By VICKI BROWN
vbrown@lowcountry.com
In 1939, World War II began. The country started scrambling to update and expand airfields, knowing that air power would be vital to the protection and support of the United States.
By 1942, the U.S. Army Air Force had purchased 3,712 acres surrounding the small Anderson airfield in Colleton County. The airfield itself was leased from the Town of Walterboro. When American entered the war, Anderson Airfield was recommissioned as the Walterboro Army Airfield.
At this time, blacks had been refused the opportunity to enter the military as pilots. However, the U.S. Air Force accepted more than 500 African American pilots for the first time in U.S. military history - and their training began.
In January of 1941, the War Department formed the 99th Pursuit Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Corps, the first all-black pilots. Construction on the Walterboro Army Airfield and base was finished and the area began being used as a training facility for B-25 Bombers led by successful pilots returning from Pearl Harbor. Between 1944 and 1945, 500 black airmen were transferred to Walterboro and began training for service as a backup team for the 332 Fighter Group in Europe.
William Wheeler, an airman who trained at the Walterboro Air Field in 1944, once said that the heavy handling of the P-47 fighter plane with a jug-like nose that was used in World War II was necessary but difficult. When the pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group painted the tails of their P-47s red, the nickname "Red Tails" was coined. The red markings that distinguished the Tuskegee Airmen included red bands on the noses of P-51s as well as a red rudder.
The 332nd Squadron, flying P-47 Thunderbolts and P-51 Mustangs, escorted bombers over Germany and protected them from Luftwaffe fighters. They became famous and were actually requested to assist bombers overseas.
On January 18, 2022, Retired Brigadier General Charles McGee—one of the last surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen—died at the age of 102.
Brig. Gen. McGee flew a record 409 combat missions in three wars, and even though his plane was hit by enemy fire multiple times, he never went down.
One of America’s first black military pilots, McGee was the son of a preacher and enlisted to serve this country the day after his wedding. Tuskegee Airmen like McGee helped win World War II and defeat the Nazis: as a group, they flew more than 15,000 individual sorties in Europe and North Africa during World War II.
A memorial at the site at the Lowcountry Regional Airport commemorates their service, as well as a small museum located next to Colleton Middle School.
