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History in the skies
James Goodwin of Santa Rosa, former World War II fighter pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen.
John Burgess / PDPublished: Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 4:41 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, January 20, 2012 at 7:50 a.m.
In the air over Italy 68 years ago, a squad of American fighter pilots battered the German Luftwaffe and shattered an ugly stereotype about African Americans.
With 37,000 Allied troops bottled up on a beachhead at Anzio in January, 1944, pilots trained at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama helped drive off the German planes, shooting down 17 in four days of aerial combat.
“They just beat the hell out of them,” said James Goodwin, 86, of Santa Rosa, who served as a pilot with the unit that became known as the Tuskegee Airmen. “That ended the discussion.”
The heroism of the Tuskegee Airmen will be magnified in the George Lucas film, “Red Tails,” starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard, opening today. Goodwin is waiting to see the picture at a red carpet showing on Feb. 4 in Marin City.
Goodwin, a California native who volunteered for the Tuskegee program, said the ability of the United States military's first all-black aviation squadron was still in doubt prior to the landing at Anzio.
The commander, Col. William Momyer, accused the black pilots of incompetence and cowardice, and a recommendation to scrap the unit was thwarted by other officers.
An Army study in 1925 had concluded that African Americans were unfit for the technical demands of aviation, a racist judgment that was debunked at Anzio, Goodwin said.
Goodwin, then a 19-year-old second lieutenant, arrived at Ramitelli Airfield in Italy in December, 1944 and flew 27 missions over Italy, Germany and Austria, mostly on bomber escort details.
The lumbering bombers were easy targets for German aircraft, and Goodwin remembers the horror of watching, from the cockpit of his P-51 Mustang, as a bomber fell from the sky in flames.
“Particularly when nobody gets out,” he said, sitting in the living room of his apartment at Friends House, where Goodwin moved from Berkeley in 2007.
The real-life story is dramatic enough. The Tuskegee Airmen flew 1,578 missions, shooting down 112 enemy aircraft and destroying 150 more on the ground, along with 950 railcars, trucks and other vehicles.
The Airmen were awarded more than 900 medals, including 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses and 14 Bronze Stars, and lost 66 pilots in combat or accidents.
Ken Gross of Larkspur served as nose gunner/bombardier on a B-24 bomber hitting European targets in 1944-45 and recalled the crew's joy at seeing the bright red tail of a Tuskegee Airman's escort fighter.
“We knew we were in good hands,” said Gross, 86.
Bombers typically took flak damage while dropping their bombs and limped back to base, often with one or two of their four engines shut down. German fighters would prey on the stragglers, he said.
On one mission, the rookie navigator plotted a return course over cities, prompting fire from the formidable German 88mm anti-aircraft guns, and each time a solo Tuskegee pilot dove to strafe the guns.
Finally, the fighter pilot broke radio silence, asking the B-24 to move a few miles off the route and earn a break from the flak.
“We were just roaring,” Gross said, recalling the dark humor of the pilot's plea.
There was more at stake for the 996 pilots trained at Tuskegee than winning the war, Goodwin said. In an era when the U.S. military and government were largely segregated and repressive Jim Crow laws prevailed in the South, the young black fliers had to prove they belonged in the air.
“We were an experiment,” said Goodwin, a softspoken, deliberative man, wearing a plaid shirt and jeans, with classical music playing as he spoke.
President Franklin Roosevelt had ordered the Army Air Corps to establish an all-black aviation unit in 1940, but it was Eleanor Roosevelt's persistence that made it happen.
She visited Tuskegee in March, 1941 and, over the objections of her Secret Service detail, went for an airplane ride with the chief of the institute's civilian aviation program. “I guess Negroes can fly,” Roosevelt said after landing.
Goodwin, born and raised on a farm in Fullerton in Orange County, learned to fly from cropduster pilots operating Stearman biplanes at a nearby airport. “Hey, kid, you want to go up,” they'd say, and Goodwin went along.
There were few blacks in Fullerton, which had integrated schools, and racial prejudice was directed at the more numerous Mexicans, he said.
A community swimming pool was open to Mexicans only on Thursdays, and afterwards the pool was drained and refilled, Goodwin said. Whites swam any day but Thursday; blacks could swim any day they wanted.
Leaving high school abruptly in 1943, Goodwin volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Corps program at Tuskegee. His father advised him not to leave the campus, and Goodwin never did. Cadets who did were beaten or shot at, he said.
The Tuskegee Airmen helped defeat Hitler, and propelled the U.S. toward racial equality, Goodwin said. In 1948, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981, prohibiting racial discrimination in the military.
In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision called for desegregation of public schools. And the 1964 Civil Rights Act banned job discrimination.
Goodwin, who left the Army after the war, said he's proud to have played a small role, but remains conflicted by the emergence of what he considers a “war culture” in America.
“War is the ultimate insanity. I really believe that,” said Goodwin, a Quaker and a pacifist.
Asked if he considers himself a hero, Goodwin paused.
“No,” he said softly. “I think of myself as just doing my duty.”
You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.
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