Air Force Col. Charles McGee broke the color barrier as a Tuskegee Airman flying a red-tailed P-51 Mustang in defense of U.S. bombers in World War II.

The African-American pilot recorded 136 combat missions in Europe, 100 in Korea and 173 in Vietnam — the highest three-war total in the Air Force.

At age 97, the National Aviation Hall of Fame member can attest to how far the nation has come — and how far it still needs to go — in terms of racial acceptance.

“We’ve come a long way,” McGee said in a phone interview. But there were also plenty of painful reminders of the inequality he faced at home even after repeatedly distinguishing himself overseas.

“I can remember even coming back from Korea, coming home and going to (Air Force) command staff school and finally getting a home, and (on a nearby) block there was a park that I had to tell my daughter, ‘No, blacks aren’t allowed to play in that park,’” McGee said.

That was in Montgomery, Ala., in 1953.

The fighter pilot, who flew the propeller-driven P-39Q Airacobra, P-47 Thunderbolt and P-51 Mustang, and the RF-4 Phantom jet in combat, will be a guest speaker at the Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor on Friday and Saturday.

The museum said teachers are encouraged to bring in students in grades 6-12 from 10 to 11 a.m. Friday to hear how the segregated Tuskegee Airmen overcame prejudice to fight for their country.

On Saturday from 11 a.m. to noon, McGee will be the featured speaker at a “Hangar Talk” in the theater that’s open to the public. Also present will be Tuskegee Airman Philip Baham, who served as a crew chief. Both events are tied to Black History Month.

McGee’s advice through it all is to persevere. “Don’t let circumstances be an excuse for not achieving,” the Maryland man said.

Pioneering pilots

The Tuskegee Airmen became the first black pilots in American military history after President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940 said he would open the aviation ranks, Daniel Haulman, with the Air Force Historical Research Agency, said in a 2014 publication.

“The War Department agreed to do that, but with the understanding that the black military pilots would be trained on a segregated basis, and serve in their own segregated units,” Haulman wrote.

The 332nd Fighter Group and the 99th, 100th, 301st and 302nd Fighter Squadrons trained at Tuskegee Army Airfield in Alabama before and during the war. A total of 992 black pilots became Tuskegee Airmen.

McGee was an engineering student at the University of Illinois, but by 1942, during the war, he figured he’d be drafted, so he applied and was accepted for pilot training in the Army Air Corps. He was sworn into the enlisted reserve and reported late that year to Tuskegee.

“The town of Tuskegee, Alabama, was (like) a foreign country. Sheriff wasn’t a friend,” he said. In the South “the police were behind the folks who wanted you to know what your place was.”

“We didn’t do anything in the town of Tuskegee,” he recalled. That was off limits. Friends who grew up in the South clued him in on where he should and shouldn’t go.

McGee’s 302nd Fighter Squadron shipped off to Italy and began operations in early 1944 patrolling from Naples Harbor to the isle of Capri in the P-39Q. His fighter group moved in May of that year to Ramitelli on the Adriatic where he began long-range bomber escorts in a P-47D.

He flew his first bomber escort mission into Germany in June, and the next month picked up the exceptional P-51 Mustang, which he called “Kitten,” after his wife. P-51 fighter escort groups had different tail markings. The 332nd Fighter Group, to which McGee belonged, used solid red, becoming known as the “Red Tails” — a designator that would become famous in history and movies.

McGee scored an aerial victory over a Focke Wulf 190 during an August 1944 bombing mission to a Czechoslovakian oil refinery.

“That’s what we trained for, and the guy made the wrong move,” McGee said.

At the same time black fighter pilots such as McGee were fighting for their lives and those of the bomber crews, some whites in the Army Air Corps were trying to kick them out.

Col. William Momyer, commander of the white 33rd Fighter Group over the black 99th Fighter Squadron, claimed the 99th was performing poorly, Haulman said.

“The War Department subsequently undertook a study to compare the combat performance of the 99th Fighter Squadron with the other P-40 fighter squadrons in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, but found no significant difference, and did not take the 99th Fighter Squadron out of combat,” Haulman said.

Haulman also dispelled some of the misconceptions about the Tuskegee Airmen.

It’s not true that no bomber was ever shot down under escort by Tuskegee Airmen, but it is the case that the African-American units lost significantly fewer bombers to enemy airplanes than the average of other fighter groups, Haulman said.

“Part of that was due to our leader, B.O. Davis,” McGee said. “Our assignment was, stick with the bombers to protect them from German fighters. (He said), ‘I’ll have nobody go off and try to become an ace (five planes shot down) leaving the bombers.’”

Haulman concluded that, “If they (the Tuskegee Airmen) did not demonstrate that they were far superior to the members of the six non-black fighter escort groups of the Fifteenth Air Force with which they served, they certainly demonstrated that they were not inferior to them, either. Moreover, they began at a line farther back, overcoming many more obstacles on the way to combat.”

‘Old attitudes’

On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981, desegregating the armed forces of the United States.

“I got along fine and was well-accepted in the assignments that I had,” McGee said.

But problems with racial intolerance persist in society.

“We’re more diverse now than then, but when you look at so often what’s going on, the leadership isn’t representative of all of the people of our country,” McGee said. “And there are those who still want to (carry) these old attitudes forward.”

McGee today preaches the same values that allowed him to succeed.

“First of all, get the education. That’s paramount,” he said. “Treat other people like you want to be treated. Find out what your talents are. Hopefully, it’s something you like. But be prepared to perform. Let excellence be your goal in whatever you are doing.”

More information about the Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor events is available at PacificAviationMuseum.org and by calling 441-1007.