The Tuskegee Airmen (pronounced /tʌˈskiːɡi/) is the popular name of a group of African American pilots who flew with distinction during World War II as the 332nd Fighter Group of the US Army Air Corps.
Prior to the Tuskegee Airmen, no U.S. military pilots had been African American. A series of legislative moves by the United States Congress in 1941 forced the Army Air Corps to form an all-black combat unit, despite the War Department's reluctance...
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The Tuskegee Airmen (pronounced /tʌˈskiːɡi/) is the popular name of a group of African American pilots who flew with distinction during World War II as the 332nd Fighter Group of the US Army Air Corps.
Prior to the Tuskegee Airmen, no U.S. military pilots had been African American. A series of legislative moves by the United States Congress in 1941 forced the Army Air Corps to form an all-black combat unit, despite the War Department's reluctance. In an effort to eliminate the unit before it could begin, the War Department set up a system to accept only those with a level of flight experience or higher education that they expected would be hard to fill. This policy backfired when the Air Corps received an abundance of applications from men who qualified even under these restrictive specifications, many of whom had already participated in the Civilian Pilot Training Program, which the historically-black Tuskegee Institute had participated in since 1939.
The U.S. Army Air Corps had...
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