Tuskegee Airmen: A WW2 Pilot's Story

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2021

⏱️ 45 minutes

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Summary

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in American military history. They faced discrimination and segregation at home but in the skies of Europe, they became one of the most successful and feared fighter units as they escorted bombers on raids in Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Poland and Germany.

As Dan discovers in this episode just becoming a Tuskegee Airmen was a dangerous business and several pilots were killed on training exercises in the USA. Two pilots went down over the waters of the Port Huron region during WWII. Flight Officer Nathaniel Rayburn died on Dec. 12, 1943, when he crashed into the St. Clair River near Algonac. Second Lt. Frank Moody died on April 11, 1944, when his plane crashed into Lake Huron. In this episode, we hear about a fascinating project to recover the wreckage of one of these downed planes and erect a memorial to honour those pilots who gave their lives whilst training to become Tuskegee Airmen. Dan speaks to Wayne Lusardi, State Underwater Archaeologist for Michigan and Erik Denson, Lead Instructor with Diving With a Purpose, about their important archaeological work.

You will also hear from Col Harry Stewart Jr one of the last surviving Tuskegee airmen. They discuss his experiences of dogfights in the skies over Europe during World War Two, the discrimination he and his colleagues faced, the progress that he has seen in his lifetime and what it was like to get back into the cockpit of a P-51 Mustang after 70 years.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's history. This is a great episode of this podcast everyone.
0:05.9	You are in for a treat in the middle of the Second World War. Michigan was where lots of
0:11.8	pilots went to train before heading out to Pacific or Europe. And that included the
0:16.8	famous All American Tuskegee Pilot Training Program. These were African Americans segregated
0:22.8	not allowed to fly with their white counterparts but placed in an all black unit, all black pilot
0:27.7	or ground crew. And this unit ended up as we're going to hear becoming the best unit in
0:33.8	the US Air Forces. Very recently, the wreckage of two aircraft were found in Lake Huron in
0:41.1	the waters of the coast of Michigan. And it was found that they were aircraft that had
0:46.2	been flown by trainee Tuskegee pilots. So in this episode we're going to talk to Wayne
0:52.0	Luzardi. He's a state underwater archaeologist from Michigan. He's been in charge of leading
0:56.5	research, recovery of the plane wreckage. We're also going to talk to Eric Denson. He is lead
1:01.4	instructor with diving with a purpose. That's an organization to encourage young African
1:07.2	Americans beneath the waves and connect with maritime archaeology, particularly with maritime
1:13.0	archaeological sites to do with the trade enslaved Africans across the Atlantic, the middle
1:17.9	passage. He led on the fundraising for this operation and installing a Tuskegee Airmen
1:25.3	memorial. And then very excitingly, we're also talking to Colonel Harry Stewart Jr. He
1:32.8	is in his late 90s. He is one of the last of the Tuskegee Airmen. He is a legend. It
1:39.3	was a great honor to talk to him and you're going to hear from him as well in this episode.
1:45.5	So I told you it's a goody, it's coming up. If you want to listen to other amazing
1:50.3	podcasts without the ads, if you're going to watch history documentaries made for true
1:55.3	history fans, not these rubber things you give a mainstream TV proper history documentaries,
2:00.0	then please get a history hit TV. It's like Netflix for history. It's a documentary
	...

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