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100th Fighter Squadron

Squadron

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Established in February 1942 at Tuskegee Army Airfield, Alabama to train African-American flight cadets graduated from the Tuskegee Institute Army contract flying school. At Tuskegee, the squadron performed advanced combat flying training. As the number of graduated from the Tuskegee school grew, two additional squadrons the 301st and 302d Fighter Squadrons were activated at Tuskegee Army Airfield, forming the 332d Fighter Group.

Due to the segregated status of the Army Air Forces in 1942 and the reluctance by the service to deploy African Americans into combat, the 332d remained in an extended training status. The Group was transferred to Selfridge Army Air Base, near Detroit, Michigan in March 1943 after the decision was reached to deploy the unit. Racial tensions in the Detroit area, however, forces a move to Oscoda Army Airfield, in isolated northeast Michigan the next month where the final training of the unit was performed by First Air Force. However, the unit was delayed again going into combat, and also was sent back to Selfridge upon completion of training at Oscoda AAF to perform Air Defense flights over the Detroit area beginning in July 1943.

For six months, the unit remained at Selfridge until pressure on the Army led to the decision to deploy the 100th to the Fifteenth Air Force in Italy at the end of 1943, under the command of Robert B. Tresville, to support the strategic aerial bombardment campaign being carried out by Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and Consolidated B-24 Liberator Heavy bombers from newly established air bases in the Foggia, Italy area.

As the Italian Campaign pushed further north into Italy during 1944, the squadron moved to operate from forward captured air bases, flying bomber escort missions initially with Republic P-47D Thunderbolts, then being upgraded to the long-range North American P-51D Mustang fighter. In combat, the unit engaged enemy forces in the Rome-Arno area, then during the D-Day landings in France, took part in the Normandy and Northern France campaigns. It returned to the MTO in August 1944, flying combat missions supporting the Invasion of southern France and attacking enemy targets in Northern Italy, Po Valley, the German Rhineland and the Western Allied invasion of Germany during March and April 1945.

With the end of the War in Europe in May 1945, the squadron was returned to Southern Italy, being stationed at Lucera Airfield, near Foggia where the unit slowly was demobilized and personnel returned to the United States. The 100th Fighter Squadron was inactivated as an administrative unit at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey in mid-October 1945

Structure

Part of
Encompassing
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Previously was
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Became
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Connections

People

  • Fred Brewer

    Military | Second Lieutenant | PILOT | 332nd Fighter Group

  • Roscoe Brown

    Military | Captain | Fighter Pilot/Squadron Commander | 332nd Fighter Group
    Scored two victories, including one Me262 jet. ...

  • Woodrow Crockett

    Military | First Lieutenant | Fighter Pilot | 332nd Fighter Group
    World War II Tuskegee Fighter Pilots from Arkansas ...

  • Lawrence Dickson

    Military | Captain | Fighter pilot | 332nd Fighter Group
    Assigned to 100FS, 332FG, 15AF USAAF. Failed to Return (FTR) recon mission to Praha (Prague), Czechoslovakia, engine failure prompted bale out Killed in Action (KIA). 23-Dec-44 MACR 10734. ...

  • Spurgeon Ellington

    Military | Captain | Fighter Pilot | 332nd Fighter Group
    In his book, The Tuskegee Airmen: The Men Who Changed A Nation, Charles E. Francis wrote: ...

  • Richard Hall

    Military | First Lieutenant | Fighter Pilot | 332nd Fighter Group

  • Alexander Jefferson

    Military | Lieutenant Colonel | Pilot | 332nd Fighter Group

  • Clarence Lester

    Military | Colonel | Fighter Pilot | 332nd Fighter Group

  • Dempsey Morgan

    Military | First Lieutenant | Fighter Pilot | 100th Bomb Group
    "I WAS A FIGHTER PILOT", so said Dempsey W. Morgan, Jr. in a 19 Feb 2012 interview in the Roanoke Times. Morgan, a member of Brokaw's "Greatest Generation", was born on March 1, 1920 the son of Dempsey Matthew(1892-1946) and Pope Sims(nee Porter)...

  • Andrew Turner

    Military | Captain | Fighter Pilot - Squadron Commander | 332nd Fighter Group

Aircraft

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Air Force
12th
15th
Type
Combat
Type category
Fighter
Nicknames
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Motto
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Insignia
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Aircraft used
  • P-39 Airacobra
  • P-40 Warhawk
  • P-47 Thunderbolt
  • P-51 Mustang

Revisions

Date Contributor Update
01 December 2016 01:09:09 466thHistorian Created entry with type, category, name, description, air forces, aircraft types and unit encompassing associations
Sources

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100th_Fighter_Squadron

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