BGuthrie Photos: AL -- Tuskegee Airmen's NHS

AL -- Tuskegee Airmen's NHS:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. AIR_161107_009.JPG: Tuskegee Airmen Hello and welcome to the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, the birthplace of the Tuskegee Airmen. While you are here, you have the opportunity to travel back in time to the 1940s. You will be able to hear the stories of the airmen and see the airplanes they flew while in Primary Flight Training and in combat during WWII.
2. AIR_161107_015.JPG: They Came to Tuskegee Young African American men came to Tuskegee from all over the nation to train as military pilots. They began with primary flight training here at Tuskegee Institute's Moton Field. Tuskegee Institute also had a smaller field, Kennedy Field, where some cadets received orientation flights in Piper J-3 "Cub" during preflight training. Cadets who successfully completed primary at Moton Field transferred to Tuskegee Army Air Field, seven miles from here, for basic and advanced flight training conducted by the Army Air Forces. Only Moton Field remains.
3. AIR_161107_021.JPG: Piper J-3 "Cubs" at Kennedy Field. Here Tuskegee Institute conducted Civilian Pilot Training and, while Moton Field was under construction, some military primary training.
4. AIR_161107_025.JPG: The Tuskegee Airmen The first African American fighter pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps were the public face of the Tuskegee Airmen. They made extraordinary contributions to the Allied victory in Europe during World War II. But their success was made possible by the thousands of men and women who served military support roles.
5. AIR_161107_029.JPG: Prepared to Fight and Die Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site commemorates the contributions of the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II -- and to American society afterward. The site preserves Moton Field, where the airmen trained before going to war. Their courageous performance in wartime earned them opportunity and respect at home and abroad. Their efforts helped pave the way for military desegregation and for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Like most of American society in the 1940s, the military was strictly segregated along racial lines. The Tuskegee Airmen served in separate units throughout the war. Despite these conditions and the skepticism of the military leadership, the molded themselves into highly effective combat units and served their country with distinction. The men of the 99th Fighter Squadron and the 332nd Fighter Group completed over 1,500 missions, destroyed over 260 enemy aircraft (112 in the air), sank one enemy destroyer, and demolished many enemy installations. "We all were prepared to fight and die for our country, and after the war . . . we were prepared to fight and die for our rights... I think that is the contribution that was made at Tuskegee." -- George S. Lima, 2001 Aviation cadets watch their pre-flight instructor describe a flight maneuver, around 1941. The Piper J-3 "Cub" behind them was used to introduce the young cadets to flying, many for the first time.
6. AIR_161107_040.JPG: The Place Where We Learned to Fly Over 1,000 cadets learned to fly here at Moton Field, taking off and landing on an open, grassy field beyond the structures below. The field was used so intensely for primary flight training during World War II that the aircraft soon rutted the field and wore away the grass. The paved runways you see now were added in in the 1970s. Moton Field was a small airfield, but it was the scene of great accomplishments. The men and women who came to Moton Field went on to change the nation forever. "This was the place where we learned to fly, we became pilots, we became officers . . . ." -- Randolph Edwards, 2003 Flight instructor evaluates the technique of an aviation cadet landing a PT-17 on one of Milton Field's grass runways.
7. AIR_161107_046.JPG: Tuskegee Airmen Welcome! From where you are standing, you can see the historic core of Moton Field. The named facilities have been restored; and Hangars 1, 2, Control Tower and the Skyway Club are museum facilities. You will also learn about the four framed structures on the property during your visit.
8. AIR_161107_052.JPG: New Vistas Moton Field was built by Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, in 1941 after the school contracted with the U.S. Army to provide primary flight training for the nation's first African American military pilots. By the end of World War II almost 1,000 African Americans had earned their wings, and their flight training began here. Thousands of military and civilian support personnel helped them reach their goal. "My eyes were opened to new vistas. I mean, I just didn't imagine that I, as a black person at that time, would have this opportunity." -- George Abercrombie, 2001 From here you can see Moton Field from nearly the same viewpoint as this historic photograph, taken about 1945. The hangar nearest you built in 1941, was the first hangar built at Moton Field. The farther hangar with the control tower followed in 1943 as part of the rapid expansion of the flying program.
9. AIR_161107_072.JPG: Fire Suppression Pond A fire at an airfield, with highly flammable materials everywhere, could be catastrophic. The Bath and Locker House fire shown here highlighted the need for a dependable water supply for firefighting. A pond met that need. It also helped control water drainage and erosion from nearby slopes. This pond is located at the approximate site of the original fire suppression pond. Before construction of the Fire Suppression Pond, fires like this one, in 1941 or 1942, had to be fought by pumping water from the creek behind the support buildings, as these men are doing. What would have happened if this fire had started during a dry spell, when the creek was low?
10. AIR_161107_082.JPG: It Was Called "Dope" During World War II primary training airplanes were built mostly of wood and fabric. Ground crews sealed and strengthened the fabric with several applications of a highly flammable, explosive acetate coating called "dope." This shed was used to store the dope. Applying dope could be a messy job if not done correctly. The wear and tear on heavily used training aircraft gave ground crews plenty of opportunities to learn application and safety procedures. "...it was called dope. The fabric was a special linen...you'd paint it with this dope...and when the dope would dry, it would shrink tight on there...and the dope more or less made it waterproof." -- George H. Carper, 2003
11. AIR_161107_090.JPG: Physical Plant: This "ghost" structure preserves [???] the Physical Plant, which served as offices for Moton Field's Chief Engineer and his secretary and for storage of equipment that required close control.
12. AIR_161107_101.JPG: Warehouse/Vehicle Storage This building served as the garage for Moton Field's small fleet of support vehicles. It provided storage at night and "drive-through" vehicle maintenance by day. Rooms on the north side provided office space for maintenance staff and file storage for vehicle records. The National Park Service uses this building in much the same way today: for storage and maintenance of grounds-keeping equipment. The building is not open to the public. Mechanics work to keep the Army's vehicles functioning efficiently. Maintaining support vehicles was crucial to the flight training program. Vehicles included a medical truck, fuel trucks, supply trucks, a bus or two, and aircraft maintenance vehicles.
13. AIR_161107_108.JPG: Moton Field Expands This is the site of Hangar No. 2, completed in early 1944 in response to the tremendous increase in the number of cadets training at Moton Field. The building, nearly identical to Hangar No. 1, contained classrooms, a briefing room, a medical office, and space for drying and repacking parachutes. It burned to the ground in 1989. The National Park Service plans to reconstruct Hangar No. 2 as a museum dedicated to the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen. Aviation cadets learn triangulation in a Hangar No. 2. classroom. Triangulation is one of the basic principles of air navigation, used to determine location.
14. AIR_161107_120.JPG: Bath and Locker House This building was completed in 1941 as a restroom, shower, and locker room for administrative and support personnel. It had facilities for both men and women. Both black and white may have used the building. If so, it almost certainly would have been the only integrated facility of its kind in the South at that time. The Bath and Locker House was probably not used by cadets, since they were at Moton field only a few hours a day. But mechanics, such as the one shown in this photo, needed someplace to shower and store their clothes while working on airplanes and other vehicles at Moton Field. Mechanic goes deep into the radial engine of a PT-17.
15. AIR_161107_130.JPG: Oil Storage Shed This ventilated shed provided safe and convenient storage for the large quantities and various grades of oil used at Moton Field for the maintenance of airplanes and service vehicles. It has been adapted to house the site's fire protection system. Maintenance crews serviced the airplanes regularly for the cadets and their instructors.
16. AIR_161107_135.JPG: Waiting for the Bus The tarmac between the two hangars was a busy part of Moton Field. Cadets arriving by bus were dropped off here and went to their duties in preparation for flight training. Others boarded the buses to return to the Tuskegee Institute campus. Fuel trucks and the medical truck were often parked here too. Imagine what the cadet felt the first time he stepped off the bus and onto Moton Field's tarmac. "We spent a lot of time waiting for the bus to pick us up...because we all had to be there at the time he arrived, or we would get left." -- William Fuller, 2001 Buses pick up and drop off cadets for flight training at Moton Field. Half of the cadets flew in the morning and studied in the afternoon; the other half did the reverse.
17. AIR_161107_145.JPG: A Bit to Eat Known as the Tea Room, this small lunchroom was built during the initial expansion phase of Moton Field in 1942 and 1943, when amenities such as offices and bathrooms not built into the original hangar were added. Here, personnel stationed at Moton Field could get a bite to eat. Cadets ate at Tuskegee Institute, but they could also buy a snack in the Tea Room if they had the time. ". . . cadets, instructors, and people in the area. . . come and have a snack, a bit to eat, because getting something out this far away from the campus would be rather difficult." -- Booker Conley, 2000 The Tea Room was a good place to find something to eat and a friendly face for those who worked and trained at Moton Field.
18. AIR_161107_155.JPG: Ghost Structures Ghost Structures Marker image. Click for full size. By Mark Hilton, November 16, 2016 1. Ghost Structures Marker Inscription. The Cadet House and the Army Supply Building provided much-needed space when training operations expanded in 1942 and 1943. The Cadet House also held a cadet classroom and waiting room, a coat room, and the Flight Surgeon's Office. The Army Supply Building held supplies for Moton Field, including parts for the airplanes. The National Park Service follows strict guidelines when considering reconstruction of historic buildings. When construction drawings, photographs, or other sources are insufficient for accurate reconstruction, buildings are "ghosted" by outlining the dimensions of the original structure. Ghosting provides a general idea of a building's appearance. 1942 photo shows training aircraft parked beyond the area where Cadet House and Army Supply Building will be built. The Army Air Corps provided one trainer for every ten cadets.
19. AIR_161107_169.JPG: FIRE! The Fire Protection Shed in front of you was used to store equipment such as hoses, fire extinguishers, and tools for fighting fires. Fire was always a danger at the airfield because of the flammable materials used in airplanes and the fuels stored on site. In 1941 a fire damaged the Bath and Locker House. Imagine what could have happened if this fire had spread to the fuel tanks nearby. The Physical Plant Director demonstrates the proper use of a fire extinguisher to the chief guard and his assistant, 1944. Fire-fighting equipment demonstrations were a regular part of the safety program at Moton Field.
20. AIR_161107_178.JPG: The Control Tower From Moton Field's Control Tower, controllers directed flight operations and signaled landing instructions to pilots through a system of flashing colored lights. Dispatchers called cadets for their flights. The tower overlooked the busy – and noisy – flow of aircraft, pedestrian, and vehicle traffic between two hangars. "The tower was where the dispatcher would look out on the field and call the cadets over the loudspeaker to tell them about their flight assignments. Also in that tower was a big chamber in which parachutes were hung to dry." -- Roscoe Draper, 2001 Born in Haverford, Pennsylvania in 1919, Roscoe Draper completed the Civilian Pilot Training (CPT) Program at Hampton Institute in 1940. He came to Tuskegee Institute for advanced training and became a CPT instructor. In 1943 Draper was made a civilian Primary Flight Training instructor at Moton Field. Later, he worked for the Federal Aviation Administration as an operations inspector in Philadelphia. PT-17s taxi from the tie-down area behind Hangar No. 2, possibly in preparation for flight training. They received taxi clearance from the Control Tower.
21. AIR_161107_186.JPG: A Typical Day Try to imagine how Moton Field looked and sounded when the cadets trained here. Compare the scene today to the photograph below, taken from your vantage point around 1944. As the pace of training accelerated during the war, Moton Field became a very busy place. Between the two hangars, aircraft were refueled from one of six fuel tanks, which remain in the ground near where you are standing. Planes in need of maintenance taxied to the hangar. Everywhere, there were flight instructors, cadets, mechanics, and other personnel doing their jobs. PT-17s taxi into Hangar No. 1 for maintenance. Notice the windsock over the hangar. It helped cadets determine which direction to come in for a landing.
22. AIR_161107_205.JPG: Robert Russa Moton Robert Russa Moton From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Robert Russa Moton (August 26, 1867 – May 31, 1940) was an African American educator and author. He served as an administrator at Hampton Institute. In 1915 he was named principal of Tuskegee Institute, after the death of founder Booker T. Washington, a position he held for 20 years until retirement in 1935.
23. AIR_161107_226.JPG: Anticipation During World War II a guard house stood just outside the brick entrance gates to Moton Field. The framed structure closest to you is a representation of the guard house. The historic entrance gates are just beyond. How excited the young cadets must have been the first time he passed the guard house and entered Moton Field. "Primary flight training. The anticipation was like nothing I'd ever experienced in my life. All my boyhood dreams of flying...came together....My goal was to get in that place and learn how to fly it." -- Dr. Robert F. Bowers, 2001 Security was important at Moton Field, which had a small guard force to screen access to the site and to police activities. With eligible men training for combat, women had opportunities to assist with the war effort. One of them, Carrie Campbell is shown here checking a vehicle as it enters the field. This was a typical scene after 1943. Guards checked vehicles entering and leaving the field.
Wikipedia Description: Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, at Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama, commemorates the contributions of African American airmen in World War II. Moton Field was the site of primary flight training for the pioneering pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen. It was constructed in 1941 as a new training base. The field was named after former Tuskegee Institute principal Robert Russa Moton, who died the previous year.

Established on November 6, 1998, the National Historic Site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places the same day. The site has a temporary visitor center, pending completion of the first phases of a restoration project around 2008. An oral history project, consisting of interviews of hundreds of people involved in the Tuskegee Airmen, was completed in 2005 and will eventually be available to the public at the historic site and at the Library of Congress. It is currently being run by a Roosevelt Lewis.

--

Tuskegee Airmen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Tuskegee Airmen (pronounced /t?'ski?gi/) was the popular name of a group of African American pilots who flew with distinction during World War II as the 332nd Fighter Group of the US Army Air Corps.

Origins:

Prior to the Tuskegee Airmen, no U.S. military pilots had been black. However, a series of legislative moves by the United States Congress in 1941 forced the Army Air Corps to form an all-black combat unit, much to the War Department's chagrin. In an effort to eliminate the unit before it could begin, the War Department set up a system to accept only those with a level of flight experience or higher education that they expected would be hard to fill. This policy backfired when the Air Corps received numerous applications from men who qualified even under these restrictions.

The U.S. Army Air Corps had established the Psychological Research Unit 1 at Maxwell Army Air Field, Alabama, and other units around the country for aviation cadet training, which included the identification, selection, education, and training of pilots, navigators and bombardiers. Psychologists employed in these research studies and training programs used some of the first standardized tests to quantify IQ, dexterity, and leadership qualities in order to select and train the right personnel for the right role (bombardier, pilot, navigator). The Air Corps determined that the same existing programs would be used for all units, including all-black units. At Tuskegee, this effort would continue with the selection and training of the Tuskegee Airmen.

Training:

On 19 March 1941, the 99th Pursuit Squadron (Pursuit being the pre-World War II descriptive for "Fighter") was activated at Chanute Field in Rantoul, Illinois. Over 250 enlisted men were trained at Chanute in aircraft ground support trades. This small number of enlisted men was to become the core of other black squadrons forming at Tuskegee and Maxwell Fields in Alabama.

In June 1941, the Tuskegee program officially began with formation of the 99th Fighter Squadron at the Tuskegee Institute, a highly regarded university founded by Booker T. Washington in Tuskegee, Alabama. The unit consisted of an entire service arm, including ground crew. After basic training at Moton Field, they were moved to the nearby Tuskegee Army Air Field about 16 km (10 miles) to the west for conversion training onto operational types. The Airmen were placed under the command of Capt. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., one of the few African American West Point graduates. His father Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. was the first black general in the U.S. Army.

During its training, the 99th Fighter Squadron was commanded by white and Puerto Rican officers, beginning with Capt. George "Spanky" Roberts. By 1942, however, it was Col. Frederick Kimble who oversaw operations at the Tuskegee airfield. Kimble maintained segregation on the field in deference to local customs; a policy the airmen resented. Later that year, the Air Corps replaced Kimble with Maj. Noel Parrish. Parrish, counter to the prevalent racism of the day, was fair and open-minded, and petitioned Washington to allow the Tuskegee Airmen to serve in combat.

In response, a hearing was convened before the House Armed Services Committee to determine whether the Tuskegee Airmen "experiment" should be allowed to continue. The committee accused the Airmen of being incompetent —- based on the fact that they had not seen any combat in the entire time the "experiment" had been underway. To bolster the recommendation to scrap the project, a member of the committee commissioned and then submitted into evidence a "scientific" report by the University of Texas which purported to prove that Negroes were of low intelligence and incapable of handling complex situations (such as air combat). The majority of the Committee, however, decided in the Airmen's favor, and the 99th Pursuit Squadron soon joined two new squadrons out of Tuskegee to form the all-black 332nd Fighter Group.

Combat:

The 99th was ready for combat duty during some of the Allies' earliest actions in the North African campaign, and was transported to Casablanca, Morocco, on the USS Mariposa. From there, they travelled by train to Oujda near Fes, and made their way to Tunis to operate against the Luftwaffe. The flyers and ground crew were largely isolated by racial segregation practices, and left with little guidance from battle-experienced pilots. Operating directly under the Twelfth Air Force and the XII Air Support Command, the 99th FS and the Tuskegee Airmen were bounced around between three groups, the 33rd FG, 324th FG, and 79th FG. The 99th's first combat mission was to attack the small but strategic volcanic island of Pantelleria in the Mediterranean Sea between Sicily and Tunisia, in preparation for the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943. The 99th moved to Sicily while attached to the 33rd Fighter Group, whose commander, Col. William W. Momyer, fully involved the squadron, and the 99th received a Distinguished Unit Citation for its performance in Sicily.

The Tuskegee Airmen were initially equipped with P-40 Warhawks, briefly with P-39 Airacobras (March 1944), later with P-47 Thunderbolts (June-July 1944), and finally with the airplane that they would become most identified with, the P-51 Mustang (July 1944).

On 27 January and 28 January 1944, German Fw 190 fighter-bombers raided Anzio, where the Allies had conducted amphibious landings on January 22. Attached to the 79th Fighter Group, eleven of the 99th Fighter Squadron's pilots shot down enemy fighters, including Capt. Charles B. Hall, who shot down two, bringing his aerial victory total to three. The eight fighter squadrons defending Anzio together shot down a total of 32 German aircraft, and the 99th had the highest score among them with 13.

The squadron won its second Distinguished Unit Citation on 12 May-14 May 1944, while attached to the 324th Fighter Group, attacking German positions on Monastery Hill (Monte Cassino), attacking infantry massing on the hill for a counterattack, and bombing a nearby strong point to force the surrender of the German garrison to Moroccan Goumiers.

By this point, more graduates were ready for combat, and the all-black 332nd Fighter Group had been sent overseas with three fighter squadrons: the 100th, 301st and 302nd. Under the command of Col. Benjamin O. Davis, the squadrons were moved to mainland Italy, where the 99th FS, assigned to the group on 1 May, joining them on 6 June. The Airmen of the 332nd Fighter Group escorted bombing raids into Austria, Hungary, Poland and Germany.

Flying escort for heavy bombers, the 332nd racked up an impressive combat record. Reportedly, the Luftwaffe awarded the Airmen the nickname, "Schwarze Vogelmenschen," or "Black Birdmen." The Allies called the Airmen "Redtails" or "Redtail Angels," because of the distinctive crimson paint on the vertical stabilizers of the unit's aircraft. Although bomber groups would request Redtail escort when possible, few bomber crew members knew at the time that the Redtails were black.

A B-25 bomb group, the 477th Bombardment Group (Medium), was forming in the U.S. but completed its training too late to see action. The 99th Fighter Squadron after its return to the United States became part of the 477th, redesignated the 477th Composite Group.

By the end of the war, the Tuskegee Airmen were credited with 109 Luftwaffe aircraft shot down, a patrol boat run aground by machine-gun fire, and destruction of numerous fuel dumps, trucks and trains. The squadrons of the 332nd FG flew more than 15,000 sorties on 1,500 missions. The unit received recognition through official channels and was awarded a Distinguished Unit Citation for a mission flown March 24, 1945, escorting B-17s to bomb the Daimler-Benz tank factory at Berlin, Germany, an action in which its pilots destroyed three Me-262 jets, all belonging to the Luftwaffe's all-jet Jagdgeschwader 7, in aerial combat that day. The 99th Fighter Squadron in addition received two DUCs, the second after its assignment to the 332nd FG. The Tuskegee Airmen were awarded several Silver Stars, 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 8 Purple Hearts, 14 Bronze Stars and 744 Air Medals.

In all, 992 pilots were trained in Tuskegee from 1940 to 1946; about 445 deployed overseas, and 150 Airmen lost their lives in training or combat.

Controversy over the escort record:

While it had long been said that the Redtails were the only fighter group who never lost a bomber to enemy fighters, suggestions to the contrary, combined with Air Force records and eyewitness accounts indicating that at least 25 bombers were lost to enemy fire, resulted in the Air Force conducting a reassessment of the history of this famed unit in the fall of 2006.

The claim that the no bomber escorted by the Tuskegee Airmen had ever been lost to enemy fire first appeared on 24 March 1945. The claim came from an article, published in the Chicago Defender, under the headline "332nd Flies Its 200th Mission Without Loss." Ironically, this article was published on the very day that, according to the 28 March 2007 Air Force report, some bombers under 332nd Fighter Group escort protection were shot down. The subsequent report, based on after-mission reports filed by both the bomber units and Tuskegee fighter groups as well as missing air crew records and witness testimony, was released in March 2007 and documented 25 bombers shot down by enemy fighter aircraft while being escorted by the Tuskegee Airmen.

The controversy continued to attract news media attention in 2008. A St. Petersburg Times article quoted a historian at the Air Force Historical Research Agency as confirming the loss of up to 25 bombers. Disputing this, a professor at the National Defense University in Washington said he researched more than 200 Tuskegee Airmen mission reports and found no bombers were lost to enemy fighters. Bill Holloman, a Tuskegee airman who taught black studies at the University of Washington and now chairs the Airmen's history committee, was reported by the Times as saying his review of records did confirm lost bombers, but "the Tuskegee story is about pilots who rose above adversity and discrimination and opened a door once closed to black America — not about whether their record is perfect".

Postwar:

Far from failing as originally expected, a combination of pre-war experience and the personal drive of those accepted for training had resulted in some of the best pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps. Nevertheless, the Tuskegee Airmen continued to have to fight racism. Their combat record did much to quiet those directly involved with the group (notably bomber crews who often requested them for escort), but other units were less than interested and continued to harass the Airmen.

All of these events appear to have simply stiffened the Airmen's resolve to fight for their own rights in the US. After the war, the Tuskegee Airmen once again found themselves isolated. In 1949, the 332nd entered the yearly gunnery competition and won. After segregation in the military was ended in 1948 by President Harry S. Truman with Executive Order 9981, the Tuskegee Airmen now found themselves in high demand throughout the newly formed United States Air Force.

Many of the surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen annually participate in the Tuskegee Airmen Convention, which is hosted by Tuskegee Airmen, Inc.

In 2005, four Tuskegee Airmen (Lt. Col. Lee Archer, Lt. Col. Robert Ashby, MSgt. James Sheppard, and TechSgt. George Watson) flew to Balad, Iraq, to speak to active duty airmen serving in the current incarnation of the 332nd, reactivated as first the 332d Air Expeditionary Group in 1998 and made part of the 332d Air Expeditionary Wing. "This group represents the linkage between the 'greatest generation' of airmen and the 'latest generation' of airmen," said Lt. Gen. Walter E. Buchanan III, commander of the Ninth Air Force and US Central Command Air Forces, in an e-mail to the Associated Press.
President George W. Bush presented the Congressional Gold Medal to about 300 Tuskegee Airmen at the US Capitol rotunda on 29 March 2007 in Washington D.C..
President George W. Bush presented the Congressional Gold Medal to about 300 Tuskegee Airmen at the US Capitol rotunda on 29 March 2007 in Washington D.C..

Legacy and honors:

On 29 March 2007, about 350 Tuskegee Airmen and their widows were collectively awarded the Congressional Gold Medal at a ceremony in the US Capitol rotunda. The medal will go on display at the Smithsonian Institution; individual honorees will receive bronze replicas.

The airfield where the airmen trained is now the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site.

In 2006, California Congressman Adam Schiff, and Missouri Congressman William Lacy Clay, Jr., have led the initiative to create a commemorative postage stamp to honor the Tuskegee Airmen.

Popular culture:

* Wings for This Man (1945), a "propaganda" short about the Tuskegee Airmen, was produced by the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Forces. The film was narrated by Ronald Reagan.
* The Tuskegee Airmen (1996) starring Laurence Fishburne was produced and aired by HBO.
* The Tuskegee Airmen (1997) are represented in the G.I. Joe action figure series.
* The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys who Flew the B-24s over Germany (2001) book by Stephen Ambrose describes the Tuskegee Airmen in a tribute to their achievements.
* Silver Wings and Civil Rights: The Fight to Fly (2004) documentary was the first film to feature information regarding the "Freeman Field Mutiny," the struggle of 101 African-American officers arrested for entering a white officer's club.
* George Lucas announced in 17 May 2005, he was planning a film titled Red Tails about the Tuskegee Airmen. In his release Lucas said, "They were the only escort fighters during the war that never lost a bomber so they were, like, the best."
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