Tuskegee Airman visits Cannon

  • Published
  • By Keith Pannell
  • 27th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
CANNON AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. (AFPN) --  Retired Lt. Col. Herbert Carter is the embodiment of walking history. He was part of the 99th Pursuit Squadron, the famous “Red Tails,” made up of a group of black pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen.

Colonel Carter visited here recently to speak at Cannon’s Black History Month dinner.

“I actually had gotten my pilot’s license as a student at Tuskegee University,” Colonel Carter said. “Since I already knew how to fly, they made me go through pilot training in five weeks. During that time, I also had to learn how to be a military man. It wasn’t easy.”

Colonel Carter said for 12 to 14 hours a day during those five weeks, he had his nose in the books, was flying an aircraft or learning about how to be an officer. He said during that five week period, his only day off was Easter Sunday.

He said that many people did not make it through the training.

“The washout rate for black pilot students was over 50 percent. You never knew from day to day who would still be there,” he said. “Only 12 in my class graduated.”

The squadron needed 33 pilots to be able to stand up as an operational fighting unit, and in July 1942, Colonel Carter’s class gave them that number. The Airmen said they thought they would be battling Nazis by December that year, but it was more than eight months before they were engaging the enemy.

“We finally got to Casablanca, North Africa, in April 1943,” Colonel Carter said. “We flew tactical ground support against the Germans -- usually lower than 500 feet.”

Although the 99th PS and the rest of the Red Tails are remembered for flying P-51 Mustangs, the early battles of the war were fought in the sluggish P-40 Warhawk and then the P-47 Thunderbolt, which was only slightly better, he said.

The Tuskegee pilots would not receive the first of their 72 Mustangs until late in 1944. The Red Tails moved from Casablanca to Tunis, Tunisia, then to Sicily, Italy, and to the boot of Italy as the Allied force headed for Rome.

The Airmen protected the invasion fleet and, for the first time, saw air-to-air combat against the German air force. Within two weeks, the Red Tails scored 17 confirmed kills. Colonel Carter was credited with two “probables.”

“That combat broke the myth that the 99th ... black men ... couldn’t fly and fight,” he said. “We proved all we needed was an opportunity to engage the enemy.”

By June 1944, there were three more squadrons of Airmen from Tuskegee, and, after the switch to the Mustang, the Red Tails were given a new mission: protecting Allied bombers from German fighters -- the missions that made the men from Tuskegee legendary.

“We flew 200 escort missions and did not lose one bomber to an enemy aircraft,” Colonel Carter said. “We shot down 150 German aircraft and destroyed another 250 on the ground.”

The Red Tails, known for their distinctive red vertical tail fin, earned the Distinguished Unit Citation, 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses and more than 500 other medals.

In all, 450 black pilots from Tuskegee flew in combat during World War II, 66 of them died in the war, and 33 of them were taken prisoner but returned after the war, Colonel Carter said.

Colonel Carter stayed in the Air Force after the war, finally retiring in 1969.

“By the end of the war I was so involved in flying I was perfectly happy staying in the Air Force,” he said. “Besides, there were no applications to fly with airlines in the civilian world. The airlines didn’t start accepting applications from black pilots until after 1955.”

Colonel Carter said his flying career stretched from the Piper Cub, with a top speed of about 80 mph in the early 1940s, to the F-106 Delta Dart, which could travel faster than Mach 2.

“As my career progressed, I realized the Air Force was not standing still, and if you didn’t keep up, you needed to get out,” Colonel Carter said.

Today, he walks with a cane as he makes his way to and from speaking engagements at universities or Air Force bases. He still speaks to brand new officers as they are learning leadership basics at Maxwell AFB in Alabama.

“It’s really a two-way street,” Colonel Carter said. “I hope I can motivate our young people to a successful career, and when I feel I’ve inspired someone, well, that’s the greatest reward you can hope for. You can’t get that sitting back and enjoying retirement on a golf course or in a rocking chair. I’ll keep going as long as I’m mobile.”