Although the museum has included a display honoring the World War II, all-black flying unit since 1997, an expanded and enhanced version has been moved to the Scott Exhibit hangar, linking it with other World War II attractions.
The Dec. 16 event will begin with a ribbon cutting at 6 p.m. Dinner will follow at 6:30 with former U.N. Ambassador and Atlanta mayor Andrew Young as the featured speaker. Tickets are $40 and are available through the Museum of Aviation Foundation at (478) 923-6600. Reservations should be made by Dec. 9.
The new Tuskegee Airmen exhibit will be the largest of its type in the Department of Defense. It will include a realistic hangar façade and a large mural depicting airmen and aircraft on the flightline at Moton Field in Alabama where black pilots received their flight training. Also depicted are aircraft mechanics working on a BT-13 Valiant trainer aircraft, a typical barracks room and a “Link” trainer used to train pilot candidates on the use of flight instruments. Television screens will air a 1942 wartime film on the Tuskegee airmen narrated by Ronald Reagan and interviews with Tuskegee pilots.
The display will also chronicle the racial discrimination the airmen endured after President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the creation of the unit in 1941. Despite that discrimination, 994 pilots and 14,000 supporting airmen were trained at the Alabama site. They served in North Africa, Sicily and Italy during the war.
Tuskegee-trained pilots were known as “Red Tails” because of the red paint on their aircraft. They were credited with shooting down 110 enemy aircraft. More than 100 pilots from the unit were killed during the war and more than 30 were taken prisoner.
“The Tuskegee Airmen were the catalyst for breaking down the racial barriers in the military,” Museum Deputy Director and Exhibits Team Chief Dudley Bluhm is quoted in a museum press release. “It represents an important chapter in Air Force history and a significant step in the integration of the armed forces.”
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