Page A7
A p ril 4. 2007
Fighter Pilots Earn Highest Honor
Recognition
long overdue
(AP) - Congress and President
Bush saluted the Tuskegee Airmen
six decades after they com pleted
their World War II mission and re
turned home to a country that dis
crim inated against them because
they were black.
“ Even the Nazis asked why A fri
can American men would fight fo ra
country that treated them so un
fairly," President Bush told the group
of legendary black aviators, who
received a Congressional Gold Medal
Thursday — the most prestigious
Congress has to offer.
“These men in our presence felt a
special sense of urgency. They were
fighting two wars. One was in Eu
rope and the other took place in the
hearts and minds o f our citizens.”
Bush then saluted the airmen, say
ing he wanted to offer the gesture to
“help atone for all the unreturned
salutes and unforgivable indignities”
they endured.
Bush, members o f Congress and
other dignitaries joined some 300
airm en, widows and other relatives
for the ceremony in the Capitol Ro
tunda.
H o u rs a h e a d o f the e v e n t,
Tuskegee Airmen — some walking
with the aid of canes, others pushed
in wheelchairs — Hooded Capitol
hallways on their way to being rec
ognized for their long-ago heroism.
“ It's never too late for your coun
try to say that you've done a great
job for us," Ret. Col. Elmer D. Jones,
89, o f Arlington, Va., said in an
interview this week. Jones was a
maintenance officer during the war.
Ret. Lt. Col. W alter L. M cCreary,
who was shot from the sky during a
Tuskegee Airmen Robert Lawrence of Santa Fe, N.M. (left) and Walter Fiedler of St. Louis appear in Washington. D.C.
for the awarding o f the Congressional Gold Medal.
Cadets at the
Basic and Ad
vanced Flying
School for Negro
Air Corps Cadets
stand at attention
in this January
1942 photo at the
Tuskegee Institute
in Tuskegee, Ala.
mission in O ctober 1944 and held
prisoner for nine months in G er
many, said it hurt that the group's
accom plishments had not been hon
ored years earlier.
"W e took it in stride. It’s recogni
tion long overdue," said M cCreary,
also 89, of Burke, Va.
House Majority Whip JimClyburn.
D-S.C.. the highest-ranking black
m em b e r o f C o n g re s s , e c h o e d
M cC reary's sentiment. Many of the
Tuskegee Airmen also trained at
Walterboro Army Airfield in his con
gressional district.
"People are now beginning to
come to grips with our history,"
Clyburn said Thursday in an inter
view. "Our history is what it is. It's
never going to change."
The Tuskegee Airmen were re
cruited into an Army Air Corps pro
gram that trained blacks to fly and
maintain combat aircraft. President
Roosevelt had overruled his top gen
erals and ordered that such a pro
gram be created.
But even after they were adm it
ted. many comm anders continued to
believe the Tuskegee Airmen didn't
have the smarts, courage and pa
triotism to do what was being asked
of them.
Nearly 1,000 fighter pi lots trained
as a segregated unit at a Tuskegee,
Ala., air base.
Not allowed to practice or fight
with their white counterparts, the
T uskegee A irm en distinguished
themselves from the rest by painting
the tails of their airplanes red. which
led to them becoming known as the
“ Red Tails."
Hundreds saw combat through
out Europe, the M editerranean and
North Africa, escorting bomber air
craft on m issions and protecting
them from the enemy. Dozens died
in the fighting; others were held
prisoners of war.
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