Sweet Victories

On the operations-tent bulletin board at a U.S. advanced fighter base in Italy good news was pinned up last week: an official commendation by Army Air Forces' Chief "Hap" Arnold. Reason for the commendation: the squadron had shot down eight German aircraft in one day, four in another. Score for three days' missions had totaled twelve kills, two probables, four damaged.

Any outfit would have been proud of the record. These victories stamped the final seal of combat excellence on one of the most controversial outfits in the Army, the all-Negro 99th Fighter Squadron (TIME, Sept. 20).

Its pilots had survived disappointments, discouragements and months of routine operations in which they did not even sight an enemy. They had finally got their big chance flying cover for the Allies' Nettuno beachhead, and they knew what to do with it.

Shooting It Out. Wiry Major George Spencer Roberts,* 25-year-old commander of the squadron, pulled at his pipe, told newsmen that so far as he and the boys were concerned, it was just a matter of getting an opportunity and jumping on it.

"We have not turned out to be super-duper pilots--but as good as the U.S. Army turns out," he said. "That's important. Because we had one handicap: people assumed we were not producing because we were Negroes. Our men have been under a strain because of the civilian attitude. It is remarkable that they kept up their morale. But now that we have produced, things have changed."

Before things changed, the men of the 99th had traveled a long, hard road. Training for the all-Negro squadron had started back in July 1941. The program was experimental, and suffered accordingly; there were slights, snubs and delays. The men did their operational training in P-4O Warhawks, were finally organized as a squadron 18 months ago. They went to Africa last spring.

At first they showed no signs of setting the Mediterranean on fire: they were too new, too unsure of themselves. In one combat they destroyed a German plane and reported another probable, but two of their own ships were shot down. Some Air Forces officers began to lose what little confidence they had had in the outfit, and reports of mediocrity began turning up in Washington.

Sweating It Out. The 99th flew on, through a long series of monotonous missions, bomber escort or fighter-bomber jobs. For six months the men never saw a German plane. But the outfit was pulling itself together, acquiring confidence and smoothness, developing good flight leaders, and piling up combat time. When its chance came again, over Nettuno, the squadron was veteran, well-led, sure of itself.

Now the 99th is in, and the men know it. They have the quiet, assured, professional air of any proved combat outfit. They look, talk and act like any other group of airmen with seven months' combat flying under their belts. Their ground crews are tops; their maintenance as good as any in the Air Forces.

Like other squadrons, they have their separate mess, quarters and administration. But at Red Cross clubs, movies, officers' clubs and post exchanges they mingle freely with white soldiers and have felt no particular race consciousness. Said a fellow flyer last week (a Missourian in a white squadron operating from the same base):

"They are a first-rate bunch, fighting the same war that we are."

The Air Corps regards its experiment as proven, is taking all the qualified Negro cadets it can get. Some are training with white cadets as bombardiers and navigators: A Negro B-26 bomber squadron is to be organized this summer.

*Successor to West Point-trained Lieut. Colonel Benjamin O. Davis Jr., who returned to the U. S. last September to organize the first all-Negro fighter group (three squadrons).

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