I came across an obituary recently about an African-American Air Force pilot who died at the age of 93. He was Woodrow Wilson Crockett aka "Woody". He was born to an Arkansas sharecropping family who hoped to be a mathematician but when the money ran out he enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1940. He got his flight training at the Tuskegee Institution in Alabama being the 79th graduate of that program. He served in Italy from 1944 to the end of the war and then flew combat missions in the Korean War. He logged 5000 hours as a command pilot, flew 149 combat missions in WWII and 45 in Korea. At one point his unit flew against German Messerschmitt jet fighters and shot down two. He was awarded the Soldier's Medal for rescuing downed pilots, the Distinguished Service Medal, Air Medal and other awards during his flight career.
Maybe this story is not uncommon among many of his generation, but what struck me was his remembrances of the racial bigotry he and other black pilots faced from their "their fellow Americans". He tells of "watching movies during free time, the German POWs could also go into the theater, but the black soldiers had to sit in the balcony in the back...they called it the 'Crows Nest'. Things weren't too glamorous". He also noted that German POWs were "shown more respect" than black US soldiers. I have previously read of such stories but this struck me as more significant, coming from a veteran and witness. (It is very hard for me to imagine the depth of one's hatred that would cause one American to treat another that way).
(Source: "Tuskegee veteran flew 194 combat missions" by Megan McDonough of the Washington Post. Printed in The Virginian Pilot on 9/12/12)
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