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Published: July 31st 2013
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TUSKEEGEE AIRMEN
The photo shows a diecast model in 48 scale of the P-51C Mustang flown by Lee Archer on October 12 1944 when he shot down three Nazi fighters in ten minutes over Lake Balaton in Hungary. Another Mustang has been restored to flying condition that carries the markings of Lee's plane. There has been a resurgence of interest in the Tuskegee Airmen since the movie Red Tails has been released. Lee was a technical consultant to the movie. TUSKEEGEE AIRMEN
Lee Archer burst onto the scene on September 6, 1919 in Yonkers, New York, was raised in Harlem, and graduated from New York University. He wanted to be a pilot and fight for his country when the winds of war lit up the morning sky over Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Black men were not allowed to handle ‘chinery in those days, so Lee joined the Army and became a telegrapher down in Georgia. The Army, to its deep chagrin, was finally forced by Congress to change its policy and an experimental pilot training program was begun at Moton Field near Tuskegee, Alabama. One of the first to graduate from that program was a West Point officer named Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. At the time he graduated from the military academy in 1936 Davis was one of only two black officers in the entire army. The other was his father Benjamin O Davis, Sr. Both men would eventually become generals. The army very much wanted the Tuskegee experiment to fail. From the first graduating class only five men received their wings and a commission. It was a start. Others would soon graduate and an all-black fighter squadron could be formed. All of the ground crew and support personnel would be black and they would, of course, have need for a black flight surgeon. The scarcity of black doctors nearly foundered the program. By the spring of 1943 the 99
th Pursuit Squadron thundered into battle commanded by Major Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. They were attached to the otherwise white 33
rd Fighter Group which was commanded by a racist pig named Colonel William Momyer. The 99
th first saw action with them on June 2, 1943 in a ground attack mission against the Nazi held island of Pantelleria in the Mediterranean Sea. They performed admirably during that mission flying rickety old P-40s that had been cast off from the other units. Momyer filed a report accusing the black fliers of cowardice for not engaging enemy planes, but that was not part of their mission. That report nearly brought the entire Tuskegee experiment to a close but in the meantime the program succeeded well enough to establish an entire black fighter group. It was 332
nd Fighter Group and consisted of the 99
th, 100
th, 301
st and 302
nd Fighter Squadrons. Ben Davis was their commanding officer. The P-40s had been replaced with P-39 Airacobras, but the P-39s were also planes cast off from white units that preferred not to fly them. They were dangerous planes to fly and a poor match for Nazi fighters. When the appropriations bill that pertained to the Tuskeegee Experiment came up Davis returned to Washington and spoke forcibly in rebuttal to the Momyer Report before Congress and in the Pentagon. Funding was continued, Davis returned to his command with assignment to the 15
th Air Force. The 332
nd transferred to Ramitelli Air Base in Italy and were given greater responsibilities. All that Davis asked for was a fighting chance to demonstrate that the black fliers could make capable contributions to the war effort and he got that chance. It was an important opportunity for them and they rose to meet the challenge. At Ramitelli they were given P-47 Thunderbolts to fly and they were sent on bomber escort missions. Once again the planes they got were surplus from all-white units who were given P-51 Mustangs. Davis had administrative challenges of his own to meet. The Tuskeegee Experiment got continued funding, but the focus shifted from training fighter pilots and to training whole bomber crews. Bombers were more expensive planes, they were more complicated, and they required larger air crews. In addition to pilots they needed copilots, navigators, bombardiers, flight engineers, and gunners. Fewer fighter pilots came out of the program so replacement pilots to the 332
nd became hard to get. Pilot attrition due to combat loss was a concern that could end the experiment before it got fully underway. Combat loss had to be minimized and the unit needed visible identity. To get the identity they painted the whole tail section red. It worked so well they soon became known as the Red Tails. Combat losses required a tactical solution that oddly enough came from the Nazis themselves. The Nazis also faced critical attrition problems. They could produce neither planes, nor pilots as fast as we could. We could put plenty more planes in the air than they could, just not planes flown by black pilots. When the Nazis wanted to attack a bomber formation typically they would attack the fighter cover first, draw them into engagement, and then send other planes to attack the unguarded bombers. What changed was that Red Tails would not be drawn off. There were plenty of white pilots who could go off in larkful pursuit, but the Red Tails would stick close to the bombers and see them safely home. Very few bombers were lost in that change of tactics and the bomber command soon began to insist that the Red Tails cover their missions. The recognition earned them an allotment of P-51C Mustangs that could fly at greater range than the P-47 could; enabling longer escort coverage. Throughout the war the Red Tails were credited with just over a hundred aerial combat victories losing about sixty of their own to all causes. By the war’s end the Red Tails were the most experienced combat pilots in the air corps because they did not suffer the luxury of being replaced after 50 missions. They were not exactly dragons of the sky, but they were damn good aviators and they never shirked a task in the face of constant scrutiny, suspicion and hatred. None of them were aces, but three of them stand credited with 4 aerial victories. One of those was Lee Archer. He came out of Tuskegee at the top of his class with a commission as second lieutenant on July 28, 1943. He picked up the nickname “Buddy” from his classmates for his fierce determination to let none of them fail. At some point he was everyone’s buddy. The black cadets were held to different standards than white pilots were. It was hoped that they would not succeed and every effort was made to wash them out. In the first class all but five were washed out. We probably would have lost the war if white pilot cadets were treated the same as the black cadets were. As a sparkling new officer Lee Archer drew assignment to the 302
nd Fighter Squadron. He flew 169 missions with them, scoring an aerial victory over Germany on July 18, 1944. On October 12 he scored three more victories in a fierce dogfight over Lake Balaton in Hungary. It was perhaps the liveliest ten minutes of his life. Lee met a girl named Ina Burdell when he was a telegrapher in the infantry before he went to Tuskegee. He thought enough of her that he named his plane “Ina the Macon Belle” in her honor. He had heard, by then, of the Memphis Belle. After the war they married and raised a family and Lee remained in the Air Force. He commanded a fighter squadron in the Korean War, became a diplomatic officer at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). Lee retired from the Air Force in 1970 as a lieutenant colonel and became a corporate executive with General Foods. He died on January 27, 2010 at the age of 90. Benjamin Davis attained the rank of Lieutenant General before he retired on February 1, 1970, but he wasn’t done yet. On December 9, 1970 he was promoted in retirement to General of the Air Force. He passed away on July 4, 2002.
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