For my term paper I chose the Tuskegee Airman. They will alway be the most influential air squadron during WWII. I think this because there where a lot racist people that did not want them to succeed, but they did more than just succeed. They became the first black Airforce pilots. It all started when President Roosevelt arranged a meeting in September 1940 with three African-American leaders and members of the Army and Navy. During the meeting, the leaders emphasized three points:(1)equal opportunity for jobs in the defense industry, (2)impartial administration of the new draftlaw, and (3)an opportunity for qualified blacks to learn to fly in desegrated units.*1*A few days later after the meeting, the War Departmentissued a policy directives stating that black men generally would be admitted into the armed force in numbers equivalent to their percentage in the civilian population.But it was not until a couple months after the meeting in December 1940, that the Army Air Corps submitted a plan for the experiment to establish an all-black fighter squadron.The plan was not official until July 19, 1941 when Major General Walter Weaver, commander of the U.S. Army’s Southeastern Air Corps spoke at the Tuskegee Institute Campus.*2*It was then that 13 black men became the first black pilot trainees. Most of the trainees were college graduates, including a policeman, an army officer, a factory inspector, and several young men who were fresh out of college. Also, all of the men were trained at Chanute Air Field in Ratoul, Illinois at the US Army Air Corps Technical Training School. The men of this first squadron were so smart that they established a grade point average never equaled before or after their training.*3*A few miles from the Tuskegee Campus, two air fields were built for the training of the new cadets. The two air fields were Moton Field and the Tuskegee Army Air Field(TAAF). About six miles from the fields was the town of ...
