TUSKEGEE, Ala. — When walking down the road packed with a fine-gravel-and-sand mix under the beating Alabama sun, one can almost imagine what it must have been like. Just more than 70 years ago, cadets in the United States Air Force walked the same steps, only with much different surroundings.
Then, there were planes whizzing down the runway to the left that seems to stretch all the way to the horizon. Tools clanged and engines revved in the repair shop straight ahead. Trucks roared as they traveled over what is now hallowed ground, the gravel, dirt and sand that covers the plains of eastern Alabama.
It was here where more than one thousand of the nation’s greatest pilots and tens of thousands of other airmen came to train to fight for a country that refused to accept them as equal human beings. It was here where young men came to put their lives on the line for freedom that they knew would not be their own. This, a few buildings strung together in the middle of an airfield in rural Alabama, is the home of the infamous Tuskegee Airmen.
“This is definitely one of the key jewels of Tuskegee,” said Edward Pennell, a park ranger for the National Parks Service stationed at the museum commemorating Moton Field. “The success of the airmen and their international status, it brought a lot of attention to Tuskegee. Airmen came from all over the country, but it took some of those greats that were from here to get things going to make this a real historic legacy not only for the airmen, but for Tuskegee, the city itself. It’s definitely one of the key attracting points and notable points in terms of the history when it comes to Tuskegee.”
When it comes to the entrance thousands of young, and surely, to some extent, unsure cadets walked through decades earlier, little has changed. A red metal frame saves the spot where the guard checkpoint once stood, and the gate — two arching brick structures that house a statue of Dr. Robert R. Moton, the Tuskegee University president that inspired the airfield — still stands.
Through these gates walked exuberant and hopeful cadets who hoped to one day become pilots at the now-infamous airfield where the 332nd Fighter Group, also known as the “Red Tails,” trained. Most knew the incredible challenge ahead of them, a challenge that demanded the utmost physical and mental endurance, all in the face of social injustices.
“There was a great desire to be a part of the flying program. Many of these gentlemen, they wanted to fly, and so this was an opportunity for them to fly,” Pennell said of the airmen, who were the first African-American aviators in the United States armed forces. “Also, with the barriers that were placed against them and before them, that made the struggle and the desire to achieve what they wanted much more profound for them. They came in knowing we have some big obstacles we have to get over, so they came with the right attitude. Because of that, they had the skills, the right attitude and the ability to see beyond all of those blocks.”
Upon entering the base, cadets would have quickly dropped their packs in the barracks just to the left of the entrance which are now, like the entrance checkpoint, simply red metal frames and reported to Hangar No. 1, which still stands in its original, if restored, state. Inside Hangar No. 1 today is a museum with a plethora of exhibits that include an authentic, deployed parachute, war maps and interactive, educational displays that give visitors a glimpse of what it was like back in the mid-1940s.
Flanking the hangar are smaller rooms where officers kept records, received war reports and waited to send potential pilots out for training, but the main attractions, especially for aviation nuts such as Rex and Bernice Bohannon, sit squarely in the middle of the main room in Hangar No. 1. Two full-size replicas of World War II-era training planes now rest permanently in the hangar where planes of their kind were stored when not in use back in the 1940s.
“It’s just incredible to think of what they did in similar machines back then,” said Rex Bohannon, a Tennessee native and self-proclaimed plane nerd visiting the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site for the first time. “It was great, new technology at the time, but I’d bet those machines got pretty shaky in tough conditions compared to what’s today.”
Just half a football field away is another hangar, still in its original spot but a nearly completely rebuilt version of Hangar No. 2. Whereas the exhibits in the first hangar focus mostly on the many positive circumstances surrounding the Tuskegee Airmen, Hangar No. 2 paints a darker picture.
Many of the exhibits in the second hangar focus on the terrible discrimination and racism the Tuskegee Airmen faced, even during their time in the military fighting for the same country that refused to grant them equal rights.
“Racism, segregation and prejudice that took place in the world outside the military actually took place in the military, as well,” Pennell said. “It’s important to know that those men and women who were here and that served the country had those same struggles and that, through the military, they were able to defeat a lot of the norms or ways of thinking that the military had against blacks.”
Many times, that racism was not an abstract idea. The military often kept black pilots, many of whom trained at Moton Field, from contributing to the war effort because it deemed them “inadequate and unable to do certain things,” according to Pennell.
“They trained here for the purpose of being able to fight,” Pennell said. “They didn’t get really get an opportunity to fight until late in the war, but when they did, they were proven to be some of the greatest pilots. The work that they did just to become a pilot was so difficult, strenuous. The program was designed to be a washout for most, because they wanted the best. They did get the best.”
For many, the treatment of the African-American airmen in Tuskegee and across the nation comes as a bit of a surprise. Many know the gruesome details of the Civil Rights Movement, but Hangar No. 2 commemorates the struggle for equality that ensued within the ranks of the military, where some assume it already existed.
“It’s really quite remarkable what they did,” Bernice Bohannon said. “I just don’t know if I could’ve had the courage and strength to do the same thing if I was in their shoes.”
Racial discrimination aside, the accomplishments of the Tuskegee Airmen are vast, and they are all commemorated within the museum that was commissioned by federal legislation in 1996 and drew more than 31,000 visitors last year. Widely considered one of the best-trained fighter groups in the Air Force at the time, or perhaps ever, the Tuskegee Airmen flew more than 1,500 missions overseas and lost only 84 men in combat.
A book sits just inside the entrance to Hangar No. 2 and contains the names of all Tuskegee Airmen. It is approximately four inches thick and is full of thousands of military personnel — from pilots to cooks to repairmen to officers — who etched their names in history by overcoming the physical, mental and social demands that came with training in Tuskegee.
From the original control tower that still stands over the airfield, one can look over the expanse of land and see the airstrip where the pilots trained, the barracks where they slept and yes, the gate where they entered for the first time. Little did they know at the time they would be stepping into history.
“You very rarely hear about anyone else,” Pennell said. “They were an anomaly. They were unique, and they stood out. They did something at the time that was unbelievable.”
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