FIGHTING RED TAILS

Description

“The P-38s always stayed out too far.  Some Mustang groups stayed in too close, other groups we felt just wanted to go off and shoot down 109s… but the Red Tails were always out there where we wanted them to be… we had no idea their pilots were black; it was the Army’s best kept secret.”

Thus recalled a grateful B-24 pilot paying tribute to the Tuskegee airmen of the 332nd Fighter Group, whose pilots were made up entirely of black Americans.

Contending with prejudice from certain quarters within their own air force and much of the American press, the young black pilots of what was to become famously known as the Tuskegee Airmen first went into action in Italy in May, 1943.  At the time, the idea that black pilots could equal the endeavors of their white counterparts seemed out of the question.  Yet the hard work and tenacity of the Tuskegee Airmen was to prove their critics wrong.

After cutting their teeth as the 99th Squadron, first with the 324th and then the 79th Fighter Groups, flying fighter-bomber missions and attacking railroads, bridges and communication centers, in July 1944 they joined the 100th, 301st and 302nd to form the 332nd Fighter Group – the USAAF’s first all-black unit, its pilots all trained at Tuskegee.  Equipped with P-51 Mustangs, their spinners and tails decorated in bright red paint, they became lastingly known as the “Red Tails.”  Their dedicated task was to protect the bomber forces, and that is precisely what they did: Flying until the end of hostilities, and at considerable sacrifice, they achieved a remarkably low loss rate for the bombers under their protection.

The Red Tails recorded more than 15,000 combat sorties destroying or damaging over 250 enemy aircraft and their pilots were, between them, awarded over 1000 medals for gallantry.  When the war ended they had earned the undying respect of bomber crews, fellow fighter pilots, and a grateful group of nations.

Robert Taylor’s stunning tribute depicts P51 Mustangs of the 332nd Fighter Group – the famed Tuskegee Airmen, climbing to operational height as B17 Fortresses from the 483rd Bomb Group maneuver into formation at the start of another long and dangerous mission over Germany, Oct 1944. The renowned Tuskegee pilots were a welcome sight for the Fortress crews.