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• 1 media/tuskegee-airmenjpg-adf4e231254e619d_large.jpg 2018-04-08T03:24:05-07:00 Tuskegee Airmen 13 image_header 2018-06-17T22:14:11-07:00 On a more positive note, the War Department announced the creation of the 99th Pursuit Squadron at the encouragement of Eleanor Roosevelt. This was to be an all black flying unit trained at the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama. Charles A. Anderson, a self-taught African American pilot had established a civilian pilot training program at the Institute in 1939. Since there were no black officers, eleven white officers were assigned to train and prepare a total of 429 enlisted men and 47 officers who would become the Tuskegee Airmen, the first black military aviators in the United States. They served valiantly with 1578 combat missions and 179 bomber escort missions in the course of the war. 
  
  Another African American that earned accolades during World War II was Dorie Miller. Though assigned KP duty, he earned the Navy Cross during the attack on Pearl Harbor when manned anti-aircraft weapons and tended the wounded.