January 11, 2022. Lt. Col. James Harvey arrives at Nellis Air Force base in Nevada for the first time in 73 years. He’s there to accept a plaque celebrating the last time he was there—for the Air Force’s first ever weapons competition. Back then, Harvey and the other Tuskegee Airmen on his team had squared off against the best military pilots around. They tackled high-skill tests of simulated aerial warfare… and they won. But over the decades, the official record of their victory was lost or neglected. Who were these exceptional Black pilots? And what did it take to rescue their accomplishments from obscurity and bring them into the light?
Special thanks to our guests: Lt. Col. James Harvey III and Lt. Col. Harry Stewart Jr. Lt. Col. Stewart is the co-author of Soaring to Glory. Thanks also to Zellie Rainey Orr, author of Heroes in War, Heroes at Home, and to Daniel Haulman, retired historian at the Air Force Historical Research Agency and author of Misconceptions about the Tuskegee Airmen, to be published in February 2023.
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