Denny
03-29-2007, 02:17 PM
BY MARTIN C. EVANS
martin.evans@newsday.com
March 29, 2007
WASHINGTON - Hundreds of black World War II aviators, the Tuskegee Airmen, are converging here today, when Congress will bestow upon them the nation's highest civilian honor.
The men will be lauded with the Congressional Gold Medal, which lawmakers approved last year to recognize their pioneering efforts as America's first black military fliers. Their aerial exploits helped persuade President Harry Truman in 1948 to end segregation in the U.S. military, opening America to a new social order.
Some of those who arrived yesterday - most of them now in their 80s - said they were happy to have finally received the award, but saddened that many of their comrades did not live long enough to enjoy the honor.
Blacks had been barred from U.S. military flight training until 1941, when a group of cadets were allowed to begin attending an all-black aviation academy set up as an experiment in Tuskegee, Ala..
The experiment had been expected to fail, as some military experts argued that blacks lacked the courage, intellect and physical coordination to fly military missions successfully.
Instead, many of the Tuskegee trainees became crack pilots, and proved themselves in aerial battles over Europe. While providing escort protection for U.S. aircraft, the all-black unit never allowed an enemy plane to shoot down a single Allied bomber.
"It was certainly not a reason that we would do something poorly because we were all black and they [had] us down in these colored barracks," said Spann Watson, 90, of Westbury.
During the early years of the war, Watson was repeatedly refused induction into military flight training even though he was a Howard University graduate, with a pilot's license.
But when the NAACP threatened a lawsuit, the military agreed to organize a trial group of black flight cadets.
Watson was among the first of 994 pilots who graduated from the Tuskegee program between 1942 and 1946. He flew on the first mission in U.S. history in which black pilots engaged in aerial combat.
martin.evans@newsday.com
March 29, 2007
WASHINGTON - Hundreds of black World War II aviators, the Tuskegee Airmen, are converging here today, when Congress will bestow upon them the nation's highest civilian honor.
The men will be lauded with the Congressional Gold Medal, which lawmakers approved last year to recognize their pioneering efforts as America's first black military fliers. Their aerial exploits helped persuade President Harry Truman in 1948 to end segregation in the U.S. military, opening America to a new social order.
Some of those who arrived yesterday - most of them now in their 80s - said they were happy to have finally received the award, but saddened that many of their comrades did not live long enough to enjoy the honor.
Blacks had been barred from U.S. military flight training until 1941, when a group of cadets were allowed to begin attending an all-black aviation academy set up as an experiment in Tuskegee, Ala..
The experiment had been expected to fail, as some military experts argued that blacks lacked the courage, intellect and physical coordination to fly military missions successfully.
Instead, many of the Tuskegee trainees became crack pilots, and proved themselves in aerial battles over Europe. While providing escort protection for U.S. aircraft, the all-black unit never allowed an enemy plane to shoot down a single Allied bomber.
"It was certainly not a reason that we would do something poorly because we were all black and they [had] us down in these colored barracks," said Spann Watson, 90, of Westbury.
During the early years of the war, Watson was repeatedly refused induction into military flight training even though he was a Howard University graduate, with a pilot's license.
But when the NAACP threatened a lawsuit, the military agreed to organize a trial group of black flight cadets.
Watson was among the first of 994 pilots who graduated from the Tuskegee program between 1942 and 1946. He flew on the first mission in U.S. history in which black pilots engaged in aerial combat.