Vouching Base with a Tuskegee Airman
by Doris McLean Bates*
Have you heard about a group called the Tuskegee Airmen? Officially known as the Ninety-ninth Pursuit Squadron
of the United States Army Air Corps, the Tuskegee Airmen was the first African American air force unit in the
nation. The Airmen served during World War 11. According to group records, 992 men completed flight training at
the segregated Tuskegee Army Air Field at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, where the squadron was based. Of that
number, 445 served as combat pilots. In 1944 the Tuskegee Airmen joined three other all-black fighter squadrons to
form the 332d Fighter Group. Sixty-six aviators were killed in combat and training, and thirty-nine men were shot
down and became prisoners of war. During the war, the group completed more than fifteen thousand sorties (mis¬
sions), destroyed more than 250 enemy aircraft, sank one enemy destroyer, and demolished numerous enemy instal¬
lations in Europe. Notably, none of the bomber aircraft escorted by the Airmen was lost to enemy planes. The
Tuskegee program expanded to train pilots and crew to fly bombers toward the end of World War II, but the conflict
ended before they could be deployed. Ultimately, the achievements of the Tuskegee Airmen helped to lead to the
integration of the military in 1948.
First Lieutenant Wilson Vash Eagleson served as a Tuskegee Airman. He is one of twenty original Airmen who
call North Carolina home. There are approximately forty-five Tuskegee Airmen chapters across the United States,
and the one based at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro is named after Mr. Eagleson. THJHA thanks him
for consenting to a September 12, 2003, interview, upon which this article is based. Read below to gain insight into
his experiences as a Tuskegee Airman.
Born on February 1 1920 Wilson Vash Eagleson
grew up in Bloomington, Indiana. As a child, he
suffered with rheumatic fever and needed a mod¬
erate climate, so he and his sister had to live with his
grandmother in Bloomington after his parents w ere
offered jobs at North Carolina Central College (now
University). His father was the first football, basketball,
and baseball coach at the Durham college. His mother
was a registrar at the same institution for about forty-
eight vears. "1 grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, and I
lived there until my father was killed in a car wreck
when 1 was thirteen years old. But the year before that,
he took me to the fair, and I got to ride in an aircraft —
one of the old two-seater barnstormers. And from then
on, the onlv tiling that I really wanted to do was fly."
Eagleson moved to Durham in 1934, after his father's
death. He said that the mascot for the college was
named after his father. Eagleson notes, "They're called
the Eagles. And there's a dormitory on the campus
that's been named for my mother. So 1 grew up basical¬
ly in a college atmosphere as a youngster. And we were
on one side of town, and we basically stayed there."
After he graduated from high school in Henderson,
he went to West Virginia State College, where he
became a member of the Civilian Pilot Training pro¬
gram in 1938. "Of course, the first thing that 1 did was
volunteer for the air force. And we were of course told
then that j they're] not taking colored, as we were called
then, into the air force. So I continued in school, coming
back to Indiana University and spending a year there.
And 1 went into service on January 19, 1942. But I went
into the infantry. And I spent two tours at a little base
called Fort Walters, Texas: one as a trainee, and one as a
cadre, training the new bunch of men behind me. From
there I went to
Fort Benning,
Georgia, to
Officer Training
School." One day
the commander
there told
Eagleson to pack
his bags, as he
was going to
Tuskegee to learn
to fly. He had
applied for the
flight program at
Tuskegee Army
Air Field, and he
had been accept¬
ed in September
1942. Eagleson
graduated from
the training at
Tuskegee and Wilson Eagleson as a young aviator in 1444. Courtesy of
was com mis- Cleopas Mason
sioned on April
29, 1943. He got married on May 1, 1943, and left for
war in September 1943. He was overseas for eighteen
months, returning home in March 1945.
He commented on his wartime service. "Someone
asked me once what it was like to fly in combat. I said,
'Well, it could be seven or eight hours of complete bore¬
dom and thirty to forty seconds of sheer bedlam. "
Eagleson went overseas with the Ninety-ninth Pursuit
Squadron. "We were a single outfit attached to some of
the other groups, and most of our work then was dive
14
ТНЦ1,
rail 2004
'Doris Alt Lain Bale s mirks as a historical I'ubhcations alitor at the North Carolina Museum
oflhston/ She ah Is 1
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