Experiment Proved?

To Washington last week came tall, lath-straight Lieut. Colonel Benjamin O. Davis Jr., until recently commander of the 99th Fighter Squadron, the Air Forces' first all-Negro fighter outfit. At a press conference West Pointer Davis, who led the 99th in Tunisia and Sicily, said that in his opinion Negro pilots had made the grade, and training them should no longer be regarded as an experiment.

In one of their first encounters, Colonel Davis said, the 99th had two planes shot down, but got one German fighter definitely, two probables and three damaged. On every bomber escort mission his men met superior enemy forces and managed to break a little better than even. His conference finished, Colonel Davis, son of the Army's only Negro general officer, Brigadier General Benjamin O. Davis Sr., departed. His new command: the 332nd Fighter Group, to be formed of three Negro squadrons.

So little operational data on the 99th had reached Washington that it was impossible to form a conclusive opinion about its pilots. It has apparently seen little action, compared to many other units, and seems to have done fairly well; that is as far as anyone would go. But unofficial reports from the Mediterranean theater have suggested that the top air command was not altogether satisfied with the 99th's performance; there was said to be a plan some weeks ago to attach it to the Coastal Air Command, in which it would be assigned to routine convoy cover.

In any case, the question of the 99th is only a single facet of one of the Army's biggest headaches: how to train and use Negro troops. No theater commander wants them in considerable numbers; the high command has trouble finding combat jobs for them. There is no lack of work to be done by Negroes as labor and engineering troops--the Army's dirty work. But the American spirit of fair play, which occasionally devotes some attention to Negro problems, would be offended by a policy of confining Negroes to such duty, and the Negro press has campaigned against it. There are plenty of Negro combat troops, but almost none of them have been tested under fire.

Most thoughtful Army officers probably would agree that the Negro will never develop his potentialities as an airman or any other kind of soldier under the system of segregation in training. But the Army is convinced, rightly or wrongly, that any major effort to break up the system now would touch off outbreaks of race prejudice and hobble the war effort.

Whether the Negro pilot-training experiment is proved or not, it is going to continue. Negro cadets will begin medium-bomber training next month in classes with white cadets. But their squadron, to be activated on July 1, 1944, will be all-Negro, the first in the Air Forces. This squadron, too, is an experiment, and will be one until a question as old as U.S. independence is answered: Is the Negro as good a soldier as the white man?

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.