Virginia Postrel has a nice item about WW2 aviator style and the Tuskegee airmen who broke racial barriers of their time in WW2. I must say that there is something deliciously satisfying at the thought that these guys helped shoot down the airforce of a racist German empire. And that they flew such glorious birds like the P-51 Mustang as they did so.
Yes they did.
But it is better to remember that they fought the dreaded ME-109 in the outdated P-40b and c well before the finally got the P-51.
As a Grand-Nephew of a Navigator on an 8th Army Air Force B-24 Liberator, the “Red Tailed Devils” were never a poor sight to see.