(dramatic music) - [Narrator] Germany had a secret weapon in World War II, the world's first jet fighter airplane.

It could fly at speeds over 600 miles an hour and zoom past any American fighter.

It took a really good American pilot to shoot down one of these jets in battle.

That is just what happened, when a group of Americans would learn to fly in Tuskegee, Alabama, fought the jets over Berlin.

These pilots called the Tuskegee Airmen were all African-Americans, and they shot down three German jets on that day.

These pilots were as good as any in the American Army, but unlike most pilots, the Tuskegee Airmen had to fight two wars.

Why did the Tuskegee Airmen have to fight two wars?

Besides fighting the enemy, they also fought for equality.

In the 1940s, white soldiers and African-American soldiers were kept separated by what is called segregation.

Most African-Americans were not allowed to fight in the war and were given jobs like digging ditches, cooking or driving trucks.

They had almost no chance to become officers because if they did, they would be the bosses of white soldiers.

This meant that African-Americans could never become pilots because all pilots were officers.

Segregation would never allow that.

But during World War II, when America needed a lot of people to fight, African-Americans and their allies convinced president Franklin Delano Roosevelt to allow them to become combat pilots.

Men would be trained at Moton Field and Tuskegee university in Alabama.

There were many other African-Americans that worked at Moton Field to support the pilots.

Mechanics kept the planes running and women from around Tuskegee were both test pilots and parachute technicians.

They would lay the chute on a long table and fold it very carefully into the parachute's backpack.

This was a very important job.

If a pilot needed to bail out of his airplane, there was only one chance for his parachute to work.

These women, mechanics and pilots were all considered to be Tuskegee Airmen, and together they would form the 99th squadron.

For the first time in history, 33 African-American pilots would fly fighter planes to battle against the enemy.

The Tuskegee Airmen helped America win World War II.

The 99th squadron was sent to North Africa and then Italy.

They were given the P-40 fighter plane which had been made famous by the Flying Tigers squadron, which painted a roaring tiger (tiger roars) on the plane.

By the time the 99th got the P-40, it was an old plane.

And only a really good pilot could fly it against the enemy and not be shot down.

The Tuskegee Airmen did so well that eventually their planes were replaced with America's best fighter, the P-51 Mustang.

They painted the tails of these planes red, so that everyone knew that it was them.

They soon got the nickname "The Red Tails."

It was with this plane that the Red Tails would shoot down three German jets in one day.

The Army saw that they were excellent pilots and decided to not only keep them in the war, but recruit more African-American pilots until there were more than 900 Red Tails.

Although they had become successful pilots and officers in the Army, back in the United States, they were still being treated unfairly.

The Tuskegee Airmen fought for fair treatment.

When the Tuskegee Airmen came to Moton Field to learn to fly, white officers who gave them tests would fail them, even though they had passed.

Because they did not believe that African-Americans should be pilots.

This made it very hard for them to complete their training and was unfair.

Many of the Tuskegee Airmen joined the Army because they wanted to help protect America during World War II and believed that if they fought for their country, they should be treated fairly.

They fought for fair treatment in two ways.

First, by telling the Army that they were wrong to treat them badly.

The US Army had restaurants that only served food to officers.

They are called Officers' Clubs.

Even though the Army's rule said that all officers could eat there, most Officers' Clubs would only serve food to white officers.

So, 61 Tuskegee Airmen marched into an Officers' Club in Indiana and demanded to be served.

They were all arrested, but they had shown how the Army's rules were not fair.

They also tried to be the best pilots they could, so that no one could ever again say that African-Americans should not be pilots.

By the end of World War II, they had destroyed over 200 enemy planes and 66 Red Tail pilots had lost their lives.

The Tuskegee Airmen won a double victory.

Throughout the war the Tuskegee Airmen wanted to win a double victory.

They wanted to help defeat America's enemies, and they wanted to defeat unfair treatment of African-Americans in America itself.

In August of 1945, the United States and its friends won World War II.

The Red Tails had fought along with millions of other Americans to help win this victory against America's enemies.

The example they set helped president Harry Truman change the Army's rules.

In 1948, president Truman signed an executive order ending segregation in the United States military.

Benjamin Davis, the original commander of the Red Tails was promoted to the rank of general.

The example that the Tuskegee Airmen set by protesting unfair treatment and by working hard to become pilots in spite of the many obstacles that they faced, was an inspiration to African-Americans in the 1960s who fought to end segregation all across America.

Today, the Tuskegee Airmen are still an inspiring example for people working to make America fairer for all people.

(inspirational music)