The Tuskegee Airmen is the story of the first African-American men trained to be combat pilots in World War II. It is a saga of men who faced incredible odds to become part of the Army Air Force and fly combat against the Germans in the European Theater. Learning to fly was hard enough for anyone, white or black. I grew up listening to stories my father told of how he went to flight school and had to learn calculus, and not having had it in his one year of college, had to promise an upper classmate that he (my father) would write love letters to this upperclassman's girl friend in exchange for teaching my dad calculus.
True story. Also true was the abuse and overt racism this first class of Tuskegee Airmen faced in learning to become pilots. Almost every white officer begins his relationship with these men with the belief that African-Americans are just too dumb to learn how to fly. Most white officers and white politicians believe this "experiment" was doomed to fail and a waste of taxpayer money. The Tuskegee Airmen are seen as a bad joke and are best kept out of real combat where they cannot hurt the real war effort.
In one of the best scenes in the movie, two of the Tuskegee graduates come the rescue of a wounded B-17 bomber (the kind my father eventually flew) and shot down two German fighters while getting the bomber safely home. When the pilot and co-pilot of the bomber (both white) seek out the fighter pilots who rescued them, they were shocked to discover that they are "colored", as the two white pilots call them. "That just can't be", one of them protests. They are further astounded to learn that the Tuskegee wing had never...NEVER...lost a bomber it escorted.
Those two white pilots were shocked, and undoubtedly racist, but they were not altogether dumb. When later in the was the first air attack on Berlin is planned, an attack that was sure to cost the Air Force several B-17's (ten men crews) the very pilot who was so bigoted at learning his life and his crew were saved by a "colored wing", now insists that this same wing be his escort for this dangerous attack on Berlin.
The bomber pilot's sudden switch from disdain to respect reminded me of what Jesus once said about honor and respect. Jesus always suggested sitting at the back of a banquet so you could be invited to move forward and not the other way around. Jesus explained, "For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."
When it came time for the white bomber pilot to protect his own behind, his racism and condescension disappeared quickly and he ate humble pie and admitted the Tuskegee Airmen were best at protecting bomber flights. In fact, through hundreds of flights, the Tuskegee Airmen, 99th Fighter Wing, never...NEVER...lost a bomber it escorted. Truly the humble were exalted.
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