Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.: American Hero
Ben Davis argued that his men were determined to fight, had no lack of a desire for combat, but were exhausted because the 99th was undermanned by comparison to white units, and the men, therefore, were over-employed. His men flew more sorties than did comparable white units, sometimes six sorties per day, another fact left out of the 33rd Fighter Group commander’s report. Davis, furthermore, denied that his men ever failed to attack an assigned target because of enemy anti-aircraft artillery. His deposition prevailed, and the McCloy Committee recommended to Chief of Staff Marshall that the 99th deserved more time to prove itself. They reaffirmed the plans to send the 332nd to the war and to create the 477th Bomber Group. The Chief of Staff agreed that the Army Air Forces leadership had presented insufficient evidence, and he ratified the recommendations of the McCloy Committee. Ben Davis went on to Selfridge Army Air Field to take command of the 332nd Fighter Group and moved it to southern Italy in January 1944. Meanwhile, the 99th, separated from the commander of the 33rd Group and under the command of the white, tolerant commander of the 79th Fighter Group, flourished. George “Spanky” Roberts, a member of the first graduating class from Tuskegee and an officer carefully prepared by Ben Davis, now had command of the 99th Squadron. Over Anzio on the morning of 27 January, after three weeks of arduous close air support for Allied ground troops, 15 Tuskegee Airmen, still flying underarmed, underpowered P-40s, met a larger number of Luftwaffe flying the superior FW-190 and shot down six and damaged another four. Later that day, another three Germans were shot down, and the fourth was listed as probably destroyed. On 28 January, the men of Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., the 99th shot down four more enemy United States Army Air Forces, in a P-51 fighters, and, between 5 and 10 February, the Tuskegee Airmen shot down cockpit in 1944. (Supplied by the United another four enemy aircraft. The States Air Force) drought was over. Also in January 1944, the 332nd Fighter Group, a three-squadron organization, arrived in Italy flying the export model (flown hard previously by Soviet pilots) of the truly obsolete P-39. This low and slow ground attack fighter had unreliable landing gear, a single cannon located between the legs of the pilot, two machine guns mounted one
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