The film, "The Tuskegee Airmen" has recently
run on HBO. The story touches
at least two segments of its audience; those of us who love
to fly, and the ones who hope
that the United States -- in peace and war -- is
ready to give all of us the chance to use our wings.
The first personal hit was the sight
of Wolfgang Langewiesche's book, "Stick and
Rudder," in the hands of the black cadet-candidate
Warren Peebles on the train to Tuskegee.
My flyer uncle saw to it that I read that book in
high school. He had made sure I read Assen
Jordanoff's "Through the Overcast" "Safety In Flight"
and "Your Wings," in junior high.
I didn't actually learn to fly until I was
eighteen, out of high school and working at my first
job in Washington: copy boy on the Washington Post.
That was in 1945. The post-WWII flying clubs gave
many of us civilians a chance to pay $150 for a share
in a plane which had probably been a reconnaissance
ship somewhere.
NC-46105 -- "Beulah" -- was an Aeronca
F-65, a high-winged monoplane with a 65 horsepower
Franklin engine. Called the Champion. it had in-line
seats, and a joy stick. She had been a "Grasshopper"
reconnoitring in the South Pacific. In those days student
pilots had to do stalls and spins to pass their tests. This
was later stopped. It made the wings come off these little
old veteran ships.
My blue and yellow craft was hangared at Hyde
Field in Clinton, MD. Lessons
were on every weekend with good weather.
One day, field regulars were interested to see a smartly-painted red and black PT-19 land and taxi up to the administration building. There was no "control tower." There were no radios with which to talk to our little private ships. The PT-19 (for primary trainer) was a good-handling, low-winged monoplane with an in-line engine. It was the Jeep of the air... what everyone who trained in one wanted to bring home from the war.
We all watched as the pilot emerged from the open cockpit, handsomely jumpsuited in black. Our jaws dropped as he removed his helmet, goggles and gloves, revealing that his skin was also black.
A Negro pilot!? I don't know if anyone on the field had ever seen one before. At that age, I certainly had not. I stared rudely along with everyone else as the man conducted his business, donned his gear and climbed back into the cockpit for take-off.
I had not then the curiosity which was to make me a reporter later on. I didn't find out anything about the black flyer from the field manager. But for some reason the image of the solitary figure standing on the wing of that PT-19, target of our crass stares, has remained in my memory.
Years passed and my reading brought up doubtful possible identities. At one point I imagined that the unknown flyer might have been Colonel Hubert F. Julian, the Black Eagle, colorful character in an H.Allen Smith story of the '30s.
Years have gone by again. Now, a grownup and all, I wonder if he might have been one of the Tuskegee Airmen, carrying his love of flying into civilian life, or his business, whatever that might have been.
Because he was black, he would never have been hired as an airline pilot. Of course, neither would my instructor. The fine pilot who taught me had flown every size aircraft to every war theater during the conflict, but had to resort to teaching eighteen-year-olds to fly after the war was over.
My instructor had served in the WASPs. Women pilots -- regardless of their war service -- were taken even less seriously in peacetime than were the black pilots. They were not counted as members of the services, had no benefits, received no medals and until a few years ago, no pensions.
It's an old story. Getting a mite tired, though.
Copyright 1995 Jo Campbell / ECOTOPICS INTERNATIONAL
All Rights Reserved
P.O. Box 2309 Ocean City, MD 21842 jocee@shore.intercom.net Other Writings by Jo Campbell