Flying High In Face Of Prejudice Tuskegee Airmen Took Out Hundreds Of Enemy Aircraft

Black men can’t fly, some used to say.

They’re cowards, concluded a 1925 Army War College study. They lack the skill and intelligence to fly an airplane.

But the study was wrong.

Men like William Holloman and James Wiley proved that.

“We were the only fighting group in World War II never to lose a bomber,” said Holloman, one of the first African American pilots to join the Army Air Forces. “When (the enemy) heard about ‘those colored boys,’ fear took over. They knew they were going to be slaughtered.”

The two men - original members of the famed Tuskegee airmen - came to Spokane on Friday to speak at Fairchild Air Force Base’s annual Heritage Banquet.

More than 50 years after they helped put an end to military segregation, the two shared war stories and spoke of their training on the segregated military complex near Tuskegee, Ala.

“Just the fact that we were separated from everyone else was real rejection,” said Wiley, a 78-year-old retired colonel and one of about 50 original Tuskegees still alive. “But our desire to fly was too strong.”

Earlier Friday, the two flashed old photographs of P-40 planes and their fellow airmen. They also recalled their experiences as members of one of the most decorated squadrons in American military history.

As black officers, their lives were full of contradictions.

Abroad, the more than 900 Tuskegee airmen were feared and respected by the enemy. The Germans called them “Schwarze Vogelmenschen” (“Black Birdmen”) for their flying abilities. Together, they destroyed or damaged about 400 enemy aircraft. After the war, they were awarded more than 850 medals.

At home, however, they were forced to use separate waiting rooms and drinking fountains.

“They told us we were separate but equal,” said Holloman, 72. “But some were more equal than others.”

When Holloman first crossed the Mason-Dixon line for training in Alabama, the Missouri native was threatened by the train conductor, he recalled.

The Army had assigned him a drawing room on the train to protect him from potential harassment, said the retired lieutenant colonel. But the conductor wanted him to move to the “Jim Crow car,” a coach behind the engine.

Even when they lived on base, they still couldn’t escape the discrimination, he said.

“We always got the hand-me-downs,” Holloman said, recalling the used airplanes and equipment they received.

After the war, Americans put banners with a V for “Victory” outside their homes. But family members of Tuskegee airmen put two V’s: one for victory over war and another for victory over racism.

“We made one step forward,” Wiley said. “Had we not gone, (military integration) wouldn’t have happened at all.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo