Hans von Hammer
Here's a fact for everyone to ponder--before the Tuskegee Airmen flew escort, bomber losses were much higher than they were with these pilots flying escort. Anyone can say what they want--in the end, these guys did one massively great job that wasnt being done before.
That's simply NOT true... Nobody was flying escort into Germany, since nobody had the "legs" to do it.. P-47s were the only aircraft that the Red Tails had with dop tanks, and even then they only had about a 250-mile escort range..
This is incorrect, hans. The P-51 first came on the scene able to escort all the way to Germany and back before the Red Tails began flying them. Before 332nd FG began escort operations, there were other units flying those missions. And their losses were higher. Remember that the P-51D was not the first Mustang that was capable of long range escort duty. The 332nd received Mustangs in July 1944, and the Merlin powered Mustangs began flying round trip escort missions in 1943. In fact, the 354th FG was loaned to the 8th AF for escort duty, flying the P-51B, in late 1943 with Don Blakeslee as acting CO. There is no doubt that the Mustang was flying long range escort before the 332nd was.
Not to take anything away from any other pilots, but someone here said something about how the 332nd lost "at least 25 bombers". Sad reality is that sometimes, more than that number were lost on a single mission, whereas the 332nd lost about that many total.
No, I said that the 332nd's record of "Never having lost a bomber" was wrong, and that on one occasion lost about 25 bombers to enemy action (flak and fighters), which then was changed to read that they, "Never lost a bomber to enemy fighters", which was challenged and (the claim) found to be wrong again as late as 2006, using eyewitness reports, USAF Missing Air Crew Reports, and WW2 Luftwaffe records...
Sorry, but that isnt what you said. Your original post didnt say "they lost 25 bombers on one occasion". Here's your quote--
Also, the 332nd "Never lost a bomber" record was debunked as well...
They lost at least 25... Then it was given the tag, "Never lost a bomber
to enemy fighters".. That too, was dispelled... They lost several
bombers to enemy fighters... All this was done as late as 2006
through official USAF missing aircrew reports, debriefs, and eyewitness
accounts, as well as German records...
In addition to that, the USAF investigated the combat reports in 2006, and the final report was released in 2007. The report said that the USAF determined that the 332nd FG lost 25 bombers to enemy aircraft, with two more going down after damage from both e/a and ground fire so that it was impossible to tell if the e/a or the AAA did the fatal damage. So this was not "on one occasion", it was their total record. And yet, as I already stated, the 8th AF losses were worse before the 332nd took on escort duties.....
And while I think it was pretty bad that the Tuskegee guys got treated the way they did, I'm not gonna suffer from any "White Guilt" over their treatment... Such was the law of the land at the time, and times have changed... Besides, even with Truman's intergation of the Services, nothing changed as far as Jim Crow laws went, and their were plenty of instances of prejudice and unfair racial segregation going outside the military for black officers and enlisted men, even during the Korean War, and right up to Vietnam and the end of the Johnson Administration...
It is one thing to expect people to consider the hell those men went through from their own countrymen. It is another thing entirely to expect people to have "white guilt", as you called it. I expect the first. I do not expect the second. I feel no such guilt myself, I was not even alive at that time and I am not in the habit of feeling guilty for what someone else did. Despite that, however, the race accusation still flies, even from someone in this very thread. Even if you wish to say that the 332nd performed on par with the other groups, there was not one single other fighter group anywhere in US service at that time that had to deal with fighting their own people in this manner at the same time as fighting the enemy. This is fact. Morale is very important in units like these, and we can only imagine how it was for them. It is not possible to consider the effectiveness of this group compared to others fully without accounting for this issue. No other fighter outfit had to fight just to exist like that.