Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. was born December 18, 1912 in Washington D. C. His father, Benjamin O.
Davis, Sr. was one of the few African-American officers in the U. S. Army. Davis, Jr.
was appointed to the U. S. Military Academy in 1932 by Rep. Oscar S. De Priest, the only black congressman at that time. At West Point he endured ostracism from both classmates and superiors who wanted to see him fail.
He persevered and graduated 35 th in a class of 276 in 1936. He was the fourth African-American graduate in the Academy’s history. Upon commissioning he and his father became the only two black officers in the army. His application to the army air Corps was refused because the air corps did not accept African-Americans. Davis was serving as an ROTC instructor at Tuskegee Institute in 1940 when President Franklin Roosevelt became worried about his support among the black community during his third presidential election campaign.
To solidify African-American support he promoted Benjamin Davis, Sr. to brigadier general and ordered the army air corps to create a black flying organization. Davis, Jr. was one of the first African-American pilots in the Army Air Corps and was given command of the first all-black air unit, the 99 th Pursuit Squadron, popularly know as the Tuskegee Airmen.
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Davis later commanded the 332 nd Fighter Group. The 332 nd became know as the Red Tails because of the readily identifiable design on their planes. Davis fought two enemies during World War II, the Axis and the racism of his own service. He had to defend his unit’s existence in testimony to a War Department committee and endure criticism and slights from his superior officers. The real turning point for Davis and his black combat airmen came when the 332 nd was assigned escort duty for strategic bombers.
The Red Tails never lost a bomber to enemy fighters and shot down three of the first jet fighters employed by the Germans. Their truly unique achievement was sinking an enemy destroyer. During the war Davis flew 60 missions and was awarded the Sliver Star, the Legion of Merit and the Distinguished Flying Cross for mission leadership. Segregation in the armed forces was steadily undermined by Davis’s performance combined with the achievements of his fighter groups. When the Air Force separated from the Army in 1947, an internal study recommended racial integration. The principal argument was that Davis and his airmen had proved in war and peace that blacks could perform all jobs as well as whites could.
In 1949, the Air Force became the first of the U. S. armed services to integrate racially. After commanding a fighter group during the Korean War, Davis was promoted to lieutenant general in 1965 and became chief-of-staff of U. S. forces in Korea in 1967.
He retired from the Air Force in 1970. In 1998 President William J. Clinton retroactively promoted Davis to full general. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. died on July 4, 2002.
ReferencesDalfiume, Richard M. 1969. Desegregation of the U. S. Armed Forces: Fighting on Two Fronts, 1939-1953. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.
Davis, Benjamin O. , Jr. 1991. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. , American: An Autobiography.
Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. Gropman, Alan L. 1997. “Benjamin Davis, American.” Air Force Magazine 80 (August): 70-74..
