Red Tail: A Tuskegee Airman's Rendezvous with Destiny

When they were given the opportunity, finally, to prove themselves in the air and in battle, Black fighter pilots—the Tuskegee Airmen, or Red Tails, as they became known—turned in an unrivaled record of protection for bombers on their mission to stamp out Hitler's tyranny.

Robert L. Martin, an eager young man from mostly white Dubuque, Iowa, was thrust into a segregated unit in the hostile Deep South for his military flight training before deploying to Italy. Overseas, he earned a Distingui...