Wings for This Man

I know that this doesn't really have anything to do with the Pacific War, but it's still something that I am very interested in, the Tuskegee Air Force. The were an all-black group of airmen that were treated like dirt for quite a while, but were finally given a chance to prove themselves and they did an outstanding job. The movie The Tuskegee Airmen is a fantastic film. This is the first video I've found in my WWII researches that has anything on them.

“It's morning. Twenty miles from the enemy. These are American boys going to work.”

It's a routine morning patrol over Italy.

They are shooting down Nazi planes at a 3:1 ratio. Ronald Reagan is the narrator, by the way.

The Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

Booker T. Washington, the founder of the school.

Near the school, “misunderstanding, prejudice and distrust” had to be cleared away to build a runway.

“A group of average Americans must become fighting men with wings.”

The men are given a lot of classroom training, hands-on work with their plane, and flying experience.

The video also says the men were trained for medium bombers, and that some day they would be fighting both the Germans and the Japanese. The latter never happened.

The answer to the propaganda of Hirohito and Hitler was “wings for this man.”

The video says that these men were pioneers, and that they fought lies, they fought heartbreak, and they won. “Now they fight the enemy, on his own soil.”

The clip says 750 pilots have been trained in the three years the airfield has existed, and that half of them have been in combat. Many have also died.

The film goes on to say how the strength of the American people is backing up the men.

The video says nothing about the units being totally segregated, though.

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