Freedom Flyers, by J. Todd Moye

Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II, by J. Todd Moye\Oxford University Press, 2010
185 pages plus acknowledgments, Notes on pages, notes on sources, Bibliography, index and 8 pages of photos

Description
As the country's first Africam American military pilots, the Tuskegee Airmen fought in World WAr II on two fronts: against the Axis powers in the skies over Europe and against Jim Crow racism and segregation at home. Although the pilots flew more than 15,000 sorties and destroyed more than 200 German aircraft, their most far-reaching achievement defies qualification: delivering a powerful blow to racial inequality and descrimination in American life.

In this inspiring account of the Tuskegee Airmen, historian J. Todd Moye captures the challenges and triumphs of these brave pilots in their own words, drawing on more than 800 interviews recorded for the National Park Service's Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Project. Denied the right to fully participate in the US war effort alongside whites at the beginning of WWII, African Americans-spurred on by black newspapers and by civil rights organizations such as the NAACP-compelled the prestigious Army Air Corps to open its training program to black pilots, despite the objections of its top generals.

Thousands of young men came from every part of the country to Tuskegee, Alabama, in the heart of the segregated South, to enter the program, which expanded in 1943 to train multi-engine bomber pilots in addition to fighter pilots.

By the end of the war, Tuskegee Airfield had become a small city populated by black mechanics, parachute packers, doctors, and nurses. Together, they helped prove that racial segregation of the fighting forces was so inefficient as to be counterproductive to the nation's defense.

Freedom Flyers brings to life the legacy of a determined, visionary cadre of African American airmen who proved their capabilities and patriotism beyond question, transformed the armed forced-formerly the nation's most racially polarized institution, and jump-started the modern struggle for racial equality.

Table of contents
Prologue: "This is where you ride"
1. The use of Negro manpower in war
2. The Black Eagles take flight
3. The Experiment
4. Combat on Several Fronts
5. The Trials of the 477th
6. Integrating the Air Force
Epilogue: Lets make it a holy crusade all the way around
Acknowledgments
Notes
A Note on sources
Bibliography
Index