Congressman Cole Makes Statement Honoring Tuskegee Airmen
Floor Speech
June 2, 2004
Congressman Cole made the following statement on the floor, June 1, 2004, during the House consideration of H. Con. Res. 417, Honoring Tuskegee Airmen and Their Contribution in Creating an Integrated United States Air Force.
Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, it is a great honor for me to request consideration of H. Con. Res. 417 because this resolution honors a remarkable group of African Americans who played a pivotal role in the military history of our country. They are not the only segregated unit to do so, of course. The 54th Massachusetts during the Civil War, the 9th and 10th Buffalo Calvary, which were honored with the name Buffalo Soldiers by their native American adversaries in the latter part of the 19th century, a group which constructed Fort Sill in my own district and won lasting fame there. And of course more recently, the 761st Tank Battalion whose exploits have been chronicled in a fine volume by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
But today, we are here to honor the Tuskegee Airmen who with their professionalism, their skill, and courage not only made an important contribution to fighting tyranny during the Second World War but also helped to forge the United States Air Force into the world's dominant air and space team.
On July 19, 1941, the Army Air Force began a program in Alabama at the Tuskegee Institute to train African Americans as military pilots. The primary flight training was conducted by the Division of Aeronautics at the institute founded by Booker T. Washington, and the transition to combat aircraft was conducted at nearby Tuskegee Army Airfield.
The first group of pilots completed training 9 months later in March 1942. Among that vanguard group was then-Captain Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., a future living legend in the Air Force who went on to become one of its greatest leaders. In the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 1999, the Congress authorized the President to advance Lieutenant General Davis to the grade of General on the retired list of the United States Air Force.
That initial group of Tuskegee pilots was assigned to the famous 99th Fighter Squadron, which was eventually deployed on May 31, 1943, to fly P-40 Warhawks in combat missions in North Africa, Sicily, and throughout Italy. Later Tuskegee graduates were assigned to the 332nd Fighter Group and began overseas combat operations in Italy flying the P-40 and P-39 Airacobra.
Before the war ended, the Tuskegee program had graduated 992 pilots and 450 Tuskegee Airmen had flown over 15,000 combat sorties overseas. Approximately 150 men had been killed over the course of the program, with 66 killed in action. The combat record of these segregated units was superb. They destroyed or damaged 136 enemy aircraft in air-to-air combat and another 273 on the ground. They were highly decorated with over 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses being awarded to African American pilots.
The most impressive achievement of the 332nd Fighter Group was flying over 200 bomber escort missions over Central and Southern Europe without losing a single bomber to enemy aircraft. This unprecedented record was not lost on enemy fighter pilots who often elected to avoid attacking bomber formations when they realized that the fighter escort was the Red Tail fighters of the 332nd.
The challenges confronted by the Tuskegee Airmen were not limited to the wartime skies over Europe. Each of these men proudly met all challenges with skill and determination when racism and bigotry had caused lesser men to harass them and to seek their failure. There are a number of ways for men to display courage in their lives, but seldom are men confronted with as many tests of courage as were the Tuskegee Airmen; and very few men can claim as successful and enduring a legacy as they.
These combat pioneers distinguished themselves throughout their service in war and peace and over time redefined America's understanding of African Americans as warriors and leaders and set the stage for the racially integrated Air Force that achieved so much in the years to follow.
Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter) for introducing this resolution. I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to address the House on this issue and recognize the contributions of Tuskegee Airmen to America.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
"Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to offer a personal observation that was actually provoked by the gentleman from Missouri.
My father was a member of the United States Army Air Force. He joined in 1940. He grew up in a time and in a place where segregation was a very common thing, and not only common in the culture, but legal, recognized by law, enforced by law, and he thought joining the United States Army Air Corps was a way out and a way up for him, and it certainly was, given his background and given his station in life.
But it did more than that. Over the course of his lifetime, it transformed his views, it widened his horizons. He often talked about the United States Air Force or the Army Air Corps and later the Air Force to me as I grew up. I actually grew up when he was still a member of that. And he reflected on the tremendous lesson it had taught him about humanity, about the wonderful diversity of America and about the equality of all men in combat and all men under the law.
He often cited, frankly, the Tuskegee Airmen as people who had begun the transformation of the South, had begun the transformation of race in this country and had contributed mightily.
So it is a particular honor again to recognize these people, who were not only so brave in defending their country and so skilled in combat that they were recognized by their enemy but who taught us Americans a far greater lesson than we could expect any group of men to do, who reminded us again of the unfulfilled ideals of our country and moved us toward the ultimate realization of those ideals."
Source