Meet some of the airmen:
What: VITAS Innovative Hospice Care's screening of the "Double Victory" documentary and sneak peek of the movie "Redtails''
When: 2 p.m. today
Where: Smith Auditorium on the first floor of Building 12 on the campus of Sinclair Community College, 444 W. Third St.
Cost: Free
Some Dayton connections to the Tuskegee Airmen
- In 1939, two black civilian pilots, Chauncey Spencer and Dale White, flew a Lincoln-Paige biplane from Chicago to Washington, D.C., to lobby the United States Congress to allow black pilots to be trained in the Civilian Pilot Training Program for the U.S. Army Air Corps. Their efforts eventually paved the way for the Tuskegee Experiment. White moved to Dayton in 1940 and stayed here until his death in 1978.
- Robert Harvey, 92, a Tuskegee Airman who retired from the Dayton Post Office, still lives in Dayton.
- Dayton native Mac Ross was one of the first Tuskegee Airmen. He died in 1944 after he went down during a P-51 transitional training flight. A plaque in his honor is displayed at the Dayton Post Office on East 5th Street.
DAYTON — Everyday, a tri-motor airplane flew over 11-year-old Charles “C.I.” Williams’ Lima home.
“It was a mail plane,” said Williams, now 95 and living in Dayton. “I vowed then, 1927, I was going to be a pilot.”
In 1965, Williams retired as a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force while in France after serving his country for 26 years. “I was deputy commander of a jet bomber wing over there,” Williams said.
Williams became a civil rights pioneer while serving in the military. He was one of the Tuskegee Airmen, the U.S. military’s first black pilots. The Tuskegee Airmen were a part of a military experiment, known as The Tuskegee Experiment, that took place in the 1940s. The black fighter pilots were trained on the campus of a small black college called the Tuskegee Institute.
The Tuskegee Airmen from the 332nd Fighter Group in World War II became the ancestors of the U.S. Air Force’s current 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group.
The black pilots were assigned to Europe in 1944 where their duties included flying P-39s, P-47 Thunderbolts and P-51C Mustangs to escort convoys, protect harbors and conduct armed reconnaissance missions. The pilots of the 332nd had successful tactics that allowed them to maneuver pass the Germans’ powerful ME 262 Schwalbe. The black pilots had a rule among themselves that they would not leave their bombers unprotected. This allowed their bombers to destroy more of the enemy on the ground.
Many documentaries and movies have been made about the Tuskegee Airmen. George Lucas produced the latest one, “Red Tails.” The movie, starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrance Howard, is set to open in theatres nationwide on Jan. 20.
“The white pilots got to know the Tuskegee Red Tail pilots, but they didn’t know the pilots were actually black,” said Edward Morast, president of the Ohio Memorial Chapter of Tuskegee Airmen, Inc.
“They just know that they had a red tail on them. When the Red Tails were escorting them, they seemed to always make it back home.” This led to Bomber Squadrons requesting the Red Tails to escort them. “Then later on they found out they were black and some of the guys just didn’t really accept that.”
Miami Valley residents can get a sneak peek of the “Red Tails” movie by attending VITAS Innovative Hospice Care’s screening of the “Double Victory” documentary at 2 p.m. today in the Smith Auditorium on the first floor of Building 12 on the campus of Sinclair Community College, 444 W. Third St. Doors open to the public at 1 p.m. The event is free to the public and will include appearances by some Tuskegee Airmen living in the Miami Valley.
Williams was a junior and studying aeronautical engineering at UCLA in Los Angeles when he received orders from Washington, DC. to go to Tuskegee, Ala., for pilot training. “That was about the happiest day of my life,” he said. He arrived at Tuskegee in March of 1942 and began what he called a rigorous 10-month course.
“We flew three different types of airplanes. Training primarily,” Williams said. “We had all white instructors after we left primary. In primary, we were flying a little train plane, a PT 17 trainer and all the instructors were African-Americans and most of them were from (Tuskegee Institute). We got along fine, but then they had what we used to call, the washing machine. A lot of good pilots were washed out of the program for no reason at all.”
The washing machine “was operated” by white supervisory pilots, who were over the black instructors. “They decided that if they didn’t like you or didn’t like your color or what you had on, they would wash you out. They didn’t take into consideration your abilities,” Williams said.
Among the black pilots who survived the program was Gen. Daniel “Chappie” James, the first African American promoted to the rank of an Air Force four-star general. James retired from the military and died in 1978. Williams, James’ first commanding officer, promoted him to 1st lieutenant.
The 332nd Fighter Group was inactivated in 1945, according to U.S. Air Force archives. However, the members of Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. help keep the legacy of the group alive. The nonprofit organization has 55 chapters nationwide.
There are approximately 1,400 original Tuskegee Airmen in America right now, according to Morast. The organization estimates that there are less than 500 pilots still alive. Morast pointed out that the original Tuskegee Airmen were made up of ground crew and operation support members. There are seven in Morast’s chapter.
For more information about Tuskegee Airmen, Inc., visit www.tuskegeeairmen.org.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2414 or kelli.wynn@coxinc.com.
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