Tuskegee Airmen Exhibit Opens At Museum Of Aviation

Warner Robins, GA – Museum of Aviation and Museum of Aviation Foundation officials and members of the Major General Joseph A. McNeil Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen, Incorporated will cut a ribbon December 16 to officially open a new exhibit on the all-black flying unit of World War II known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Jackson Young will be the guest speaker at a dinner following the opening of the exhibit.

The December 16 reception will start at 5:30 pm in the Scott Exhibit Hangar with the ribbon cutting at 6:00 pm. Dinner in the Century of Flight Hangar will follow at 6:30 pm. Tickets at $40 per person are available from the Museum of Aviation Foundation by calling (478) 923-6600. Reservations are requested by December 9.

The museum has had a major exhibit about the Tuskegee Airmen since 1997. Portions of the original Tuskegee Airmen exhibit were expanded and assimilated into the Scott Exhibit hangar as part of an effort to consolidate all World War II exhibits into a single venue. In the process, the Museum has enhanced the original Tuskegee exhibit design with a realistic hangar façade and a large mural depicting airmen and aircraft on the flight line of Moton Field, Alabama, where black pilots received flight training. Aircraft mechanics are shown working on a BT-13 Valiant trainer aircraft and displays show a typical barracks room and a “Link” trainer used to train cadets on flight instruments. A 1942 wartime film on the Tuskegee Airmen narrated by Ronald Reagan is shown and another large TV screen shows Tuskegee pilot interviews and narratives. The exhibit is the largest exhibit of its kind in the entire Department of Defense.

“The Tuskegee Airmen were the catalyst for breaking down the racial barriers in the military,” said Museum Deputy Director and Exhibits Team Chief Dudley Bluhm. “It represents an important chapter in U.S. Air Force history and a significant step in the integration of the Armed Forces.”

The exhibit recounts the struggle of black Americans who were subject to racial discrimination during World War II, both within and outside the military. After President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the creation of a flying unit for of black Americans in the Army Air Corps in 1941, a program was set up in Tuskegee, Alabama, to train black pilots and later support officers in operations, meteorology, intelligence, engineering and medicine. Enlisted members were trained to be aircraft and engine mechanics, armament specialists, radio repairmen, parachute riggers, control tower operators, policemen, administrative clerks and other skills required in a flying squadron.

In four years, a total of 994 pilots and 14,000 support people were trained. They served with distinction in combat operations in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. Pilots became part of the 332^nd Fighter Group, composed of the 99^th, 100^th, 301^st and 302^nd African-American fighter squadrons. Known as the Red Tails because of the distinctive red paint on their planes, they were credited with shooting down 110 enemy aircraft and flew more than 15,000 sorties. Throughout the war, more than 100 pilots were killed or missing in action. Of those, more than 30 were prisoners of war.

On November 11, 2011, during an event at the Pentagon honoring the Tuskegee Airmen, Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley said, “Our Tuskegee Airmen are national treasures and certainly royalty for our United States Air Force. I was thinking, as we listened to our National Anthem, of the last lines -- 'the land of the free and the home of the brave.' These Tuskegee Airmen helped make it and keep it that way."