The identities of the dead, including the two white officers supervising, were never released, and only one small newspaper article was published mentioning the incident. A documentary, "The Eglin 17", debuted at the 2009 African American Heritage Month luncheon at the Eglin Air Force Base Officer's Club on 18 February 2009, providing the story of the forgotten accident. "The cause and circumstances surrounding the incident remain 'clouded in mystery,' according to the documentary," although Lt. Col. Allen Howser (Ret.), featured in the documentary, recalled that it was part of an exercise to test fire a newly acquired explosive. Thirteen YP-61 Black Widow night fighter service test models were delivered to the Army's Material Command between August and September 1943. The first of three YPs delivered to the Air Proving Ground Command at Eglin Field arrived in the first week of September for operational suitability tests. For the P-61 Black Widow night fighter, the National Research Committee conducted tests on various paint schemes. Three aircraft were used, one in standard olive drab and grey, one in matte black as used by the British and the Germans, and one in gloss black. These were flown through a barrage of searchlights over Fort Barrancas where the olive drab and matte black planes were easily spotted. They did not spot the glossy black paint scheme. The searchlights had failed to detect it. By late 1943, Maj. Gen. Henry H. Arnold directed Brig. Gen. Grandison Gardner's electronic engineers at Eglin Field, Florida, to outfit war-weary bombers with automatic pilots so that they could be remotely controlled. This was the preliminary work for the Operation Aphrodite flying bomb drone missions in Europe in 1944. When the Army Air Force reestablished the all-black 477th Bombardment Group (Medium) to train in North American B-25 Mitchells in January 1944, "The leaders of the Army Air Corps [sic] and the War Department had no more interest in black pilots commanding bombers than there had been in the program that put African-Americans into the cockpits of sleek fighter aircraft. The 477th Bombardment Group was formed because of an undiminished public pressure exerted by African-American leaders, newspapers, unions, and civic groups." Gunners were trained at Eglin Field. The group "experienced some of the most bitter racism of any of the black units ever formed, constantly confronted with bigotry, segregation, and frustration from its activation to war's end. Between May 1944 and June 1945, the 477th endured thirty-eight unit moves."