The Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee Airmen is a 1995 HBO television movie based on the exploits of an actual groundbreaking unit, the first African-American combat pilots in the United States Army Air Corps, that fought in World War II. The film was directed by Robert Markowitz and stars Laurence Fishburne, Cuba Gooding Jr., John Lithgow, and Malcolm-Jamal Warner.
This article is about 1995 film. For the article about the World War II flyers, see Tuskegee Airmen. For other uses, see Tuskegee Airmen (disambiguation).The Tuskegee Airmen
Drama
History
War
Paris Qualles
Trey Ellis
Ron Hutchinson
Robert Wayland Williams
T. S. Cook
United States
English
Frank Price
Robert Wayland Williams (co-executive producer)
Bill Carraro
Carol Bahoric (co-producer)
Muskogee, Oklahoma
Fort Smith, Arkansas (Ft. Smith Frisco Station)
Muskogee, Oklahoma (Davis Field)
Fort Chaffee, Arkansas
Fort Smith, Arkansas
Los Angeles
Juliette, Georgia
David Beatty
106 minutes
HBO Pictures
Price Entertainment
$8,500,000 (estimated)
August 26, 1995
Historical accuracy[edit]
Besides the character of Colonel Benjamin O. Davis Jr. (who is actually among the attendees during the wing pinning ceremony scene) played by Andre Braugher, no other actual real-life Tuskegee airmen were portrayed in this film. Other featured Tuskegee Airmen characters are composites of the men with whom Williams served.
At one point, the character Lewis Johns (Mekhi Phifer) recites "Strange Fruit" to the other recruits in their barracks. "Strange Fruit" is a song recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939, inspired by a poem by Abel Meeropol after he witnessed the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith.
At the end, the film details the unit's accomplishments: 66 out of the 450 Tuskegee Airmen died in battle, they engaged and defeated Messerschmitt Me 262s, the first operational jet fighters, and they were awarded a total of 850 medals over the course of the war. The credits also note (inaccurately, but a common belief of the time) that the 332nd never lost a single bomber to enemy fighter action. This claim is a source of historical controversy. The statement was repeated for many years, and not challenged because of the esteem of the Tuskegee Airmen. However, Air Force records and eyewitness accounts later showed that at least 25 bombers were lost to enemy fire.[13][14] This was, however, still an excellent loss to enemy fire ratio; the average for other P-51 fighter groups of the Fifteenth Air Force was 46 bombers lost.[15]