Tuskegee Airmen Broadside Signed by two Heroes

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/22/2011

Great "Tuskegee Airmen" broadside from the Grissom Air Museum, 12"x18", with excellent image of fighter plane at center, with bombers above, signed by "Julius Jackson, Lt. Col. Tuskegee Airman" who joined the Tuskegee Airmen in 1943, and flew P-51D Mustangs in World War II, later serving in Korea, and "Walter J. Palmer 1st Lt. Ret." (1921-2009) whose P-51 Mustang was nicknamed "the Duchess" for his wife, Rosalind. He flew 158 missions over Italy and Germany. He became an airman the same day he was married in June 1943. Fine condition.The Tuskegee Airmen was a group of African American pilots who fought in World War II. Formally, they were the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the U.S. Army Air Corps. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African American military aviators in the United States armed forces. During World War II, African Americans in many U.S. states still were subject to racist Jim Crow laws. The American military was racially segregated, as was much of the federal government. The Tuskegee Airmen were subject to racial discrimination, both within and outside the army. Despite these adversities, they trained and flew with distinction. Although the 477th Bombardment Group "worked up" on North American B-25 Mitchell bombers, they never served in combat; the Tuskegee 332nd Fighter Group was the only operational unit, first sent overseas as part of Operation Torch, then in action in Sicily and Italy, before being deployed as bomber escorts in Europe where they were particularly successful in their missions. The Tuskegee Airmen initially were equipped with Curtiss P-40 Warhawks fighter-bomber aircraft, briefly with Bell P-39 Airacobras (March 1944), later with Republic P-47 Thunderbolts (June-July 1944), and finally the fighter group acquired the aircraft with which they became most commonly associated, the North American P-51 Mustang (July 1944). When the pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group painted the tails of their P-47's red, the nickname "Red Tails" was coined. Bomber crews applied a more effusive "Red-Tail Angels" sobriquet.

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