Reprinted with permission from The News & Observer, March 30, 2003
Wilson V. Eagleson was about 12 years old when he discovered he had the perfect name.
At a fair near his hometown of Bloomington, Ind., a barnstorming pilot was offering rides in his open cockpit, double-winged plane. Eagleson climbed into the two-seat contraption and slid aviation goggles over his eyes. His heart pounded. The engine rumbled. The propeller spun. Up, up, up they went, circling the fair a few minutes before touching down on Indiana dirt.
Flying exhilarated Eagleson, although he thought of flight like a Ferris wheel ride. It was a thrill, not a career. Not for a black kid in the 1930s.
Many Americans, including Charles Lindbergh, scoffed at the notion that blacks could fly airplanes. The military refused to admit black pilots, citing studies that African-Americans lacked the intelligence, coordination and courage to fly.
But war and politics have a way of loosening old social orders.
In 1939, as the world headed to war, Congress began funding civilian pilot training programs at colleges across the country, even a few black schools. Eagleson, then 19, grabbed his chance. He signed up at West Virginia State College, learning to spin and dive. "The only thing I really want to do," he told himself, "is fly."
His timing seemed right. In 1940, President Roosevelt, in need of black voters to shore up his re-election, promised to open the military to black fliers. Eagleson joined the Army, ready to soar.
But change did not come easily to the military. The Army looked at Eagleson and saw an infantry soldier, not a pilot, and shipped him off to Texas, then Georgia. He trained as an officer at Fort Benning, a tough place. The commander would call soldiers to his office in the morning after they had failed a test. By lunch, the "washed out" soldiers were banished to another post.
One morning, Eagleson was summoned. The commander told him to pack. Then came a shock.
"You're going to Tuskegee," the commander said, "to learn how to fly."
For Eagleson, flying would be the easy part of becoming a Tuskegee Airman. These first black pilots would have to fight for the right to risk their lives. Then they would have to fight to prove themselves as some of the best the Army Air Force had to offer.
Their final battle would last long after World War II ended. The Tuskegee Airmen would have to fight for recognition from the country they had served.
Tuskegee
Eagleson was 22 when he caught the bus to Tuskegee, Ala., in 1942. He had a football player's physique, although he came from a long line of teachers and college professors. He would be among the first black pilots to train. Young men from all over the country were trying to follow him. Men like John B. Turner and Stewart Fulbright.
Turner, a 21-year-old senior at Atlanta's Morehouse College, played football and sang in the campus quartet. He came from a prominent family. His grandfather had been a minister, active in state politics. His dad had been dean at Alabama A&M College in Huntsville.
When Turner was 9, his father died. He had been exposed to mustard gas while fighting in France in World War I and never recovered. Turner's mom moved in with her mother and sister, also widows, in Atlanta. The women worked multiple jobs, insisting that Turner and his sister go to college.
At Morehouse, Turner was studying to become an engineer -- until a double date changed his life. The other girl's squeeze was an Army Air Force recruiter, the first black pilot Turner had ever met. That night, Turner woke up his mother.
"I'm going to fly!" he told her.
"Don't go too high," his mom said, sleepily.
A few weeks later, Turner was among 20 guys, black and white, taking an aptitude test at a recruiting office.
"Turner!" bellowed a white sergeant.
Turner looked around to see if there was another Turner—a white Turner—who was going to speak up. No one said a word.
"Turner!!"
"My name's Turner," he said anxiously.
"Well, I'll be damned," said the sergeant. Turner was the only person to pass.
Across the country in Missouri, a 22-year-old high school French teacher named Stewart Fulbright also passed the test.
Determination ran in Fulbright's family. His dad was a railroad porter, while his mom ran a small catering business and did other people's laundry on the weekends. They had scraped together the money to send Fulbright to Lincoln University in Jefferson City. He had earned a scholarship to help, too.
Fulbright knew he would probably be drafted to serve in World War II. He had a brother in the Army already and another in the Navy. Fulbright had always loved airplanes, so he decided to become an aviation cadet, even though he weighed less than 125 pounds, the minimum for a pilot. He was so skinny, his pals called him Twiggy.
On the day of his Army physical, Fulbright spent the morning eating bananas, then had a big breakfast and a big lunch. He felt awful, but he weighed in at 125. The doctors examined him as if he was a curiosity.
"Oh, they're all like that," one commented, checking his nose.
Finally cleared for training, Fulbright boarded a train for Tuskegee, switching to a car for "colored" people at the Mason-Dixon Line.
The manicured, brick campus of the Tuskegee Institute, a venerable black college, had a small air strip called Moton Field, dormitories and classrooms where the new cadets would spend hours studying the physics of flight. Black teachers at the institute instructed the cadets, who moved on for advanced training under white instructors at nearby Tuskegee Army Air Field.
Fulbright and Turner learned to follow orders, even if the order was to clean a flight of stairs with a toothbrush. They ate "square meals," which meant sitting ramrod straight, lifting their food on a fork straight up and then making a perfect 90-degree angle to bring it to their mouths. At night, senior cadets would come into their dormitories, wake them up and order them to sit awake against the walls.
Many pilots washed out. Turner's class initially had 75 cadets, but about a year later, only 24 graduated. Fulbright's group started with about 55, but only 31 finished in late 1943.
By then, Wilson Eagleson was gone, having graduated in spring of 1943. The only thing he had left behind was a reputation for being a pretty wild guy. Fulbright had often seen him marching around base, doing penance for his many demerits, handed out liberally for infractions such as having an untucked shirt.
But whatever the demerits, everyone knew Eagleson had become an outstanding flier. In war, he would prove it.
Red-tailed angels
Eagleson landed in Casablanca in fall 1943, an eager replacement pilot in the 99th Pursuit Squadron, the first African-American airmen to reach combat. The 99th's fighter pilots had already shot up enemy targets in North Africa. They had recently begun tangling with the German Luftwaffe as the Allied forces took back Sicily and started their campaign to retake Italy.
All the while, white officers insisted on segregating the black pilots, sometimes excluding them from important briefings. Unbeknown to the airmen, white commanders derided them as lazy, inept and cowardly in reports to Army Air Force Command.
Based on those reports, military officials considered scrapping their Tuskegee project. But the airmen's leader, Col. Benjamin O. Davis Jr., persuaded the top brass to give his pilots a chance.
As they marched up Italy in 1944, Eagleson and the other Tuskegee Airmen lived an utterly unglamorous life: They camped in tents, slept on cots and bartered with local Italians for fresh eggs.
Eagleson's favorite pin-up was a black-and-white picture of his bride, Geraldine, a Tuskegee Institute student he had married before going to war. He named his P-40 Warhawk "Gerry" after her.
The 99th was ordered to hit targets behind enemy lines in Anzio, a town that was critical for the Allied advance into Rome. Eagleson was flying his fifth mission ever when a German fighter plane swooped behind the tail of one of his friends. Suddenly, the friend zoomed in front of him, drawing the German plane into range. Eagleson fired, riddling the German plane with bullets. The German fighter's wing tore off, and the plane began to spin, then crashed.
Eagleson felt neither satisfaction nor elation, only a boost of confidence. In later missions, he shot down another German fighter and hit two others, which counted as unconfirmed kills. A respectable record for a rookie.
By mid-1944, the 99th had become a part of the all-black 332nd Fighter Group, and they had earned sleek, new fighter planes, P-51 Mustangs. The tails were painted crimson according to the Tuskegee Airmen's motto: "All blood runs red."
The black pilots had a new mission, too. They would escort multi-engine bombers flying from Italy to pound bridges, roads, factories and troops inside Germany.
Horrors and heroics
The bombers had intimidating nicknames, like the B-17 "Flying Fortresses." But in reality, they were vulnerable to German anti-aircraft guns. As soon as they crossed the Alps, bullets and shrapnel from midair explosions began ripping through the bombers and the people inside them. German fighter planes patrolled the skies, gunning down crippled bombers.
Eagleson, in his P-51 fighter, was wounded twice, but he completed about 350 missions. Once he had to bail out over northern Italy before his damaged plane crashed. He walked to a nearby road and caught a ride with some American soldiers to his base.
Other times, the fighters' job was dull and solitary, flying in radio silence for hours at 35,000 feet to pick up an escort. They burned less gas that high, although the cold required the pilots to have electric warmers in their gloves and boots and to wear oxygen masks.
One day Eagleson climbed into the clouds with Raleigh native Lt. John Henry Chavis, a former class president at Shaw University, flying in another P-51 at his wing. When Eagleson emerged, Chavis had vanished forever. No one knew what happened over the Adriatic Sea that day, perhaps disorientation in the clouds or mechanical trouble.
Eagleson didn't dwell on such losses right away, because he had to stay focused on his missions. Fliers pondered such matters only after they had returned to the ground. "You don't have time for talking or retrospect in the air," he would later say. "You must fly for the moment."
Bill Weckel, a radioman on a B-17, adopted a similar philosophy. But back on the ground, he had horrible things to ponder.
Weckel was 20, an athletic white guy from Carbondale, Pa., when he began riding bombers to Germany. Sometimes entire squadrons of six to nine planes were blown up with their 10-men crews. Weckel saw German pilots rake machine gun fire across men trying to bail. If he was to die, Weckel prayed that death would be quick and early in his 50-mission tour of duty.
He figured his prayer had been answered on a flight to bomb German oil plants in 1944. Anti-aircraft fire hit his crew's B-17 near Munich. No one was killed, but shards of metal glinted from their flak jackets. The pilots struggled to see; brake fluid from the landing gear had splashed in their faces.
Weckel watched as two of the B-17's four engines sputtered to a halt. The B-17 was lagging behind its fellow bombers returning to Italy when its escort of P-38 fighter planes had bad news.
"We have to go," their lead pilot radioed. "We're running out of gas."
As Weckel absorbed the news grimly, his radio buzzed again.
"We'll stay with you," another pilot's voice came in. "We won't leave you."
The voice sounded black, Weckel thought. Then he saw the silver planes flying toward his B-17, their tails a distinctive crimson. The fighters stuck with the bomber to Italy, where they peeled off and flew back to their base near Naples. Weckel's crew returned to Foggia.
Later Weckel found out that the escorts had been Tuskegee Airmen. But he never learned their names, never thanked them in person. He couldn't, not in a segregated Army.
"How can they be doing what they're doing to preserve freedom, when they don't even have freedom?" Weckel thought. "Amazing."
Mutiny
The Tuskegee Airmen racked up 200 escort missions and never lost a bomber. But if they were earning respect in battle, even anonymously, it was a different story for their counterparts at home.
After Tuskegee, Fulbright and Turner trained at bases all over the country, learning to handle the big bombers as part of the new, all-black 477th Bombardment Group. Turner and Fulbright were first pilots on the B-25, in charge of crews of five other men: bombardiers, navigators and engineers.
Both men were eager to go overseas. Instead, they were ordered to log hundreds of hours in the air practicing. They flew from base to base, burning gasoline instead of German factories and dropping sandbags instead of bombs. They resented that they were treated like errand boys rather than pilots.
Among his errands, Turner flew a fellow airman's coffin to Louisiana. His crew was resting in a field when a group of Red Cross women, all white, spotted their aircraft and came over with sandwiches and coffee. When the black airmen greeted them, the women didn't mask their consternation. They served the men, but with frowns on their faces.
Turner and Fulbright felt the Army was frowning at them, too. At a base in California, they had to eat at separate tables from white bomber crews. Swimming pools and other recreational facilities were off-limits. Finally, at Freeman Field in Indiana, a group of Tuskegee Airmen, including Turner and Fulbright, had enough.
Freeman Field's officers club, a cozy building with a fireplace and billiard tables, was closed to the black airmen, who were relegated to a small, unappealing building with two coal stoves and card tables for their club. In March 1945, three black officers entered the white officer club and were refused service. A month later, another wave of airmen, including Turner and Fulbright, tried again.
Over several nights, Turner and about 60 other officers walked into the segregated club in small groups. Some sat down and asked for service. They were refused. As more black airmen arrived, the club closed.
The white commander of Freeman Field viewed the protests as a violation of orders not to enter the club, a serious charge that, in wartime, could result in court-martial and possibly the death penalty. Turner and about 100 other black airmen were arrested and transferred to Godman Field in Kentucky, where they were confined to their barracks under armed guard. Turner noticed that German prisoners wandered around under less supervision than the black soldiers.
Back at Freeman Field, Fulbright and the other remaining airmen were asked to sign statements that they had read and understood the base's policy that black officers were defined as "trainees" and could not use the white officers club. Fulbright refused to sign.
"I can read the policy," he told the white officers who questioned him. "But I don't understand it."
Fulbright and other pilots also found excuses not to fly as long as their colleagues were imprisoned. They held out as news of the "Freeman Field Mutiny" began to spread, and after two weeks the Army Air Force released the detained airmen with reprimands.
A few months later, the men of the 477th finally received the orders they had awaited. They would be deployed in the Pacific theater to fight the Japanese. Some had two-week leaves to say goodbye to their families.
Fulbright was in Chicago visiting relatives when the second atomic bomb fell. The war was over.
Homecoming
Ticker-tape parades welcomed home white soldiers, but not the Tuskegee Airmen. Still, the service had changed their lives.
Before the war, Turner thought he would become an engineer. But flying around the country, seeing black communities struggle, he realized that he was meant for social work.
He helped start a black veterans association in Georgia to lobby for black soldiers, who were excluded from the American Legion and denied benefits, such as financing for housing. He earned a doctoral degree in social work, taught college, worked for the National Urban League and eventually became dean of the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Fulbright decided that if he could survive the military, he could handle the University of Chicago's business school. "I like 'em tough," he said. He got his master of business administration there, then received a doctorate from Ohio State and became the first dean of the business college at N.C. Central University.
Eagleson helped the Air Force close the Tuskegee training program, then left the military for about two years. But he missed flying and re-enlisted, becoming a flight mechanic in the U.S. Air Force. He served in both the Korean and Vietnam wars, often getting to fly the planes he maintained. Even though he had dropped in rank, Eagleson was happy if he was flying.
In the early 1950s, Eagleson was on a cargo plane over Indochina, on a mission to drop supplies to French forces at Dien Bien Phu, when anti-aircraft fire hit the plane and wounded the pilots. Eagleson took the controls and managed to fly safely back to the Philippines, a feat for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Yet throughout his 30 years in the military, Eagleson encountered white officers who did not believe a black man could know much about flying a plane. The truth was that most Americans had no idea who the Tuskegee Airmen were, how they had served their country.
It wasn't until 1995, after an HBO movie about the airmen, that the black pilots' accomplishments were finally thrust into mainstream consciousness. Suddenly, the airmen, now gray-haired grandfathers, were celebrities. President Clinton made Davis, the airmen's leader, a four-star general in a symbolic tribute. They starred in books and museum exhibits. Young black pilots, some of them now fighting in Iraq, credited the Tuskegee Airmen for opening the military's ranks to them.
Three years ago, Eagleson, who had retired in North Carolina, and two other airmen formed a local chapter of Tuskegee Airmen Inc., a national nonprofit group for the black veterans and their fans. They named their chapter in Eagleson's honor.
The men who were left out of the ticker-tape parades are now in big demand, with as many as 100 speaking engagements a year. They are already booked into 2004. They cart around a display when they speak, pointing to black and white photos of P-40 Warhawks and themselves as young pilots, trying to grow pencil-thin mustaches for the first time, looking handsome in leather jackets with aviation goggles atop their heads.
A final salute
Bill Weckel, the white radioman, never forgot the black pilots who had escorted his bomber out of Germany. At 79, he still shakes slightly when he thinks about his bombing runs. If not for the Tuskegee Airmen, Weckel figures, he never would have lived to become a high school teacher in Binghamton, N.Y. He would not have enjoyed 55 years of marriage, with a daughter, two sons and seven grandkids.
Weckel was vacationing in Currituck County in February when he read in a local paper that some Tuskegee Airmen would be speaking at nearby schools. Weckel didn't hesitate. He drove to three schools before he found a few of the airmen, their red blazers studded with medals, talking to students at First Flight Middle School.
"After all these years, I've got to thank you for saving my life and my crew's life back in world War II," Weckel began.
Weckel shook hands with the surprised airmen, including Eagleson, now 83, and said "thank you" to each of them. As Weckel had feared, the words were inadequate. The true grace of the moment hung in the air, in the tears that rose in their eyes.
The next day, the First Flight Society, which seeks to preserve aviation history, announced that it will induct the airmen into the Paul E. Garber First Flight Shrine next year. Their portrait will hang at the Wright Brothers National Monument in Kill Devil Hills along with those of aviation pioneers such as Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart.
After the ceremony, Eagleson and a pilot climbed into a Cessna 172, its tail painted crimson. Also on board: 10-year-old Steven Saunders Jr. of Kill Devil Hills. It was the African-American child's first flight, his reward for making A's at First Flight Elementary and studying aviation history with North Carolina's Wright Flight Program.
When they were airborne, Steven took the controls. Below, the ocean and houses didn't look real.
It was amazing, Eagleson said later, to have been there for Steven's first flight and, maybe, his own last. He told Steven that if he wanted to fly, he should never let the ambition pass. Steven asked Eagleson for his autograph, and they posed for pictures together.
"It was a privilege," the little boy said afterward. "It was a privilege to fly with a Tuskegee Airman."
Nine Who Served
Here are the stories of nine North Carolinians who trained as the country's first black aviation cadets at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama during World War II.
HARVEY ALEXANDER, 81, of Greensboro.
Before the war: Lived in southern Illinois. Had the highest average in science at his integrated high school but was given the school's science award in private, rather than at the annual honors ceremony. First black commerce school student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
During the war: Served as pilot in charge of a crew of five on B-25 bombers. Spent nearly 1,000 hours flying training missions in the United States. Once glided a B-25 in for a landing after both engines malfunctioned.
After the war: Taught college. Became chief financial officer at N.C. A&T State University in Greensboro and at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte. Ran vending business.
Recollection: "The white pilots were high school graduates. They received maybe 20 hours [in the air] then were shipped overseas. Nearly all of us were college graduates or had some college education. But we had to continue to train. Had I gone to combat, I would have been one of the most experienced pilots. All we did was burn up gasoline."
WALTER CHAVIS, 79, of Raleigh.
Before the war: Born and raised in Raleigh. An average student who loved the piano, he looked up to his older brother, John Henry Chavis, an honors student and Shaw University class president.
During the war: His brother joined the Tuskegee Airmen first but disappeared over the Adriatic Sea. Chavis, serving in the Army at U.S. bases, transferred to Tuskegee Army Air Field. In aviation training when war ended.
After the war: Worked as a musician, shoe repairman, chauffeur, veterans hospital attendant and federal motor pool employee.
Recollection: "Everybody knew my brother. He was class president of four classes at Shaw University. He was in 'Who's Who.' I thought maybe I could find my brother. That was definitely my goal when I went to Tuskegee."
DR. JOHN DRIVER, 79, of Cary.
Before the war: A native of Indianapolis. Attending Indiana University as a pre-medical student when he received his draft notice to report for duty.
During the war: Accepted into the Tuskegee aviation cadet program. Began pilot training but left the program to serve as a surgical assistant.
After the war: Completed college at Indiana University, then graduated from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn. Became an oral surgeon.
Recollection: "We proved we could fly airplanes and do any other job that needed to be done in the military. We showed the whole concept of segregation is a farce. It's not the color of your skin that matters; it's your ability to do the job."
WILSON V. EAGLESON, 83, of Dudley.
Before the war: Grew up in Bloomington, Ind., fascinated by planes. Moved to North Carolina, where his dad taught chemistry and coached sports at what is today N.C. Central University. The school's Eagles mascot was inspired by his father. Attended civilian pilot training school while at West Virginia State College.
During the war: Trained as a fighter pilot at Tuskegee. Joined the 99th Pursuit Squadron in Italy in 1943 and flew about 350 missions. Had two confirmed and two unconfirmed German Luftwaffe kills. Earned two Purple Hearts, multiple air medals and other honors.
After the war: Served in the Air Force for 30 years, mainly as a flight mechanic and instructor. Earned Distinguished Flying Cross on a mission over Indochina. After retiring, raised horses and golden retrievers on a New York farm, then moved back to North Carolina.
Recollection: "They talked about disbanding us and sending us home. But we knew what we were doing. We knew we were good. We simply ignored the talk."
STEWART FULBRIGHT, 83, of Durham.
Before the war: Made model airplanes and visited air shows as a youth in Springfield, Mo. Graduated from Lincoln University in Jefferson City. Taught high school and college French.
During the war: Became a first pilot in charge of five other men training to fly B-25 bombers. Participated in protests against segregation at Freeman Field, Ind.
After the war: Figured the University of Chicago wouldn't be tough after serving in the military. Received his M.B.A. there, then got a doctoral degree at Ohio State. Became a college professor and first dean of the business school at N.C. Central University.
Recollection: "We had been through a lot of adversity and we had pretty much conquered it, and it gave me, and I'm sure everyone else, the confidence to go on. It was just a matter of various guys picking out what they wanted as careers. We had a lot of guys with doctoral degrees, bank presidents, college presidents, politicians."
WILLIAM MCDONALD, 79, of Durham.
Before the war: Grew up in Detroit. Interested in planes and pilots. Attending the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor when he applied to become an aviation cadet.
During the war: Shocked by segregation in the South. Trained as a pilot late in the war, but transferred from Tuskegee to Tampa.
After the war: Earned bachelor's degree at Michigan in engineering. Did graduate work at Ohio State. Became a researcher for aerospace companies. Ended career as plant director in charge of facilities at NCCU.
Recollection: "In Cincinnati, on the train down from Detroit, they told us it was time to get on the 'colored car.' That was the first car after the coal car. I argued with the conductor because I was supposed to have a Pullman [a sleeping compartment] out of Cincinnati to Mississippi. They finally let me sneak in there late at night and sneak out early in the morning. That was my first experience with that."
HERNANDO PALMER, 80, of Smithfield.
Before the war: Raised on his family's farm in Macon, N.C. Started riding on planes at age 8 and decided he would try to learn how to fly. Attended N.C. A&T State University for three years.
During the war: Trained as a bombardier and navigator after completing the Tuskegee aviation cadet program. Like other black airmen who learned to fly multi-engine bombers, never sent overseas.
After the war: Finished at A&T and earned a master's degree in education at N.C. State College. Taught high school. Worked for the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service, helping veterans returning from war learn more about agriculture. Participated in lawsuit alleging the extension service discriminated against black employees and farmers. Held various officer positions with N.C. Mental Health Association. Serves on Johnston County's election oversight board.
Recollection: "Here late, since the movie has come out, and people have learned something about the Tuskegee fliers, people in general have finally come to appreciate those of us who went through that experience at Tuskegee. They want to shake your hand, to hug you, to express their appreciation for what you did. So it's just a different world, and it's too bad that so many of our comrades didn't live to see what a change has been made."
JOHN B. TURNER, 81, of Chapel Hill.
Before the war: A senior at Morehouse College in his native Atlanta. Played football, sang in a quartet, studied to be an engineer. Friends with Martin Luther King Jr.
During the war: Became a first pilot, trained to lead a B-25 bomber crew. Flew all over the United States. Arrested and reprimanded for protesting segregation at Freeman Field, Ind.
After the war: Helped form an association to help black veterans get benefits. Switched from engineering to social work, receiving doctoral degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Worked for National Urban League and taught college. Served as dean of UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Social Work.
Recollection: "I wanted to go overseas. I expected to go. But it wasn't my decision. It was the decision of people who were against the integration of the services."
HAROLD WEBB, 77, of Raleigh.
Before the war: A Greensboro native. Attended N.C. A&T State University. His brother was a civilian flight instructor who trained military pilots in Tuskegee.
During the war: Followed his brother to Tuskegee. Training as a fighter pilot when war ended.
After the war: Got involved in voter registration and civil rights movement. Received a master's degree from N.C. A&T. Worked as teacher, principal and deputy superintendent for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. Became director of N.C. Office of State Personnel. Served on several university boards. Currently, a Wake County commissioner.
Recollection: "Having been trained to fight for your country, then living in a segregated system, you became motivated to continue fighting. They fought the war against the enemy. And then they fought the war against Jim Crow and segregationism."