Tuskegee Airmen: Questions and Answers for Students and Teachers

By Daniel Haulman

Almost everyone you meet has heard about the Tuskegee Airmen, but surprisingly few can answer with accuracy questions relating to their most important leaders, aircraft, missions, stations, phases of flight training, and unique accomplishments. Some of the Tuskegee Airmen stories in circulation are downright false. This book, designed primarily for students and teachers but also useful for general readers, answers 76 of the most common questions that people ask about the Tuskegee Airmen, enabling readers to separate the facts from the fictions. This short and accurate summary of Tuskegee Airmen history honors the first African American pilots in U.S. military service—pioneers in the continuing struggle for racial equality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: NewSouth Books
• Release date: Nov 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781603063821

Daniel Haulman

DANIEL HAULMAN retired as head of the organizational histories branch at the United States Air Force Historical Research Agency, where he worked since 1982. He has authored many books and published dozens of articles on aviation history, including specifically about the Tuskegee Airmen. He is the author The Tuskegee Airmen, An Illustrated History (with primary authors Jerome Ennels and Joseph Caver) and Eleven Myths About the Tuskegee Airmen, both published by NewSouth Books. Haulman travels extensively to present on the subject of the Tuskegee Airmen. He is considered by many to be a foremost expert on the subject. As a member of the Tuskegee Airmen Inc. for many years, he has attended eight of the organization’s conventions and counts many Airmen as personal friends. He was recently honored with the Air Force Historical Foundation's Major General I. B. Holley Award.

Book preview

Tuskegee Airmen Questions and Answers for Students and Teachers

Daniel Haulman

NEWSOUTH BOOKS

Montgomery

Also by Daniel Haulman

Air Force Aerial Victory Credits: World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam (1988)

The United States and Air Force Humanitarian Airlift Operations, 1947–1994 (1998)

USAF Chronology of Significant Air and Space Events (2003)

The Tuskegee Airmen: An Illustrated History, 1939–1949

(with Joseph Caver and Jerome Ennels, 2011)

The Tuskegee Airmen and the Never Lost a Bomber Myth (2011)

Eleven Myths About the Tuskegee Airmen (2012)

What Hollywood Got Right and Wrong about the Tuskegee Airmen in the Great New Movie, Red Tails (2012)

NewSouth Books

105 S. Court Street

Montgomery, AL 36104

Copyright © 2015 by Daniel Haulman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, a division of NewSouth, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama.

ISBN: 978-1-60306-381-4

eBook ISBN: 978-1-60306-382-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014960106

Visit www.newsouthbooks.com

To the memory of my father,

Clement R. Haulman,

a B-24 bomber pilot during World War II

Contents

Introduction

Frequently Asked Questions

About the Author

Introduction

The history of the Tuskegee Airmen well deserves the perennial attention it generates. As a historian at the Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell Air Force Base, I have had the opportunity to respond to a host of questions about the first African American pilots in American military history, whose performance in World War II refuted the racist stereotypes of the past by demonstrating that black men could fly in combat as well as anyone. While flying bomber escort missions, they lost fewer B-17and B-24 heavy bombers to enemy aircraft than the average of the other fighter groups in the Fifteenth Air Force. The Tuskegee Airmen shot down 112 enemy airplanes and earned 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses. Their units earned three Distinguished Unit Citations. Their heroic exploits have become legendary but have also generated some misconceptions that need correction.

The fact that the Air Force Historical Research Agency is one of the best repositories of historical information about the Tuskegee Airmen gives me the resources I need to answer most questions about the Tuskegee Airmen record. Since 2006, I have attended seven Tuskegee Airmen Incorporated national conventions, and those meetings have also generated many inquiries about the true achievements of the Tuskegee Airmen. I have also spoken at a