Tuskegee pilot reflects on past experiences

  • Published
  • By Julie Calohan
  • Madigan Healthcare System Strategic Communication Office
TACOMA, Wash. (AFNS) --  As a high school senior in 1944, retired Lt. Col. Edward Drummond thought he would do the patriotic thing after he graduated and join the Air Corps.

He was young, enthusiastic and wanted to be a fighter pilot. He was also black. He read about the 332nd Fighter Group in the black newspapers that served his hometown of Philadelphia.

The 332nd was the first combat group of black pilots to fly in World War II and he wanted to be like them. He completed the physical tests, the mental evaluations and the dexterity exams. He was then told he would hear from someone within 90 days. He didn't.

"I thought they didn't want me in the Air Corps," Colonel Drummond said. "I thought they were segregationists" 

So, when his draft card came up, he had a choice to make.

"I didn't want to go into the Navy because I didn't want to be a mess attendant," Colonel Drummond said. "And I didn't want to go into the Air Corps because they turned me down. So I chose the Army."

However, he didn't know it was called the Army Air Corps in those days, and that the two branches operated together.

"So I became part of the Air Corps anyway," Colonel Drummond said with a smile.

He later found out his acceptance into the Army Air Corps was delayed because training for all black pilots was conducted at one base, Tuskegee Army Airfield in Tuskegee, Ala. White pilots were trained at a number of different bases as integration of military bases was still four years away.

"The white pilots could get through training more rapidly. At Tuskegee, they didn't have the room to put more blacks in," Colonel Drummond said.

From his hospital bed in Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Wash.,  Colonel Drummond recounted his days as a Tuskegee Airman. The term encompasses all 994 pilots who graduated from training at Tuskegee from 1941 to 1946, as well as all support staff, even the white instructors.

By the time Colonel Drummond finished pilot training in 1946, the war had ended and plans were in place to close Tuskegee.

He was sent to Lockbourne Air Base in Columbus, Ohio. Opened in 1942, it was another site serving only black service members. When he arrived, he was told he wouldn't be staying.

"They were having a reduction in force since the war was over," he recalled. "They said, 'Don't unpack your bags.' We were second lieutenants, brand spanking-new bars, bright shiny wings, and they wanted to send us home."

Then an obscure regulation surfaced. It stated that officers couldn't be discharged from the service until they had 90 days of commissioned service time. He and his fellow graduates had just been commissioned the day before. "So, we were saved," Colonel Drummond said.

Two years later in 1948, President Truman issued an executive order to integrate the Armed Forces, years before the civil rights movement and public schools were desegregated.

With the issue of that executive order calling for equality and fair treatment of all service members, Colonel Drummond had an opportunity to travel overseas. He was attached to the 49th Fighter Wing in Idisuki, Japan, and trained to fly the P-80 Shooting Star. It was the first operational fighter jet used by the military. He was one of the first two black pilots to fly the jet during the Korean War, completing 104 missions.

The integration of the military didn't follow him home, though. During gunnery training in Yuma, Ariz., he was refused a beer when he showed up at a bar with some of his white squadron mates.
 
"I'm in uniform and I'm wearing all my ribbons," Colonel Drummond said. "The bartender says, 'You've had enough.' I hadn't even had anything to drink. But I got the message."

As the youngest Tuskegee Airman, he remembers the prejudices against blacks in the military. "Even though the country had treated us as badly as it did, it was still our country," Colonel Drummond said. "We were just as happy to go and fight for our country as anybody else and we wanted to do a good job."

In 1961, he was assigned to McChord Air Force Base, where he remained until his military retirement in 1970. His career continued into the Vietnam War, where he logged more than 50 hours of total flying time. His public service continued after 1970, when we went to work for the state of Washington for 12 years in the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Licensing.

Colonel Drummond is proud of the achievements made by black men and women in today's military and believes the United States has the best fighting force in the world.

"We're just a big family," Colonel Drummond said. "We've got a closeness that will never leave us."