Henry L. Moore
I am a 91-year-old Tuskegee Airman who was at Ramitelli, Italy, during the episode covered in the George Lucas film “Red Tails.” Mr. Lucas got it right. Whoever disagrees was not there.
Mr. Milloy complained the film was “little more than a black comedy about guys who clown and connive their way through World War II.” He missed the message. We were just like any other human beings, as was depicted, not high-ranking military officers practicing protocol. Once we were out on the high seas, we were together as an organization, and any protocol, outside of ceremonial parades, was left behind.
There were flight leaders, wingmen, armament and fuel providers, specialists and crew chiefs. I was a crew chief, and my pilot and I planned to split a fifth of Old Overholt when he returned from his transitional flight in the old, used squadron P-47. But he never made it back to fly my new P-47D. That was a sad day, but I got another pilot, who became my best buddy, and moved on. That was combat.
We fought to prove that we could fly and maintain complicated Air Force planes as well as anybody else. Those quick turns film-goers saw with the P-51 were real; we really could fly them that way.
Though a West Pointer and undoubtedly the leader, Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Jr. was also one of the guys. His humanity came through as he kept us from crashing into the Officers Club at Selfridge Field, Mich., cautioned us about race problems and our priorities, and stopped us from shooting up the little town where we were stationed just before we left Virginia Beach for overseas. We’d find him playing poker with his buddies during down time. I wished him a safe return as I squeezed him into my tiny P-39 at times. He was human.
The Lucas film was a small but true episode in the life of the Red Tails at Capodichino, Ramitelli and Cattolica, Italy. We all were young. Everything in the film did happen in some way. Give Mr. Lucas and the original Tuskegee Airmen he interviewed credit for that.
Henry L. Moore, Philadelphia