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America’s Black Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen

Khalid Elhassan April 4, 2025 16 min

Tuskegee Airmen. Sheppard Air Force Base

4. Earning A Third Distinguished Unit Citation

Tuskegee - Pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group at Ramitelli Airfield in Italy — Pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group at Ramitelli Airfield in Italy. US Air Force

Collectively, the Tuskegee Airmen earned three Distinguished Unit Citations. The first of them went to the 99^th Pursuit Squadron for its performance in the aerial assault on Pantelleria in June, 1943. The 99^th earned another DUC in May, 1944, for actions during the Allied assault on Monte Cassino. The third Distinguished Unit Citation went to the 332^nd Fighter Group (including the 99^th Pursuit Squadron plus two other black squadrons, the 100^th and 301^st) for action over Berlin in March, 1945. As seen below, despite the predictions of many that blacks were unsuited to fly combat, the Tuskegee Airmen turned out to be some of the best fighter pilots in the US Army Air Forces.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.