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The Most Heroic Airmen of World War II

Khalid Elhassan August 10, 2022 38 min

13. Segregation in the US Armed Forces Led to Calls for the Creation of an All-Black Fighter Unit

Ace Facts - The first class of Tuskegee Airmen in 1941 — The first class of Tuskegee Airmen in 1941. Wikimedia

In the First World War, African Americans tried to fly or serve as aerial observers in the US military, but were rejected. Their numbers included Eugene Bullard, a black pilot who flew for the French air force during the war, because his own country’s military aviation would not have him. Blacks continued to be barred from service in US military aviation until pressure and successful lobbying by civil rights groups got Congress to pass a bill in 1939 to train black flyers.

The War Department and the military aviation establishment dragged their feet and slow walked the implementation of the legislation. In 1941, they finally gave in to pressure and created the 99^th Pursuit Squadron. In accordance with the military’s racial segregation policies, the 99^th was an all-black flying outfit. The unit had 47 officers and 429 men, and training began in Tuskegee, Alabama, in July of 1941. The first class of five black fighter pilots graduated in March, 1942. They included Benjamin O. Davis Jr., 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.

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.