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...accomplishment. denied blacks was service Army Air Corps (later Army Air Forces (2)). (3) This denial extended to any support position in the Air Corps, including meteorological observing and forecasting. Creation of segregated flying units during World War II required they be manned by personnel fully trained in all support and technical specialties. How this process unfolded during and after the war illustrates some of the problems and contradictions created by the institutionalized segregation of the American military and society it reflected as the U.S. entered World War II.
Expansion of the Air Corps Weather Service
Although plans for U.S. Army expansion were already underway, it was the German invasion of Poland, on September 1, 1939, that signaled the threat of war as real. As the Air Corps started its wartime buildup, it was transitioning from a small and exclusive organization. An Air Corps officer, like most of the rest of the Army before World War II, was by custom a white male (4) and, by law, with few exceptions, a pilot. To appreciate the growth of the Air Corps into the Army Air Forces (AAF) during World War II, there were only 2,727 Air Corps officers serving, 2,058 of them Regular Army, in September 1939. By 1945, the number of officers assigned or detailed to the AAF peaked at 388,295, which included 193,000 pilots and almost 95,000 navigators and bombardiers trained since 1939. Overall, the AAF went from a force of approximately 26,000 in September 1939 to almost 2,400,000 in the fall of 1944. (5)
This growth reflected both the world-wide nature of the AAF's wartime responsibilities and the quantum increase in aircraft capabilities from a short-range daylight (and good weather) force to a transcontinental organization capable of operating at night and in all but the most severe weather. The rapid improvement in aircraft technology through the 1920s and 1930s was reflected in the greatly increased performance, range, altitude, and payload of aircraft.
Concurrent with growth of the relatively new science of aeronautics was a revolution in meteorology, one of mankind's oldest subjects of interest, both assisted with and driven by the advancement of aviation. The ability to plan military and civilian flying activities with more than a forecast based on scattered ground observations, verified by the observations of a "dawn patrol" observation flight, was becoming a commercial and military necessity. Even without aviation requirements, public and business interests demanded more accurate forecasts to avoid losses to commercial fishing and shipping, transportation, agriculture, recreation and emergency planning for forecasting extreme weather phenomena such as tornadoes, blizzards, hurricanes, and thunderstorms. (6)
Despite the increasing interest, growth in civilian and military meteorological programs was slow prior to the war. Developing academic programs to explore this evolving science was costly and the impact of the Great Depression made it more difficult. By 1937, only three American universities offered graduate degrees in meteorology. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was first; Dr. Carl Gustav Rossby estimated that MIT spent "in the vicinity of $200,000 over the years from 1928-1938 to maintain such a department while, at the same time, the total tuition income probably did not exceed $25,000." The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) had created their meteorological department in 1933, and New York University (NYU) had established one by 1937. (7) As the Army's primary user of meteorological services, beginning in 1933, the Air Corps had sent a handful of pilots to MIT and Caltech for graduate work in meteorology, even though the Army's Weather Service did not move from the Signal Corps to the Air Corps until 1937. (8)
In July 1940, the Army had only 62 qualified weather forecasters, primarily in the Air Corps. This was part of only an estimated 377 in the entire country, counting 150 with the Weather Bureau, 94 with commercial airlines, 46 in the Navy and 25 in various educational institutions. (9) The rapid projected growth of the Air Corps required a growing number of weather officers, at one point estimated at many as 10,000, with another 20,000 enlisted observers and forecasters.
The answer was to create a training course at several leading universities to "mass produce" weather officers; a program set up by AAF weather officers and leading academics including Dr. Rossby, formerly of MIT and then at the Weather Bureau. In addition to MIT, Caltech, and NYU, departments were established subsequently at the University of Chicago and University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) to meet the demand. (10) Initially, twenty aviation cadets who had washed out of flying training for other than academic reasons received an abbreviated (ten and a half week) course at MIT in the summer of 1940 to qualify them for teaching applied meteorology to aviation cadets. In conjunction with the universities and the Weather Bureau, this course was expanded into a thirty-three-week course, starting in September 1940, leading to a certificate in meteorology.
The course was free but applicants had to agree that "upon completion of the course [they] will take the next Junior Professional Assistant-meteorological option--Civil Service examination" if not already enrolled as a Flying Cadet or accepted into the Army, Navy, or other government agency by graduation. Prospective candidates needed to apply to the university of their choice, have an engineering degree or another degree with two years in mathematics (including differential equations and integral calculus) and one year in physics, as well as being able to pass a Reserve Officer physical and not be older than 26 when commissioned. (11) Those who met the academic requirements had their applications reviewed by the Air Corps before they started the course. There were 116 cadets in the 1940 class, in addition to several Navy aerology officers and civilians for the Weather Bureau. With continuing Air Corps expansion, the next class started in July 1941, with 182 cadets enrolled. (12) Once the U.S. entered the wax; applicants were screened by Aviation Cadet selection boards before they could be admitted, the degree requirement was dropped so long as they met the science and math requirements and the maximum age was raised to 30. The first wartime class started with 440 cadets on March 16, 1942, another 400 started in September 1942 and 1,750 started in November 1942.
Blacks and Military Aviation
Like the rest of America, there was a great interest in aviation in the black community prior to World War II. However, they were greatly underrepresented due to their limited economic circumstances, made worse by Jim Crow laws and practices that restricted or denied their entrance into military and commercial aviation. (13) This started to change in 1939, with the creation of the Civilian Pilot Training (CPT) Program. The growing political influence of the black community resulted in the program initially being offered at six historically black colleges, including the Tuskegee Institute. In addition, some blacks who attended integrated colleges outside the south also entered the CPT program through their schools and two non-college affiliated programs run by blacks were set up in the Chicago area. It is estimated that as many as 2,000 black men and women completed one or more CPT courses between 1939 and the program's termination in 1944. (14)
The black military aviation experience started with activation of the 99th Pursuit (later Fighter) Squadron, activated at Chanute Field, Illinois, on March 22, 1941. Even though flight training did not begin at Tuskegee until July 19, 1941, this somewhat unusual arrangement allowed the Air Corps to segregate the enlisted trainees, given that the Army normally had each unit in their own barracks and mess-hall. When it came to race, separate was seldom completely equal. (15)
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