《书目》(Booklist)书评
Between 1941 and 1948, black airmen trained at a segregated facility in Tuskegee, Alabama, in a social experiment that eventually led to the opening of the armed services to black men and women. What became known as the Tuskegee Experience was the culmination of 10 years of struggle by civil rights groups to get the War Department to allow blacks to serve in the military. The hard-fought victory fell substantially short of the real objective--an integrated armed service. Still, the Tuskegee airmen secured a significant place in American and black history for bravery in service on and off the battlefield. Through interviews with Tuskegee airmen and their families, as well as archival research, Homan and Reilly convey the organizational and personal struggles behind the Tuskegee Experience. Homan and Reilly detail the training and war missions of the black airmen, hardships overcome in Europe as well as at home. This is a treasure of photographs and recollections of an important part of American history.--Vanessa Bush
Choice 评论
Homan and Reilly, museum exhibition specialists, here provide the latest of 20 titles written so far on the then-controversial WW II experiment to educate African American pilots and associated personnel for frontline combat and support services with the Army Air Forces. The story, which has also been told as an HBO movie, is fairly well known. The authors here review the then-popular belief that blacks were incapable of mastering the intricacies of flight and the Tuskegee Experiment (named for the Tuskegee Institute where the training was held), which proved the skeptics wrong. A full account of the activities of the pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group in Europe is provided, along with details on such ground personnel as nurses and mechanics. The work is distinguished for its inclusion of many firsthand reminiscences from veterans of the grand experiment and concludes with a helpful bibliography and index. Recommended for WW II and minority history collections, particularly those without coverage of this endeavor. M. J. Smith Jr. Tusculum College