On This Day In Alabama History: Tuskegee Airmen Fought Their First Air Battle

By Alabama NewsCenter Staff

It was an “experiment” that many in the military resisted: train African Americans to be military flyers. But with pressure from the NAACP, the African American press and support from then-first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and others, the Army on the eve of World War II began training African Americans to fly at Tuskegee Institute in Macon County. On June 9, 1943, the “Tuskegee Airmen” of the 99th Fighter Squadron were escorting Allied bombers over the island of Pantelleria, near Sicily, when four German fighters attacked from above.

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