In early 1941, the War Department officially established the Tuskegee Airmen (Homan 2002). The Tuskegee Institute in Alabama became the only Army Air Forces training facility for African-Americans due to the Institutes great reputation and political connections (Moye 2010). Unlike all of the other Civilian Pilot Training programs, the Tuskegee program had consisted of only African-American pilot trainees. The Tuskegee Airmen were the very first group of American military pilots that were African-American (Homan 2002). The Tuskegee training program, even though it had very high approval from the start, faced a lot of challenging hurdles and delays

From the start, the Tuskegee training program was faced with opposition of the program itself from within the top ranks of the Army Air Forces. One of the main culprits that greatly affected the efficiency of Tuskegee’s training programs was racial segregation (Moye 2010). The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of racially segregated pursuit squadrons during World War II (Homan 2002). The AAF often delayed the African-American combat pilots as long as they could and only allowed them to execute very unimportant and unwanted jobs. The Tuskegee Airmen were frequently assigned on mop-up operations and strafing runs in North Africa and Italy due to the amount of opposition that the AAF had against the program (Moye 2010). During the course of the training

Davis Jr.. Even though there have been claims to never losing a bomber during escorting raids over Europe, while inaccurate, this claim shows the amazing success of the 332nd Fighter group and it’s tactics. The Tuskegee Airmen had gained a reputation during the war for guarding their charges ruthlessly rather than fighting with German fighter pilots. Two of the most successful and well recognized Tuskegee groups were the 332nd fighter group and the 99th pursuit squadron. The 332nd fighter group were the famous “Red Tails” due to the fact that their plain tales were painted a bright red color (Moye 2010). The reasoning behind the red plain tale is that the scientists and the painters did not have any other options at that time except for red paint. Many of the scientist were concerned about the pilots being spotted easier by anti-aircraft but it actually did not even matter because of all the smoke in the air from bombs and dog fights going on. A few of the pilots from the 332nd fighter group explained that it actually made it easier to distinguish their allies during a dog fight so they would not shoot down their own men. The other famous Tuskegee trained group were the pilots of the 99th Fighter squadron. By June in the year 1944, just 5 years after the Tuskegee program had started, the 99th Fighter squadron had flown over 298