Excerpts from Oral Interviews
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At first Army Commanders said the Negro
couldn’t fly and after we proved we could by graduating, then the question
was could the Negro fight. The Allied commanders found out that Negroes
could fight with the 99th’s record in tactical support. Now, were they
fighter pilots? By the number of aircraft destroyed, the 99th’s record was
better than most fighter squadrons in the theater of operations. . . .First,
they said we couldn’t fly, we didn’t have the ability to operate something
as complicated and difficult as an aircraft. We don’t have the mentality to
do this because the 1925 Air War College Study said your brain weighs a few
more ounces than mine, therefore, I don’t have as much smarts as you do and
could not operate something complicated. Secondly, I’m submissive, I have no
leadership ability and all of this is due to these genes that are in my
body. There is nothing allowing me as an individual with some determination,
sense of values of my own, and some ambitions of my own, and therefore I’m
just incapable. Because of that fact, I won’t have the ability to fly.
Thirdly, no white troops would serve under me because I am black – I have no
leadership ability – I couldn’t be a flight leader or a commander.
Therefore, there is no place in this world of aviation for these people.
Faced with that, and them saying that by nature we’re cowards and won’t
stand and fight, it was a challenge in terms of combat performance. From the
lowest enlisted man to the commander, these were the things that increased
our determination and increased the unity and camaraderie and the
inter-support, one of the other, that produced the 332nd Fighter
Group and the record they achieved. I got the shooting record and they called me out and I
was surprised. The Colonel was the Base Commander and here me [sic] been in the
Army about two months and I’m gonna meet the Colonel of the base. He said,
"Well, the reason I sent for you is that I want to shoot against you, you
tied my record and I don’t want a close record and you make expert." I was
scared but I shot against him and I hit eighty-five out one hundred
bulls-eyes and he hit eighty-five. He told me, "You are the best shot. The
fact that you are a grade soldier and I have been for years here, by your
time of record you are the best shot." That Colonel gave me a gold expert
medal with my name, rank, serial number, and home of record etched on the
back of it. The only contact we had [with white soldiers] was when we went to take
our shots. We had to take all different types of shots – inoculations –
tetanus shots and the works. We had to go to this area where there were
white soldiers. That’s where we were inoculated – in the white section. Of
course, they had some Native American Indians in that section also.
Apparently, they weren’t segregated. That’s what sort of amazed me – that
they were integrated with the white soldiers. That is the only contact that
we had with white [soldiers] other than white drill sergeants and what have
you. . . .We stopped in Lynchburg to eat lunch. Of
course, the white soldiers got off [the train] and ate first. . .we stayed on
the train until they had finished. Later on, we were allowed to get off and
go in and eat. In the meantime, we were waiting to board the trains again.
The officer asked me for a match. I gave him a book of matches. He lit his
cigarette and instead of handing them back to me, he threw them on the
baggage cart. So, I just left them laying there and took it and forgot about
it. Those were the kinds of treatment that you had to endure. So, he didn’t
have the courtesy to hand the matches back to me. Those are the kinds of
things that really upset you and you just feel like just going into him. |