Tuskegee airmen

Tuskegee Institute would one day gain international fame for a training program on the campus airfield during World War II in the 1940s. Its graduates - black fighter pilots and gunners - served with distinction, escorting U.S. bombers over Europe and Africa.

Library of CongressThe Tuskegee airmen, black fighter pilots and gunners, served with distinction, escorting US bombers over Europe and Africa.

Carla Graves, a park guide at the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site in the hangar at the airfield where they trained, says the U.S. president's wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, visited and met the head flight trainer, Charles "Chief" Anderson.

"Can Negroes really fly airplanes?" she asked Anderson.

"Certainly we can," he replied, and Mrs. Roosevelt shocked her security detail by accepting a ride with him in his biplane.

"Whatever she set out to do, she did it," Graves says."So she took that ride with Chief. And when they got back, she said, 'You can fly, all right.' So this provided a great boost to African Americans in aviation."

Of the 450 Tuskegee Airmen who fought abroad, 66 died in combat, and 33 crashed and were captured. Half a century later, in 2007, U.S. President George Bush presented survivors - and other Tuskegee Airmen posthumously - with a Congressional Gold Medal for their service.

Library of CongressTuskegee Airmen William Campbell and Thurston Gaines are pictured in Italy in 1945.