ADOS Maryland

On this day in 1941, The 99th Pursuit Squadron also known as the Tuskegee Airmen, the heroes who became the first African American combat pilots in American military history was activated. These men were the first African-American military aviators in the United States armed forces. During World War II, Black Americans in many U.S. states were still subject to the Jim Crow laws and the American military was racially segregated, as was much of the federal government. One of those men was James Harvey III who graduated flight school in 1944. As a fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force, he flew the F-86 Sabre and became part of the elite 332nd Fighter Group’s enduring legacy of precision and discipline in the skies. But his impact didn’t end in combat. In 1949, Harvey was a key member of the all-Black U.S. Air Force team that won the first-ever U.S. Air Force Gunnery Meet—what would later become known as “Top Gun.”| James Harvey III would go on to be the first African-American jet fighter pilot to engage in combat during the Korean War. For his actions he would be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.