Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00August 1944. High over Europe, Allied pilots fight an epic battle to take back the skies from Nazi Germany.
00:10When the fighters did come in...
00:13Tally-ho! Let's go get them.
00:15Overcoming staggering odds, an exceptional group of pilots rises to meet a historic challenge.
00:21We knew we could do it better than anybody else.
00:25Pilots who fought not only the Luftwaffe in the skies, but also brutal prejudice in the American military.
00:31Given the opportunity, the Blacks could perform as well as anybody else.
00:36This is the story of the trailblazing Tuskegee Airmen, the Red Tails, told in their own words.
00:44They call us Luftgangsters, air gangsters.
00:47America's first African-American fighter pilots, who became some of World War II's greatest aces and changed the course of American history.
01:18Summer, 1944.
01:20The 332nd Fighter Group, better known as the Tuskegee Airmen, or Red Tails, has only been on the front line for a year.
01:28Yet their reputation is soaring.
01:32The pilots' focus is on shooting down Nazi planes.
01:35But back home, their remarkable story has captured the imagination of black Americans.
01:42College students at the time penned up pictures of Tuskegee Airmen in their dorm rooms.
01:46They were the ideal.
01:47They were who little boys wanted to grow up to be and who little girls wanted to marry in the black community.
01:54Ramitelli, Italy.
01:56Pilots of the 332nd cheer Charles McGee home after another successful mission over Germany, protecting American bombers.
02:06A 25-year-old engineering student from Ohio, McGee always knew he wanted to fly.
02:12Given the opportunity, we accomplished something that many believed was not possible.
02:18Most in the military high command doubt a man like McGee can fly a plane, but alone go into combat against the highly trained Luftwaffe.
02:29For McGee and his fellow Tuskegee Airmen, it's been an epic journey from prejudice at home to the front line in Italy.
02:38It all begins with Japan's devastating attack on the American fleet in Pearl Harbor, the event which brought the United States into World War II.
02:4822-year-old Roscoe Brown, the son of a Washington political advisor, is eager to join up and fight for his country.
02:56When the war started, we knew we were going to go, but we also wanted to go in the best circumstance.
03:03We wanted to be officers, we wanted to be pilots, we wanted to be Tuskegee Airmen.
03:09I was listening to the New York football Giants playing the Brooklyn Dodgers when I heard at halftime that the war had started.
03:19I didn't know where in the heck Pearl Harbor was.
03:22Japanese? No idea.
03:25But everybody was at war.
03:28Everybody's going to the Army, Navy, Marines.
03:31I wanted to go to the Army Air Corps. I wanted to fly.
03:35I was completely aware that it was impossible to become a pilot.
03:43The Army policy was established based on a 1925 War College study.
03:49The premise was how to use this one-tenth of the military power to build a country.
03:54In that study, the premise was how to use this one-tenth of the American population if our country got involved in war again.
04:03What they said was that the American Negro physically was qualified, but mentally inferior, morally inferior, they should be used but in service roles.
04:17Tuskegee's origins date back to two years before the Japanese bombed the American fleet in Hawaii.
04:24This organization can appease the Nazis.
04:28By 1940, with war looking inevitable, President Roosevelt is under pressure from African American organizations to create more opportunities for blacks in the military, including the Army Air Corps.
04:41Franklin Roosevelt announced that the Army Air Corps was going to open up this new training program for African Americans.
04:47It was going to be segregated. It was going to be separate from the rest of the Air Corps training programs.
04:51And it was going to be placed in Tuskegee, Alabama.
04:55Fiercely opposed by many military top brass, the Tuskegee Experiment, as it's known, recruits the brightest and best of black America, pulling college graduates from all over the U.S.
05:07The Army Air Corps thought, we'll go by the letter of the law of what the policies tell us we have to do.
05:12We'll let these black people into pilot training, but there's no way they'll succeed because we all know black people can't fly airplanes.
05:18We didn't feel this way. We knew we were going to be successful. We could be as good as anybody else.
05:25Young men like Alexander Jefferson, who dreamed of flying as a child, now have their chance.
05:32When an opportunity came to go to Tuskegee, I grabbed it.
05:41I was glad to go. Eager to go.
05:45It was adventure. You're young. You're stupid.
05:51The flight instructors through primary, basic, and advanced were all white.
05:57All the rest of the base was black. Mechanics, cooks, truck drivers, all the upperclassmen were all black.
06:05The Revolutionary Training Program opens its doors in July 1941.
06:10The man handpicked to lead this all-new unit is Benjamin Davis.
06:15No stranger to adversity, he's got fighting spirit in his blood.
06:22Colonel Benjamin O. Davis Jr. was an exceptional leader.
06:27His father had been the first African-American general in the Army.
06:32Benjamin Davis had attended West Point in the early 1930s.
06:37And at West Point, he encountered the silent treatment.
06:43No one ever spoke to him on campus, whether it was at the mess hall or the dormitory.
06:49He was shunned. You're treating you like a non-person, like an invisible man.
06:55He was the one person for the job at that time.
06:59He was able to take the people and keep them together, mold them the way he wanted to mold them.
07:04He was a soldier.
07:07We were civilians in Army clothes, let's face it.
07:12In the face of entrenched prejudice, Davis knows his men will need to be not just competent,
07:18but among the very best if they're to beat the odds.
07:22It's hard to put into words the feeling of those first flights.
07:27To be able to get off the ground and literally be on the ground,
07:31to be able to get off the ground and literally loop, roll, and spin.
07:36A new environment.
07:40There's something different about being up in the air.
07:44Of course, the other thing about it was, I still hadn't driven an automobile.
07:50You come out of it as a second lieutenant.
07:53A little gold bar on your collar.
07:56A set of wings. A pilot.
07:58These men were pioneers of a venture so new that you who stand here before me now
08:04may still be considered forerunners in the movement
08:07which has given you a place in the fighting men of the sky.
08:12Brazen, yes. We're looking forward to it.
08:16We weren't afraid.
08:19The Red Tails get their first serious taste of combat in April 1943 during the Battle for Italy.
08:25The real test comes the following year.
08:28By June 1944, the Allies have taken most of Italy
08:33and it becomes a crucial staging post for huge American bombing raids against Nazi Germany.
08:39Suffering grave losses from German hit-and-run attacks,
08:43the bombers desperately need protection.
08:46Top Brass has no choice but to call in the Red Tails to help out
08:51and they're transferred to frontline Italy.
08:53Finally, it's their moment to prove they're up to the job.
08:58Not only to the enemy, but also to their fellow white airmen.
09:02All right, gentlemen, settle down.
09:05Good morning.
09:08You get up in the morning and everyone would accumulate in the ready room.
09:12Nothing too complicated today, boys.
09:14V.O. Davis would be standing there.
09:16He was the commanding officer, the operations officer.
09:20Major Lee would come in.
09:21Our mission.
09:23And you see the flight for today, the mission for today,
09:26that down at the bottom would be Ramitelli.
09:29Watch out for any 109.
09:31That long red line would go all the way up to Germany.
09:34You'd hear it, everybody said, oh, crap.
09:38Got our orders from Washington.
09:40What we're doing today.
09:42Everything backtracked from what time you'd need to rendezvous
09:45with whatever bomb group you were assigned to.
09:48We are escorting, ensuring there's safe passage.
09:51They needed escort protection.
09:59By 1944, the Nazis are on the defensive, fighting on three fronts.
10:05From the east, the Russians are rapidly advancing through Poland towards Germany.
10:10The Allies send massive bombing forces from the west and south.
10:15The Tuskegee Airmen assumed the escort role of 15th Air Force bombers.
10:22The 15th Air Force was a long-distance bombing outfit.
10:27They can attack targets within the Greater Reich.
10:32German airspace is defended heavily by German fighters.
10:38Allied bombers, though heavily armed themselves,
10:41required fighter protection.
10:45They could not survive without it.
10:50Just a few years earlier, Top Brass assumed a black man
10:54was incapable of piloting a fighter plane.
10:58Now the Tuskegee Airmen must show they have the right stuff for combat.
11:03Their lives, and the lives of the bomber crews they're tasked with protecting,
11:08depend on it.
11:09Any guy who says he's not scared, he's a damn liar.
11:18Across the Mediterranean, the Allies continue to target German positions
11:23in the battle to retake Europe.
11:25The Tuskegee Airmen are now in the midst of the action,
11:28playing aerial bodyguard to mass sweeps of bombers.
11:33Finally, they get an upgrade from the obsolete hand-me-down planes
11:36they've been flying in Italy.
11:39Along with their new status comes the Allies' best fighter,
11:43the P-51 Mustang.
11:49What the P-51 has is great firepower, great maneuverability.
11:53It's small and light. It's very, very quick.
11:56You could move it, you could turn it, you could bring it down,
11:59you could go fast, you could land it.
12:01It was a beautiful airplane.
12:03It was so responsive.
12:04You push that throttle forward and you get so much power.
12:07The thing just takes off.
12:10The P-51 with the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine,
12:13that was the epitome of flying.
12:18Instead of escorting the bombers part of the way,
12:22they can now stick to them like glue,
12:24all the way into Germany and all the way back again,
12:27and give them continual fighter escort and support and defense.
12:31That gives the bombers a heck of an advantage.
12:47The new P-51 may be best in class,
12:50but for Mustang rookies like Alex Jefferson
12:53and his friend Ophel Dixon, there's a big learning curve.
12:57Ophel Dixon and I went down to the line
13:00to check out our new P-51s.
13:03Dixon outranked me, so quite naturally.
13:06He got a plane first.
13:09I sat there and watched him go into it.
13:12Here's how you check your mags.
13:15Here's how you start it.
13:17Here are the other controls, your radio.
13:21Despite a lesson in the modern world,
13:24despite a lesson in the Mustang's controls,
13:27Ophel Dixon makes a simple mistake.
13:31He did not read the check orders.
13:36And he flew around.
13:39I waited for him to come back. I was going to use the same plane.
13:43And then flew down across the airfield,
13:46pulled up, the slow roll,
13:49fell out of it, and boom, went in.
13:53Exploded.
13:57Killed himself.
14:01We found out later,
14:04the 85-gallon tank behind him was full.
14:07And you're not supposed to do any maneuvering.
14:10It throws your center of gravity off.
14:13Half hour later,
14:16OK, Jeff, your turn to go.
14:19I flew straight and level
14:22for about two and a half, three hours, straight and level.
14:25Came back in and landed.
14:28No maneuvers at all.
14:31Scared the hell out of me.
14:34But that was my initiation into a P-51 Mustang.
14:39We got two check rides in the P-51,
14:43and the third one we went to combat.
14:46The Red Tails have been sent into combat
14:49because U.S. Bomber Command is losing men and machines
14:52at an alarming rate.
14:55In one month alone,
14:58the Nazis shoot down 114 heavy bombers.
15:01Over a thousand men are lost.
15:04In response, Ira Eaker,
15:07Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces,
15:10issues new orders to the Red Tails and other fighter units.
15:12Don't chase German fighters.
15:15Stick close to the bombers and guard them with your life.
15:18Eaker decided that the duty of a fighter pilot
15:22flying escort for the bombers is to protect the bombers.
15:25It's not to go out and shoot down German airplanes.
15:28And that was the edict that he passed down to the groups in Italy.
15:32Some groups took that extremely seriously.
15:35Commanders like Benjamin O. Davis
15:38are determined his Red Tails follow Eaker's orders to the letter.
15:42There is a reason why Benjamin Davis is so
15:45insistent on sticking to Eaker's mantra.
15:48He is perfectly aware that there are a lot of people out there
15:51looking out for any mistake they make.
15:54He's just not going to allow that.
15:57They want to kind of prove that they are
16:00the equals of their fellow white Americans.
16:05Flying close escort demands tight discipline.
16:09We have eight planes over here,
16:12and we fly a crossing net across the bombers
16:16about 500 to 1,000 feet above them.
16:20You're going faster than the bombers are going.
16:23So you just perform S-patterns to keep with them.
16:27You had to keep your speed up.
16:31We didn't leave them just because we saw a German aircraft in the air
16:35because they could have been decoys to draw us away.
16:38The only time you really engage
16:41is when the fighters come close enough to attack the bombers.
16:44If they are out about 300 feet flying around,
16:47you don't engage them.
16:50You want to go after them. You want to pursue them.
16:53But it took that kind of discipline that Davis exercised
16:57over his pilots to be able to constrain them
17:00to stay with the bombers.
17:03Some guys wanted to piss off and go after Germans.
17:05Hell no.
17:08The full-bred colonel tells you to keep your behind in formation.
17:12Month after month, the Tuskegee Outriders
17:15escort bombers deep into Germany and Central Europe.
17:18Gradually, they gain a reputation
17:21with the men whose lives they safeguard.
17:25Negro flight officers awarded wings.
17:28The War Department was learned today.
17:31The black press would write articles about everything that we did.
17:33Our combat exploits.
17:36It was on the front page of the paper.
17:39They began to talk about the all-Negro fighter group.
17:43They emphasized that this all-Negro group
17:46was doing such a great job.
17:51May the press.
17:54Because some people didn't think we could do it.
17:58Part of the pressure that they felt was that
18:00there are any number of people within the Army Air Forces
18:03who want to see us fail
18:06and are just looking for excuses to drum us out of the Air Force
18:09to say they couldn't do it, the experiment failed.
18:14The Red Tails were recognized by bomber crews
18:17as quite essential to their survival
18:20to the point that some of the crews
18:23began to request the Red Tails.
18:26Ironically, they had no idea
18:28that the Red Tails were African-American.
18:33On missions over enemy territory,
18:36they know the Luftwaffe could appear at any moment.
18:40People have to stay alert.
18:43Things can happen, you know.
18:48Somebody would say,
18:51bogeys at 9 o'clock.
18:54Look out at 9 o'clock.
18:56Little black specks.
18:59Eight, nine, ten miles away. Little black specks.
19:02Back and forth.
19:05If they attack, you had to be ready for combat.
19:08It was a dangerous business.
19:11For the men of the 332nd,
19:14the war is set to become even more dangerous
19:17in the months to come.
19:20June 1944.
19:23Allied forces land on the beaches of Normandy, northern France.
19:26The Red Tails travel in.
19:29At the same time, the mass bombing of Germany intensifies.
19:36The African-American Red Tails
19:39are emerging as a real fighting force,
19:42one that's increasingly in harm's way
19:45now that they've proved they're ready for action.
19:48Now, instructions were not to leave the bombers,
19:51even if the German fighters were out there flying around.
19:53The Luftwaffe's Focke-Wurf 190
19:56is the scourge of the bomber squadrons.
19:59Fast, agile, armed with machine guns and cannons.
20:02In experienced hands, it's a match for the Red Tails Mustang.
20:05The directive to stick close to the bombers is relaxed.
20:10If they then made a pass,
20:13that's when our flight leader would dispatch you.
20:16Drop your tanks.
20:19Let's go get them.
20:22Very intense.
20:25It's awfully fast. Awfully fast.
20:28Zigging and zagging,
20:31so you weren't flying in a straight line.
20:34Everybody is moving back and forth.
20:37It's like a circle.
20:42Luftwaffe fighter ace Hans-Eckhard Bobb
20:45remembers going into battle against the P-51.
20:48Me and my squadron
20:51were caught in a dogfight with Mustangs.
20:55We had air combat for half an hour.
20:58Half an hour of spiraling.
21:01I flew like a madman.
21:05When you press the trigger,
21:08you would activate the guns.
21:11You also activate a camera
21:14that would take pictures showing what you were firing at.
21:18It would verify that you shot down an airplane.
21:23This guy decided to
21:26dive for the ground,
21:29and he was able to get on his tail.
21:32You've got to lead your target.
21:35If you're shooting where he is,
21:38he's going to be gone when the bullets get there.
21:43And he went on, crashed into the ground.
21:46Often said, well, had he turned left,
21:49who knows what would have happened.
22:00When a mission is successful,
22:03the Red Tails return to base with a flourish.
22:08Come in low pass, pull up and do a roll,
22:11and come on around this land.
22:13Kind of a way of letting the folks
22:16know you had a successful mission.
22:20When you got back on the ground,
22:23you knew you survived.
22:26We knew we could do it,
22:29and we knew we could do it as well or better than anybody else,
22:32and we wanted to show that every time we flew.
22:35Your job is to protect and defend.
22:38Should you find yourself in trouble or your man in trouble,
22:40you attack.
22:43Other than that, we defend and we protect.
22:46Major Glead, roll the footage.
22:49When you got back, they had the movies in the ready room.
22:52They would show them.
22:55They would show what you hit, what you didn't hit.
22:58It was very accurate.
23:01You have to learn from the veterans.
23:04The veterans knew the combat maneuvers.
23:07They knew the spacing, knew how high we had to fly,
23:10knew how to go into the air.
23:13There's something new you can learn.
23:19Under the watchful eye of Davis,
23:22the pilots of the 332nd form a tight-knit unit
23:25at their base in Ramatelli, Italy,
23:28a converted farmer's field near the Adriatic Sea.
23:31They are an entirely self-contained black unit
23:34where they run the base.
23:37There are no whites at Ramatelli.
23:40Throughout the war, the Tuskegee Airmen
23:43were an integral group, our own pilots,
23:46our own mechanics, our own radio operators,
23:49our own support personnel.
23:52The reason for this is simple.
23:55At the time, U.S. Army Air Force rules say
23:58no black man can give a white man an order,
24:01a potential problem when a pilot
24:04automatically outranks his mechanic.
24:07They're a raunchy bunch of characters.
24:10They had to be.
24:13We talked about our girlfriends,
24:16our lives, airplanes.
24:19We scrounged to build a bit of flooring
24:22in our tents to stay up out of the mud.
24:25It was quite a primitive living,
24:28dealing with Mother Nature.
24:35A stickler for discipline in the air,
24:37Commanding Officer Ben Davis cuts his men
24:40some slack in their downtime.
24:43When you walked in, always, yes, sir.
24:48Except across a poker table.
24:54Across the poker table,
24:57he would address you in your first name.
25:00It's been fun. Thanks, boys.
25:03But about 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock,
25:05all of a sudden he would sit up and say,
25:08well, Lieutenant, bingo, we're back.
25:11We're military again.
25:14Time to cut the poker game?
25:17Yes, sir.
25:20If you ever appeared before Colonel Davis,
25:23you had better be serious and ready for combat.
25:28Having proven themselves in battle,
25:31the Tuskegee Airmen are handed another dangerous task.
25:33They're chosen to weaken German defenses
25:36in advance of an invasion of southern France
25:39planned for August 1944.
25:46So I know you boys have all the details.
25:49Let's take a look at it here.
25:52Nothing too complicated.
25:55We know we've got to take out those radar stations.
25:58We were told that there were radar stations
26:00in southern France.
26:03Tall towers with a lot of buildings.
26:06Most of the work they've been doing
26:09has been very, very tight bomber escort work.
26:12This is an opportunity to engage the enemy,
26:15you know, on their own terms,
26:18rather than being, you know, hampered
26:21by having to kind of stick to bombers.
26:24The mission involves one of the most hazardous tactics
26:27used by fighter pilots, ground strafing.
26:30Red Tails must fly at extreme low altitude
26:33while firing directly at targets on the ground.
26:38Some of our toughest missions
26:41were those low altitude strafing missions.
26:44Because the anti-aircraft would focus on you
26:47as you're coming in and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
26:51Anti-aircraft defense
26:54fixes on you as a target as you approach straight in.
26:57You're like a sitting duck.
27:00That's the most dangerous task
27:03any fighter pilot ever has.
27:06August 12, 1944.
27:09Toulon, on the south coast of France.
27:12The Red Tails are sent to strafe
27:15heavily defended German radar.
27:18Sixteen planes in formation in groups of four.
27:21The attack is on.
27:24Alexander Jefferson has clear memories of that day.
27:26I'm number 16.
27:29I'm Taylor and Charlie.
27:32The last guy to go across the target.
27:35It was a beautiful day.
27:38Clear, blue, and the first flight
27:41broke in for 15,000 feet.
27:44And the radios, of course, became aware.
27:49The whole side of the cliff
27:52opened up with anti-aircraft fire.
27:54Shells coming back at you.
27:57We start firing.
28:00We're doing about 400 miles an hour
28:03because we had shoved everything to the wall.
28:06I go right across the top of the target and boom.
28:09I look up and there's a hole in the top of the canopy.
28:12The damn shell had come up out of the floor.
28:15But the fire came up, the gloves were burning.
28:18I had to bail out.
28:21During your nine months of training
28:24you never had one minute on how to get out of an airplane.
28:34The Red Tails are on a strafing mission
28:37over the southern coast of France
28:40knocking out German radar installations.
28:43They're paving the way for an Allied invasion.
28:46As pilot Alexander Jefferson flies over the target
28:49his plane is hit by an enemy shell.
28:54This damn thing came through so fast.
28:58And then the fire comes out of the floor
29:01right in front of you.
29:04I got to get out, it's hot.
29:07That was before ejection seats.
29:10I reach up and pull on the little red knob
29:15and the whole canopy goes off.
29:18Pull back on the stick to get some altitude.
29:21I hit that buckle.
29:24It came out.
29:27Catapulted out by centrifugal force.
29:30As I came out I remember the tail going by
29:33with all that fire.
29:36He makes it out with seconds to spare.
29:39But Jefferson's ordeal has just begun.
29:42I remember looking down at the trees.
29:45I said, oh, the parachute popped.
29:48I'm in the trees.
29:55I'm trying to get out and I hear this guy.
29:58I said, oh, Leutnant.
30:03What's that bullet?
30:06It's got your name on it?
30:09I'm not worried about that one. I'm worried about that other one.
30:12To whom it may concern.
30:15The Germans take Jefferson as a prisoner of war.
30:18The remaining Red Tails return to base
30:21believing he's been killed in action.
30:25They didn't see me get out
30:28so when they got back to the squadron
30:31they reported me as killed.
30:34My parents got a KIA telegram.
30:37When people have been killed or captured
30:40the realization hits you that
30:43hey, this isn't kid stuff, you know.
30:46The Allies are making headway
30:49against a weakened Luftwaffe at a cost.
30:52Between June and August 1944
30:5518 Red Tails are killed or lost in action.
31:02Replacement pilots are in short supply
31:05so tours of duty are extended.
31:10Our replacements are very slow.
31:13I ended up with 82 tactical
31:16and 54 strategic missions
31:18before replacement became available.
31:23Vastly outnumbered by Allied fighters
31:26and crippled by the lack of fuel
31:29the once mighty Luftwaffe is quickly losing its best pilots
31:32and its domination of the skies.
31:37As the air war over Europe develops
31:40and Americans are sending 1,000 bomber raids
31:43from the 8th Air Force
31:45and 500, 600 bomber raids
31:48the 15th and the British are bombing Germany at night
31:52the Luftwaffe finds itself increasingly overwhelmed.
31:58Captured when the Germans shot down his Mustang
32:01Alexander Jefferson remembers his first days
32:04as a prisoner of war.
32:07We were being transferred to the prisoner of war camp.
32:10On the way there we got to Frankfurt on the Main
32:12where we were interrogated.
32:15I'm simply a pilot following orders.
32:18I'm shooting up radar stations.
32:21I didn't know anything.
32:24They had my high school grades.
32:27My college grades.
32:30They even knew how much taxes my dad paid on his house.
32:33They knew more about me than I knew about myself.
32:36And he pulled out a big book
32:39and on the front of the book it said
32:42Negroes.
32:45Red Tails.
32:48You look at the books, god damn.
32:51They had all the pictures.
32:54Pictures of every group that graduated
32:57at Tuskegee Army Airfield.
33:00I'm January 44.
33:03So I'm 44A.
33:06He said,
33:09Lieutenant, isn't that you?
33:12He's pointing to me
33:15in my graduation picture.
33:18They call us Luftgangsters.
33:23Airgangsters.
33:27German spies embedded in America
33:30mean Jefferson's interrogators know everything
33:33about the men in the 332nd.
33:36It's more than could be said for the rest of the US military.
33:39Those superstars in the black press
33:42many fighting Americans still have no idea
33:45that the Red Tails are an all-black unit.
33:49If you were just paying attention to
33:52what you would read in the white press, you could easily miss this.
33:5519-year-old bomber radio operator Bert Vardeman
33:58crash lands near the Red Tails airbase
34:01in late March 1945.
34:04Bert remembers his surprise when he and his friends
34:07caught sight of the men of the 332nd.
34:10We looked up, and a whole crowd of
34:13African-American men were running down
34:16to where we were to see if we were OK.
34:20The planes were the Red Tails.
34:23Then it immediately dawned on me,
34:26well, this must be the base where these fighter pilots
34:29that protect us take off and land.
34:32We didn't know where they came from.
34:35We didn't know anything about Tuskegee.
34:37We stayed with them four days and four nights
34:40until our base could send a plane from there
34:43to pick us up and take us back to our home base.
34:47And we had good conversation, played cards,
34:50we drank liquor and so on.
34:53We were glad to have them.
34:56So it's not until they landed at Ramitelli
34:59and they saw all these black people running the base
35:02that they realized that there are
35:04African-Americans doing this,
35:07and the United States Armed Forces.
35:10It was more secret than the atom bomb.
35:18I was in a room with nine other guys
35:21at Stalag III, 80 miles east of Berlin,
35:25on a Polish border.
35:28Altogether, approximately 10,000 officers
35:30shot down over German-occupied territory.
35:34And the Germans do everything about every man in the camp.
35:38It was an educated group of men.
35:42I was treated as another American,
35:45no animosity, no racism at all.
35:50But life inside the camp, we survived.
35:55Security at the camp is brutally strict.
35:58The POWs are under constant watch.
36:02To keep from going stark raving nuts,
36:05you occupied your time.
36:08I drew pictures.
36:11To sit down and start drawing pictures,
36:14I said, hey, wait a minute, I almost got killed.
36:17That's when you start to see how close you came.
36:20God, I tell you.
36:23Although cut off from the outside world,
36:26the POWs devised ways to outsmart their captors.
36:30We had a small radio.
36:34We listened to the BBC.
36:37So we kept up with the progress.
36:40We knew exactly what was going on.
36:43But there were German guards walking around
36:46inside the camp all the time.
36:52No matter what happens, you stay together.
36:59I knew how to survive.
37:02By the end of 1944,
37:05in a last-ditch effort to save Hitler's regime
37:08and alter what appears inevitable,
37:11the Luftwaffe has developed a radically new fighter plan.
37:14It's a game-changer, faster and more powerful
37:17than anything else in the sky.
37:19I was the first one to see the jets
37:22at 9 o'clock.
37:27And I said, let's go and get them.
37:36January 1945.
37:39Germany is under relentless Allied attack.
37:42Hitler's armies are reduced to defending their own borders
37:46and his Nazi stronghold in Berlin.
37:50Pressure from overwhelming numbers of Allied bombers
37:54coming over day and night,
37:57destroying its factories on the ground
38:00and cutting off its oil supplies,
38:03forces the Germans to commit
38:06every last pilot they have
38:09to fend off these thousands of bombers over their territory.
38:13We could outproduce them
38:16in training pilots and building airplanes.
38:19Every time we shoot down one,
38:22that means another one won't come back tomorrow.
38:25What the Luftwaffe lacks in numbers,
38:28it hopes to make up for with technology.
38:31Since the early days of the war,
38:34German scientists have been experimenting with jet propulsion.
38:37Now, in a last-ditch effort to turn the tide,
38:40the Luftwaffe unleashes their advanced fighter plane,
38:43the Messerschmitt Me 262.
38:46The Me 262 was the first major jet to come into combat.
38:52And they were, you know,
38:55clearly the next generation.
39:00The speed of the 262 is unmatched,
39:03capable of almost 560 miles per hour.
39:07It's more than 100 miles per hour faster than the P-51 Mustang.
39:16They obviously had good chances with the bombers
39:19when they approached them with that speed.
39:22By the time they noticed them,
39:25they were already shot down.
39:31Tuskegee airmen had heard rumors
39:34about German jet fighters.
39:40It was totally another thing to encounter
39:42a plane in combat.
39:46For the Red Tails, their first sighting
39:49comes on a mission over Berlin.
39:52On the 24th of March, 1945,
39:55Lieutenant Roscoe Brown leads the 100th Squadron.
39:58On the Berlin mission, we had to be alert.
40:06I saw these trails, bogies, 9 o'clock,
40:09and I said,
40:10Drop the tanks, hurry them in.
40:13Dropping the extra fuel tanks makes the Mustang lighter,
40:16faster, more maneuverable.
40:23I flew under the bombers, in a modified squadron,
40:26away from the jet.
40:29I had made such a tremendous maneuver,
40:32I had lost my wingman.
40:35I'm over Berlin at 25,000 feet,
40:37by myself.
40:40So I'm over Berlin, pulling on and pulling on.
40:43Pull the trigger and just keep that circle on it
40:46as you're flying.
40:49And the bullets went right into the middle.
40:52He blew up.
40:55The best stories are the stories that you do spontaneously.
40:59We had that graphic of being the first
41:02to shoot down jet planes over Berlin.
41:07I came right down 10th row,
41:10right between the tents, pulled it up,
41:13did a couple rolls, came back the other way,
41:16pulled up, did a couple rolls.
41:19So everybody was very thrilled with that, as was I.
41:22And we knew we had done something great.
41:26Six weeks after Roscoe Brown shoots down the Me 262,
41:29Germany runs up the white flag.
41:32The most destructive war in history is finally over.
41:34The Red Tails have overcome heavy odds
41:37to become one of the greatest units of World War II.
41:40Their remarkable tally,
41:43112 enemy aircraft shot down,
41:46150 planes destroyed on the ground,
41:49over 100 rail wagons demolished in ground attacks.
41:53Along the way, 66 make the ultimate sacrifice.
41:57Some of the men who were damn good pilots got killed.
42:00The same thing happened to the Red Tails.
42:02Some of the men who were damn good pilots got killed.
42:05That's the game.
42:08You win some, you lose some, but you make progress.
42:12The Red Tails earn three distinguished unit citations,
42:16officially recognizing it as one of the elite fighter groups
42:19in the U.S. Army Air Force.
42:22It's an extraordinary achievement for a unit of men
42:25who were told African Americans can't fly,
42:28let alone become fighter pilots.
42:30Like thousands of his comrades,
42:33Prisoner of War Alexander Jefferson is liberated by U.S. soldiers.
42:38When we were liberated by General Patton's Third Army,
42:42they moved in a field kitchen with mashed potatoes,
42:45hot biscuits, gravy, huge steaks.
42:50We knew we were going to get sick.
42:53Many of us had lost weight.
42:56We ate like dogs. We all got sick from dogs.
42:58But it was heaven. What a day, what a day.
43:03The thrill of going home is short-lived
43:06for Jefferson and other African American troops.
43:10Coming back to the United States,
43:13Statue of Liberty, flags waving,
43:17walking down the gangplank,
43:20whites to the right and niggers to the left.
43:23God damn it, coming back home.
43:25What a hell of a feeling.
43:30And with the white troops there was a band
43:33and about 30, 40 reporters.
43:36With the black troops there were two reporters
43:39and a saxophone player.
43:42The Tuskegee Experiment is an unprecedented success,
43:45and the change it represents can't be held back for long.
43:56In 1948, in part because of the achievements of the Red Tails,
44:01all branches of the military end the policy of segregation.
44:09The leaders of the Air Force finally came to understand
44:13that it was totally impractical and inefficient
44:18to establish two separate Air Forces,
44:21one white and one black.
44:24In 1948, when this begins happening,
44:27there's only one other institution in the United States
44:30that's even beginning to desegregate,
44:33and that's Major League Baseball.
44:36When they said that blacks couldn't play baseball,
44:39Jackie Robinson came in, the black players came in,
44:42he played better than anybody else.
44:45Same thing with the Air Force.
44:48And that's why the story of the Tuskegee Airmen resonates,
44:50because we overcame the racism, those obstacles,
44:53and now we recognize as being the best of the best.
44:58By winning the war on two fronts,
45:01against prejudice at home and fascism in Europe,
45:04the Tuskegee Airmen, the iconic Red Tails,
45:07won their place in the history books.
45:11Given the opportunity,
45:14blacks could perform as well as anybody else.
45:16All the rest of the Tuskegee Airmen,
45:19basically, were the same kind of grit.
45:22You had to have that kind of grit
45:25in order to just goddamn survive.
45:46THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN
45:49THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN
45:52THE TUSKEGEE AIRMEN