German Pilots Feared The Red-Tailed P-51s Flown By Men Told They Couldn't Fly скачать в хорошем качестве

German Pilots Feared The Red-Tailed P-51s Flown By Men Told They Couldn't Fly

Nineteen forty-four. Somewhere over Germany. German fighters rose to intercept American bomber formations. Then they saw the escorts. P-51 Mustangs with distinctive red tails. The Red Tails. German pilots who'd encountered them before knew what that meant. Skilled pilots. Aggressive tactics. Excellent bomber protection. Difficult opponents. German intelligence reports showed respect. Even grudging admiration. These particular American fighters were among the best. What most German pilots never knew: Those red-tailed Mustangs were flown by Black American pilots who'd been told by their own military that they lacked the intelligence and reflexes to fly combat aircraft. The Tuskegee Airmen. Nine hundred ninety-two Black pilots who graduated from a segregated training program. A program created partly to prove they couldn't succeed. They flew fifteen thousand five hundred thirty-three combat sorties. Shot down or destroyed over two hundred sixty German aircraft. Had the lowest bomber loss rate of any escort fighter group in the Eighth Air Force. Earned ninety-six Distinguished Flying Crosses. They did all of this while fighting two wars simultaneously. The Luftwaffe in the air over Europe. And American racism on the ground at their own bases. They couldn't use the same officers clubs as white pilots. They were segregated in separate facilities even while fighting the same enemy. One hundred one Tuskegee Airmen were arrested in nineteen forty-five for trying to enter a whites-only officers club at Freeman Field, Indiana. But in the air, escorting bombers over Germany, they were simply the best. Bomber crews specifically requested Red Tail escorts. Said they felt safer with those distinctive red-tailed Mustangs flying protection. Their combat record became undeniable evidence. When President Truman desegregated the United States military in nineteen forty-eight, the Tuskegee Airmen's service was key proof that racist assumptions about capability were false. 🔔 SUBSCRIBE to War Rewind for more untold WWII stories about overlooked heroes, the innovations that changed battles, and the courage that changed history.