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America’s Black Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen

Khalid Elhassan April 4, 2025 16 min

Tuskegee Airmen. Sheppard Air Force Base

14. The First African American to Solo a US Army Air Corps Plane

Brigadier General Benjamin O. Davis Sr. in France, 1944. K-Pics

The first class of five African American fighter pilots graduated in March, 1942. The black aviators were commanded by then-Captain Benjamin Oliver Davis Jr., one of only two African American line officers then serving, and the first black officer to solo an Army Air Corps plane. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel that July, and placed in command of the 99^th. Benjamin O. Davis Jr., who forever after was associated with WWII’s black airmen was born into the military. His father, Benjamin O. Davis Sr., was a US Army officer who served in segregated units for over four decades, before he became America’s first black general when he was promoted to brigadier in October, 1940. When he was thirteen-years-old, O. Davis Jr caught the flying bug when he flew with a barnstorming pilot. He decided then and there that he, too, would one day become a pilot.

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.