WAR IN FOCUS

MARCH, 1945

Stunning imagery from throughout history

American airmen at a briefing before operations in Italy, weeks before the end of the war in Europe. Pictured in the front (left to right) are Hiram E Mann, Newman C Golden, Bertram W Wilson Jr and Samuel W Watts Jr. Named after the Army Air Field in Alabama, the Tuskegee Airmen were the first Black aviators to serve in the US Army Air Corps. At the time a segregated entity, the US Army began training Black airmen for combat in 1940. By the end of WWII it had produced some 15,000 pilots, navigators, engineers and other roles in what became the US Air Force.