Red Tails

by Gregory A. Freeman

  Fleischer and Barnett never knew until near the end of the war that the Red Tail pilots were black. “I mean, you can’t tell what the color of the pilot is when he’s got his helmet on and everything, but we never knew that they were black. We just knew that they were there.”14 They didn’t learn the identity of their saviors until Fleischer and Barnett’s bomber was damaged badly and couldn’t quite make it back to their home base, and they decided to land on what they thought must be an abandoned airfield because it wasn’t on any of their maps. After landing they were surprised to see a row of Red Tail P-51s lined up there, and even more shocked to see black pilots and other crew arriving in American trucks, wearing American uniforms. The sight was so startling that for a moment the crew members were befuddled and weren’t sure in what strange place they had landed. “So we land there at Ramitelli and see those Red Tails. Man! And these are all black guys! It was complete shock,” Fleischer said. “Because in my experiences up to that time, as far as black people, the only black people I ever saw in the military was when I was at Ellington Field [in Texas]. They were in the kitchen. They were cooks, and they served food, and that’s the only black guys I ever encountered in the military.” Fleischer says the existence of black pilots was “more secret than the atom bomb. I mean nobody knew about it.”15

  By the end of the war, the Tuskegee Airmen would fly more than 15,000 individual sorties in 1,500 missions, including 311 bomber escort missions. In all, they would destroy or damage 136 German planes in the air and 237 on the ground, not to mention the thousand or so rail cars and even a German destroyer. Sixty-six Tuskegee pilots would be killed in action and another thirty-two taken prisoner.17

  The racial barriers in the military fell further when all-black units proved themselves on the ground as well. The Red Ball Express—a convoy system that supplied troops in Europe and which was made up almost exclusively of black truck drivers—was famous for being the only supply forces that could keep up with the rapid advances of General George S. Patton’s troops as they raced across France. When General Dwight D. Eisenhower found himself severely short of replacement troops for existing military units in the midst of the Battle of the Bulge in late 1944, he made a controversial decision that his own senior officers strongly opposed. He decided to allow black soldiers to pick up a rifle and join the white military units to fight in combat for the first time.18 Their contribution is credited with helping win the Battle of the Bulge.

  Vujnovich and Kraigher knew the Red Tails were right for the job. Kraigher inquired with Twining and was told he could have the 332nd whenever they weren’t assigned to bomber escorts. That would likely mean that the Red Tails could fly some cover for Operation Halyard and the other fighters in the Fifteenth would do the rest. The 332nd already was active in the Balkans escorting bombers, and dive-bombing and strafing Nazi positions that were slowing the advance of the Russian army.16

  Twining and Kraigher explained the mission to Colonel Davis and impressed upon him the importance of protecting the C-47s, no matter what that meant for the Red Tails. In the cold logic of war, everyone understood that the pilots of the 332nd had to be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice if necessary to make Operation Halyard work.

  Davis briefed his pilots on Operation Halyard and, as he always did before an escort mission, reminded his men that their one and only role was to stay with the other planes and protect them. Two of the pilots listening to the instructions were Lieutenant Hubron Blackwell, from Baltimore, and his squadron commander, Captain Melvin Jackson, a quiet man from Warrenton, Virginia, who seemed to have no fear of death.19 They would be among a group of fighters that would rendezvous with the rescue planes and the other fighter escorts to provide more substantial coverage on the way back from Pranjane.

  “You will be escorting planes loaded with American pilots and crewmen who were shot down in Yugoslavia,” Davis told the pilots. “This mission is particularly risky because the enemy holds this territory. To reach this site, it will be necessary to navigate accurately. A slight error in navigation will mean the mission is lost.”

  When the briefing was complete, the colonel turned to Jackson and said sternly, “Captain Jackson, you will complete this mission successfully.”20 Jackson knew that was an order, not a prediction.

  Blackwell and Jackson set out with other Red Tails to meet the C-47s over Pranjane.21 En route, Blackwell was amazed to see Jackson navigate so accurately. But when their formation approached a lake that was to be their last checkpoint, Jackson’s voice came over the radio. “Do any of you fellows see the lake?”

  Hutchins replied: “Damn, Jack, I was just admiring your navigation, and now I find you don’t know where the hell you are. I know it is a little hazy, but if you cock the wings of your plane, you’ll see we are flying over the lake.”22

  Hutchins waited for Blackwell to confirm sighting the lake, then he radioed again with a friendly warning that one of their friends, Freddie Hutchins, was ready to take over the squadron if Davis sacked them for failing to protect these rescue planes. “Now this mission will be completed successfully or, tomorrow, little Freddie will be your squadron commander.”23

  With that, they flew past their last checkpoint and on to the hills of Yugoslavia, searching for a little plateau near a town called Pranjane.

  Back in Bari, Vujnovich and Kraigher hoped the Red Tails would be enough to make this rescue mission a success. A risky plan like this needed the very best doing their very best.

  At the appointed hour, the men on the ground in Pranjane heard the drone of a plane. Everyone waited, wondering if it was a German fighter, and then they realized it was the deep growl of a big cargo plane from the 60th Carrier Group—the first of many if it could successfully land and take off again. Everyone held their breath as the airmen showed the predetermined light signal, three flashes of the color of the fist in the emblem on the wall back at the Fifteenth Air Force’s home base—red. The plane returned the same signal. Then it came into view, and in the moonlight they could see the white star painted on the tail—American!

  The plane still had to land, and those on the ground knew exactly how hard that would be. They were all experienced pilots and aircrew themselves, so they knew it would be a challenge for the big planes to land in the dark, with crosswinds, on a makeshift airstrip that might not be long enough. The airmen watched intently, the whole field of men silent, as the big plane circled around for the right landing angle and began its approach. Like everyone watching on the ground, the pilots in the air were petrified, fearing that the lumbering plane would hop badly on the rough airstrip or continue off the end and into the trees. The young men held their breath as the tires touched down with a thump and the pilot cut back on the engines. They watched the plane race down the rough field, hoping it could stop in time. Maybe this will work. Maybe we are going home. And then they heard the plane rev its engines again and saw the nose pick up, the plane lifting up and over the tree line, then disappearing into the darkness. Within a minute, the sound of the engines faded away and the night was still again. The men were devastated, all their hopes dashed in a single moment. “Too short, too short,” one young man muttered to himself. “They can’t do it. This’ll never work.”

  But then . . . there was the sound of engines again. A loud rumble, more than just one plane. The first rescues were carried out that night, and then the next morning, everyone wondered if the Americans would dare bring in another rescue mission.

  And then they saw the planes come into view. They weren’t American bombers or German fighters. They were American P-51s and P-38s, some of the most fearsome fighter escorts a C-47 could have, and there were the cargo planes right behind them! And there were the Red Tails! The rescuers had come back in the daylight and in full force! The fighter planes flew over the Americans and wagged their wings in salute, then they peeled off and went down into the surrounding valleys to attack the German strong
holds while the C-47s landed.

  American and Serb both shed tears as they hugged each other good-bye, the Serbs relieved that their charges would make it back home alive, and the Americans sorrowful that the people who had gone to such extraordinary lengths to help them would remain behind enemy lines in such desperate conditions. As a final gesture of gratitude to the Serbs who had sheltered and fed them at great risk to themselves, many of the airmen took off their shoes and threw them out of the plane to the villagers, who were making do with nothing but felt slippers.

  One after another, the big cargo planes touched down in the field, loaded up with dozens of airmen, and took off again for freedom. More than 250 airmen were rescued that day, and all made it back home safely. Though the rescued airmen received a warm welcome home, the story of their rescue was not formally reported to the world—not right away and not ever. For political reasons the story of Operation Halyard was officially suppressed for years, the only hint of the truth coming when the rescued airmen and the OSS agents talked about their incredible experience.

  American bomber crews continued to risk their lives flying over Yugoslavia until Russian troops, aided by both Tito’s and Mihailovich’s resistance, liberated the country from German control at the end of 1944. Operation Halyard had rescued nearly all the stranded American airmen by then, leaving only a small number who bailed out of their planes in the months just before the country was freed from the Nazis.

  When the forgotten five hundred airmen heard in 1945 that Mihailovich had been arrested by Tito and would be put on trial, they implored the State Department to help them go to Yugoslavia and testify on his behalf.

  The State Department said no, and Tito sent word that he had no interest in hearing from the airmen. The airmen were brokenhearted to see their benefactor on trial for his life in a Communist country, and they were devastated that they could do nothing for him.

  “Even if we couldn’t save him, we just wanted him to know that we remembered what he did for us, that somebody appreciated how much he risked,” said airman Robert Wilson. “We thought that might bring him a little comfort.”

  Mihailovich was executed in 1946 and buried in an unmarked grave. The airmen continued their efforts to recognize his brave act, and later that year President Harry S. Truman, on the recommendation of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, posthumously awarded Mihailovich the Legion of Merit, the highest medal that can be awarded to a foreign national.

  But for the first time in history, this award and the story behind it were classified Secret by the State Department so as not to offend the Communist government of Yugoslavia. The medal and proclamation were stored in a drawer at the State Department as Tito’s Communist government continued to slander Mihailovich as a Nazi collaborator.

  Sixty years after their rescue, on May 9, 2005, the airmen presented the Legion of Merit to Mihailovich’s daughter Gordana. Old and frail by then, the surviving airmen and OSS agents gathered around Gordana and thanked her, with tears in their eyes, for all that her father and her people had done for them.

  She cried and touched their hands, softly speaking words they could not understand. But her eyes showed her heart, and she reminded them of all the women who ran to greet the scared young American boys parachuting down to an uncertain fate.

  “Amazing . . . riveting.” —James Bradley, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Flags of Our Fathers

  THE FORGOTTEN 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II

  Available at booksellers everywhere from Greg Freeman and NAL Caliber

  Here is the astonishing never-before-told story of the greatest rescue mission of World War II—when the OSS set out to recover more than five hundred airmen trapped behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia.

  “A literary and journalistic achievement of the highest order, a book that illuminates, thrills, and reminds us that heroes sometimes do live among us. It will take your breath away.” —Gregg Olsen, New York Times bestselling author of The Deep Dark

  “An exciting tale . . . breathtaking.” —Booklist

  gregoryafreeman.com

  Available wherever books are sold or at penguin.com

  Notes

  1: “the 60th Troop Carrier Group of the Twelfth Air Force.”: A complete list of the C-47 pilots has not been found, but one of the pilots on the first night of the rescue operation, and again two weeks later, was Robert D. McCluskey, who retired from the Air Force with the rank of colonel and died in Fort Worth, Texas, in 2008, at the age of 88. McCluskey was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and several air medals, including one for the Operation Halyard rescues. The medal citation notes that “both missions were landing operations on small, partially concealed landing strips, completely surrounded by mountains, requiring exceptional skill on the part of all crew members to make the mission complete. Only men with proven courage were selected for those missions. Because of the proximity of enemy fighter aircraft and a possible attack, allied fighters were furnished for escorts on both missions.”

  2: “their record of never having lost a bomber to enemy fighters.” The legend of the Tuskegee Airmen has long included the claim that they never lost a bomber they were escorting, although a 2006 report by a historian with a Tuskegee Airmen veterans association indicated that at least a few bombers were shot down. The story of the perfect record apparently began during the war—at the time Vujnovich and Kraigher were planning the rescue mission—because of the Red Tails’ extraordinary reputation among bomber crews, and it may have been true up to that point. Later the claim was given credence by statements from the War Department after the war extolling the great success of the Tuskegee experiment. The precise success rate of the Red Tails’ bombing escorts has not been established; it was exceptional, not perfect.

  3: “serve only as truck drivers, stevedores, and in service positions, such as waiters and janitors.”: Martin Blumenson, Eisenhower (New York: Ballantine Books Inc., 1972), p. 127.

  4: “‘The Use of Negro Manpower in War.’”: J. Todd Moye, Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 19–20.

  5: “‘back on the ground and back into the same old–same old.’” Ibid., p. 13.

  6: “but most in the black community still saw this as a major step forward.” The plan was not universally endorsed by the black community. The NAACP insisted that blacks be accepted into the Air Corps training programs in exactly the same manner as white applicants, with no segregated training or service, calling the Tuskegee program “a Jim Crow air squadron.”

  7: “clear instructions from General Nathan Twining, commander of the Fifteenth Air Force.”: Moye, Freedom Flyers, p. 112.

  8: “it just wasn’t cost-efficient to lose so many bombers.”: Ibid.

  9: “the reputation of the 332nd was growing among the all-white bomber crews.” Ibid., p. 113.

  10: Ibid., p. 120.

  11: “when he arrived at the prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft III, which held five thousand American and British air officers.” Alexander Jefferson and Lewis Carlson, Red Tail Captured, Red Tail Free: The Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman and POW (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), pp. 64–65.

  12: “yelling, ‘You’re a Red Tail!’”: Ibid., p. 76.

  13: “stayed closer to their bombers than their white counterparts.”: Moye, Freedom Flyers, pp. 114–15.

  14. “but we never knew that they were black.”: Ibid., p. 116.

  15: “‘more secret than the atom bomb. I mean nobody knew about it.’”: Ibid., pp. 116–17.

  16: “Nazi positions that were slowing the advance of the Russian army.”: Charles E. Francis and Adolph Caso, The Tuskegee Airmen: The Men Who Changed a Nation (Wellesley, Mass.: Branden Books, 2002), pp. 177–78.

  17: “including 311 bomber escort missions.”
: tuskegeeairmen.org/uploads/stats.pdf.

  18: “and join the white military units to fight in combat for the first time.” Blumenson, Eisenhower, p. 127.

  19: “who seemed to have no fear of death.”: Francis and Caso, The Tuskegee Airmen, p. 177.

  20: “‘you will complete this mission successfully.’” Ibid., p. 178.

  21: “Blackwell and Jackson set out with other Red Tails to meet the C-47s over Pranjane.”: The records are unclear as to whether this mission described by Blackwell was on the first rescue of Operation Halyard or one of the subsequent rescue flights, but because the first flight was the riskiest—when success was not at all certain—it is likely that the Red Tails provided fighter cover then. Records of the 332nd Fighter Group confirm that the Red Tails escorted six C-47s in Yugoslavia on August 22, 1944, one of the subsequent rescues in Operation Halyard, but it is conceivable that the initial flights were not recorded accurately because of the top secret nature of the rescue operation. Many OSS operations, including Operation Halyard, left a scant paper trail. In any case, the Red Tail records and the participants in the rescues confirm that the Tuskegee Airmen provided fighter cover for some of the rescue flights.

  22: “‘if you cock the wings of your plane, you’ll see we are flying over the lake.’” Francis and Caso, The Tuskegee Airmen, p. 179.

  23: “‘little Freddie will be your squadron commander.’”: Ibid.

  Bibliography

  Blumenson, Martin. Eisenhower. New York: Ballantine Books Inc., 1972.