Tuskegee Airmen vs. Me-262s African American fighter pilots shot
down three German jets on one mission “We knew the German jets
were faster than we were. Instead of going directly after them,
we went away from them and then turned into their blind spots.”
In a February 5 interview, Dr. Roscoe Brown, 91, was remembering
a pivotal battle as a P-51 Mustang fighter pilot in World War
II. Brown, who lives in Riverdale, N.Y., and holds a doctorate
in physiology, joined the Army Air Forces in 1943, trained in
Alabama, and was sent to the 332nd Fighter Group at Ramitelli,
Italy. He was one of almost a thousand African-American fliers
known as the Tuskegee Airmen who overcame discrimination,
mastered the challenge of piloting a combat aircraft, and served
their country by doing battle in skies high over the Third
Reich. It wasn’t easy. The men already knew they could fly and
fight. “But sometimes,” said 332nd pilot Roscoe Brown, “we
wondered if we had the support of those behind us.” The AAF had
plenty of officers lik