Jim Crow and Uncle Sam: The Tuskegee Flying Units and the U.S. Army Air Forces in Europe During World War II

This article discusses the nature of race relations in the U.S. Army Air Forces during the Second World War. America's first all-black flying units, the 99th Fighter Squadron and the 332nd Fighter Group, trained at segregated Tuskegee Army Air Field in Tuskegee, Alabama, carried out tactical and strategic missions over North Africa and southern Europe in the last two years of the war. While overseas, the black airmen experienced both positive and negative racial relationships with other fighter and bomber units of the Army Air Forces, relationships which often affected the morale and combat effectiveness of the 99th and 332nd. The wartime success of the "Tuskegee Experiment" gave impetus to President Harry S. Truman's integration of the U.S. armed forces in 1948.