Tuskegee RED TAILS

The men, the machines, the missions

- BY BARRETT TILLMAN

BELOW: Kermit Weeks' P-51C Red Tail is parked outside the hangar in prep for an early morning flight. This marvelous aircraft, which wears Lee Archer's WW II colors and has his autograph on the armor plating, is a great voice for this amazing group of men. (Photo by Moose Peterson)

IN SEPTEMBER 1939, while Europe was erupting for the second time in two generations, America slowly prepared for war. That month, the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama applied to the Civil Aeronautics Administration to participate in the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPT). Thereby, black males tentatively became eligible for government flight training-a revolutionary development in American aviation.

In early 1940, CAA representatives arrived to supervise admissions tests. The Institute's high academic standards were validated when every applicant passed the CPT entry test, reportedly an unmatched record in the South.

That fall, the budding Tuskegee airmen were heartened when President Franklin Roosevelt confirmed that Negroes would be trained as Army pilots.

Tuskegee's first preflight class convened in July 1941: 12 cadets under Capt. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., a West Pointer like his father, while white officers performed administrative functions. Of the original dozen cadets, five completed the course and proceeded to flight training.

Kermit Weeks flies North American P-51C Mustang (s/n 42-103831 owned by Fantasy of Flight over the Polk City, Florida landscape. (Photo by Philip Makanna/GHOSTS)