I can recall my first missions I flew.
They came in and they really hit the bombers on that one.
And I can remember Major Campbell saying, "Uh-oh!
I think we're in for a dogfight today, cause these guys are not breaking off."
During the 1930's, segregation and racial inequality were rampant throughout the United States.
The onslaught of the Great Depression only made matters worse,
and African Americans were often among the first to lose their jobs,
creating and even greater rift in the cultural divide.
But in spite of all of this, young Harold Brown of Minnesota kept his ambitions set high.
Well, I was nothing but a snotty-nosed kid, born and raised in Minneapolis.
My mother had hopes that I would be a pianist.
And that continued until I was in the sixth grade.
I woke up one day,
and decided I was going to become a military fighter pilot.
I don't know how it happened.
But it was just something that happened.
And I can recall going in and telling my mother that I don't want to practice anymore.
I'm going to become a pilot.
And she looked at me as if I had lost my mind.
You have to keep in mind that they were not training blacks for pilots.
Back in those days, segregation was not only by law, but by tradition.
And that's the way it was practiced.
As far back as World War I, African Americans had attempted to become military pilots,
but had only faced rejection.
But in the late 1930's, with the world's climate once again shifting towards war,
things began to change.
And finally, in March of 1941 President Roosevelt said, "That's it.
We're going to train one squadron, made up of thirty-five pilots and twenty-seven aircraft."
And that was the beginning.
Named for the university at which they trained,
the Tuskegee Airmen became the first African American squadron in U.S. military history.
The gates were now open for Harold to achieve his dream of becoming a pilot.
I had only one thing in mind: I wanted to fly.
And nothing else mattered.
So, in June of 1942 - seventeen years old - I graduated from high school,
went down, sat for the exams, passed them, and was invited down to join.
And we were the 332nd Fighter Group in the 15th Air Force.
We had the red tails.
They only trained 992 pilots.
Out of the 992 pilots, only 355 of us went overseas to fight the war.
In the summer of 1944, Harold was sent to Europe to join the rest of the 332nd Fighter Group,
attached to the 15th Air Force.
The 15th was in need of fresh pilots and aircraft after losing hundreds of planes
in their bombing campaigns across Europe.
At that time they had lost 114 bomber crews out of the 15th.
Ten men each.
That's a lot of airplanes and a lot of men.
They felt the primary reason why they lost that many,
is that the other fighter groups were running off, looking for victories,
leaving a gap in the protection of the bomber.
The Germans were coming in and knocking them down.
I can remember, when I finally got overseas, we met Colonel Davis.
He says, "I only want one promise out of you: that you will stick with those bombers.
You get them up there, you take them to the target,
and get them back home safely so they can fly another day."
I can recall my first mission I flew.
I saw no enemy aircraft - nothing.
On a number of my missions, I never would even see an enemy aircraft.
Others, I saw a lot of them.
On my twelfth mission, we were escorting bombers deep into Germany.
And we knew they were up there.
This time - I don't know - there were eight or twelve of them.
And they came in and they really hit the bombers on that one.
And I can remember Major Campbell saying, "Oh-oh!
I think we're in for a dogfight today, cause these guys are not breaking off."
They came and they hit them.
We dove down on them.
When you pick up a guy, if you time it right
you can get him in your sights for no more than one, two, or just three seconds.
But then, they're so fast - here they go, and they're pulling away from you.
They must've had a dummy in this one, because we came in on him like so,
and instead of flying straight ahead, he rolls over.
Which means that he is staying in my gun sight a little while longer,
and he's giving me the opportunity to get in not one burst or two bursts, but several bursts.
Well, fine with me if you want to play that game.
And we were shooting at this guy all the way down.
He pulls out, over the tree tops, and he lead us right into a flak trap.
We come over it, and they were throwing everything up at us.
I said, "Oh! He suckered us in!"
I apparently was hit in my wings tanks, because I had fuel exhaust.
At 25,000 feet - no engine.
And this thing is dropping like a rock.
So we get down to 10,000 and I spotted an old abandoned fighter strip.
Dead stick - nothing.
And you're trying to jockey around,
but you gotta slow the airplane up slow enough so you can land the damn thing.
Long story short, I just forced it on the ground, hit the ditch, goes up,
breaks in half right behind the cockpit.
So, I jumped out of it and -
Rough landing.
But they say any landing you walk away from is a good landing.
Harold was fortunate to walk away from his first real encounter with enemy aircraft.
But when he flew his 30th mission several weeks later,
he would face a very different outcome.
In March of 1945, Harold and the 99th Fighter Squadron were given a mission
to strafe and destroy German supply trains near the Austrian border.
When the fighter pilots arrived at their destination,
they were delighted to find a great concentration of enemy train cars.
The last thing they expected were fighters.
There were locomotives all over the place, and the guys were screaming, "Look what we got!"
And there was this chatter of guys, "Boy, I got this one!"
"Did you see, I got this one!"
"Hey! I just blew up one!"
Just chatter, chatter, chatter.
"Dammit! They missed one!
Look at that great big beautiful one they missed!"
"Let's go get him!"
So I went in on him, and I had that locomotive lit up like a Christmas tree.
And just as I pulled up to go over it, that's when it explodes.
This big explosion, I got caught in it.
Then all of the sudden the oil pressure started acting up.
The oil temperature starts going up high, and the engine quits.
I rolled it over, kicked the nose up, jettisoned the canopy, and it throws you out.
So I landed on the ground, and in a short while, here's a couple of guys on skis.
And they jumped off the skis, and they put a rifle on me.
So I immediately threw up my hands.
Harold had landed somewhere in Germany, and was now in the custody of two German constables.
They marched him directly to a nearby village
which had suffered collateral damage due to the 99th’s strafing mission.
As Harold entered the town, he was quickly met by an angry mob.
Here I come along as one of the pilots.
They wanted a piece of me.
Matter of fact, they'd even selected the perfect tree for it.
What am I gonna do?
I can't run, I can't hide, I can't do anything.
And I just knew I was going to die.
Next thing I knew, I felt a hand on my shoulder.
One of the constables stepped in front of me,
and put a round in his rifle and kept them from killing me.
Over the next several weeks, Harold would be transferred from one POW camp to another,
enduring interrogation and near starvation.
But as the Allies continued to close in on Germany,
Harold knew all he had to do was hold on a little while longer.
The Allies were coming from the West, and they were moving eastward.
The Russians were in the East, and the lines were slowly collapsing.
They kept evacuating the prisoners inland.
And we knew that Patton wasn't that far away.
And there were even times in the evening you could hear the tanks way off in the distance.
You knew precisely what was going on.
That morning, we could hear the tanks just beyond the big barbed wire fence.
They knocked down part of the fence and they came through - these huge, big tanks.
And Patton was behind about the second or third tank.
And he was talking about, "Boy, we got them on the run!"
He said, "And when I get into Berlin, I'm going to catch that - "
He had the filthiest mouth in the world.
"I'm gonna catch him, and when I catch him I'm gonna do - - -"
And, every time, all thousand guys said, "Yay, Patton!"
And he said, "Well, I'm on my way to Berlin.
I'll be there in another few days."
And we said, "Yay, Patton!"
Of course, they stopped him, and they never allowed him to go into Berlin.
The glory of taking Berlin would be passed from Patton to the Russians,
but the American forces - and all of Europe - breathed a sigh of relief.
The war against Germany was finally over, and Harold was returning to the United States.
The Tuskegee Airmen emerged from the war as a highly revered fighter group,
possessing some of the best pilots in the U.S. Air Forces,
with an outstanding bomber protection record.
The exceptional defense they provided for their bombers
earned them the nickname, the “Red Tailed Angels”.
There was any number of times, we're bringing the airplanes back,
we hear some bomber up there that was part of our group start hollering and screaming,
"I just lost my second engine!
I got two engines out!
Fighter cover! I need fighter cover!"
And the old lead aircraft would say, "Check your fuel levels!
Who's got some fuel?"
"Okay, you four guys go back and find that bomber!"
They'd go back up, find him, and bring him home.
And we did that regularly.
And they said, "Who are these guys flying these damn Red Tails?"
They said, "Man, these guys are with us all the way!
Who are these guys?"
And someone came up with the idea of the Red Tailed Angels.
In 1948, the Tuskegee Airmen’s performance in World War II
played a pivotal role in President Truman’s decision to fully integrate the United States Armed Forces.
Americans of all races and cultural backgrounds were finally serving side-by-side.
To this day, the Red Tails continue to be a shining example
of the importance of perseverance and equality.
At the time, it just didn't occur to me the history that we were making.
I mean, that was the last thing on my mind.
As I became older I started realizing the significance.
And if it had not been that we performed at such a high level,
I don't l know if Truman ever would have integrated.
But we did, and so he did it.
So, when I reflect back on it there was always obstacles, obstacles, obstacles.
But again, if the Tuskegee Airmen could overcome all of their obstacles,
hey - you can do it too.