cover image Segregated Skies: All-Black Combat Squadrons of World War II

Segregated Skies: All-Black Combat Squadrons of World War II

Stanley Sandler. Smithsonian Books, $24.95 (240pp) ISBN 978-1-56098-154-1

Sandler chronicles the pioneering efforts of the all-black 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Medium Bomber Group during WW II, emphasizing how painfuly aware the pilots and ground crew were of having to ``prove'' themselves as no white squadron had to. For example, Air Corps chief Gen. Henry Arnold resented their presence in his service: ``The Negro tires easily,'' he wrote in a notorious memo. In a postwar evaluation, the Air Force concluded that the 332nd was a mediocre outfit, ``not worth the time and effort''; but Sandler ( The Emergence of the Modern Capital Ship ) argues that the record demonstrates that it was a ``good to average'' group whose efficiency was warped by the demands of racial segregation. The unit's war record was unique in one respect: in its hundreds of escort missions, the 332nd did not lose a single bomber to enemy aircraft. The 477th never saw action. Drawn from interviews and offical documents, this important history reveals how the wartime experience of a relative handful of black pilots and crewmen opened the way for racial integration of the armed forces within five years after the end of the war. Photos. (June)