SBS last night

[Marty_d]

Excellent show about the 332nd Fighter Group (the Tuskegee Airmen) - the first army air force unit that allowed black men in non-service roles. They did escort duty for heavy bombers out of Italy and earned a great reputation - to the extent that bomber crews requested the "red tails" be their escorts, without knowing that every one of the pilots was African-American.

 

From an aviation perspective, lots of footage of a nice polished P-51C as well as combat footage (both original and CGI). Show was called "Air Aces" I think.

 

 

[Deskpilot]

Brilliant program. That Squadron changed the lives of all modern day African-Americans. The only bit I didn't get was the images of their pilots walking away from Hurricanes.

 

 

[Marty_d]

It must have been hard to get back home and be treated like second class citizens. One of them who was captured by the Germans said he was treated with respect and the equal of all the other officer prisoners - and that was the Germans FFS! Then they have to return home, and as one of them said "on the wharf, there was one sign for white folks, and the other for n*ggers."

 

 

[Gwalch]

Was a good show.. thanks for putting me onto that.

 

There were a couple of other episodes from the same series also on the SBS On Demand site.

 

As Deskpilot said.. was a bit strange to see all the ground crews working on Hurricanes.

 

Had to feel sorry for the poor buggers though.