9. The “Red Tails” Distinguish Themselves Over Berlin
For the rest of the war, the Tuskegee airmen accompanied the Fifteenth Air Force’s bombers on strategic raids. The black flyers flew cover on missions that targeted oil refineries, marshalling yards, factories, and airfields. The assignments took them to Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, Romania, Austria, France, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Germany, and Poland. The 332nd earned an impressive combat record while escorting the heavy bombers, whose crews referred to the black flyers as “Red Tails” or “Red Tail Angels” because of the distinctive red paint the unit used on its airplanes’ tails. They earned another nickname from their opponents: “Schwarze Vogelmenschen“, or “Black Birdmen”.
The Tuskegee Airmen’s most famous mission, in which they went up against German Me 262 fighter jets, came on March 24th, 1945. That day, Colonel Benjamin O. Davis led 43 Mustangs of 332nd Fighter Group as bomber escorts for Fifteenth Air Force B-17s, who flew a 1600 mile round trip to raid a tank factory in Berlin. The Luftwaffe put up stiff resistance, and sent up clouds of Fw 190s, Me 163 Komet rocket fighters, plus 25 Me 262 jet fighters. Tuskegee Airmen Roscoe Brown, Charles Brantley, and Earl Lane, all managed to shoot down Luftwaffe jets over Berlin that day. The 332nd Fighter Group earned another Distinguished Unit Citations for its feats on that mission.