PULSE The Magazine
of Mount Dora, Eustis and Tavares

Lt. Daniel Keel and the

TUSKEGEE AIRMEN

[ a recollection ]

A folksy storyteller, Daniel carries me along with him telling me about his personal victories over the deplorable racial prejudice he encountered while serving in our Armed Forces as a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen.

“To begin flight training when I did,” says Daniel Keel, “an Airman had to have two years of college and pass a written exam. Many of the Tuskegee Airmen already had college degrees and those who met that standard were sent to basic training. Following basic training, we were required to pass two stiff exams that lasted a total of twelve hours.” Daniel faced the exam with 300 other Airmen candidates. Only thirty of them passed and were sent to Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama for additional training.

The Tuskegee Airmen assigned to overseas combat were placed under the command of Colonel William Momyer, who according to Daniel, “didn’t want them and did everything in his power to have them disqualified and disbanded.”

Momyer was under attack from his superiors because the bombers he sent into battle returned with heavy losses inflicted by the German fliers. Momyer received command of the Tuskegee Airmen and charged them with protecting the bombers. His expectation was that the heavy losses would continue and the Black Airmen would receive the blame.

The squadron leader of the Airmen, Lt. Colonel Benjamin Davis, Jr., understood Momyer’s behavior but knew why the losses occurred. “You see,” Daniel confided, “every fighter pilot in those days wanted to be an Ace, someone who shot down five or more enemy planes. When bombers came under attack, the fighter pilots drove the enemy fighters away but then set after the enemy trying to make extra kills. By doing so, they left the bombers unprotected and vulnerable.”

Davis forbade the airmen to take the bait and threatened to court-martial any Airman who left his assigned bomber unprotected. As more bombers returned safely from combat, the white bomber pilots soon valued the protection of the Tuskegee Airmen. According to military records, approximately 900 Airmen received their wings, 400 were sent into battle. 66 were killed in action and 32 were taken as POWs.

Daniel was sent to Tuskegee for training as a pilot expecting to complete training and receive the rank of Second Lieutenant. At Tuskegee, however, it was determined that navigators were needed more than pilots. Daniel successfully completed his training, and received his navigator wings but not his promised appointment as a Second Lieutenant.

Daniel’s flight instructor outlined an alternate path to secure his promotion. He needed to be trained as a navigator for a medium bomber. Medium bombers required that the navigator be dual-trained as a bombardier and bombardiers had to have the rank of Second Lieutenant. Therefore, Daniel was sent to Midland, Texas, for training as a bombardier. To receive his Lieutenant’s bars, he had to maintain an 85 average combining class work with flight training. Daniel knew the flight training would be easy for him. The class work would prove to be a problem, but not because of his capabilities.

Daniel warms to his tale as he recalls, “It’s the first Monday in October 1944 when we arrive in Midland and Lt. Colonel Phelps meets us. He immediately tells us that he was born in Texas, raised in Texas and he expects to die in Texas. And if we Negroes didn’t know our place while we were in the state of Texas, he would spell it out for us in detail.”

At this point Daniel’s voice deepens to mimic Phelps. “You are not allowed into the Officers’ Mess or the Officers’ Club. In the theatre, you are not allowed in the Officers’ Section. If you take the bus into town, you ride in the back.” While listening to Lt. Colonel Phelps’ commands, Daniel heard his chances for success crash to the ground.

Obeying the detested orders, the men went to the Cadet Mess Hall for their first meal and waited for service. Other cadets came in, were served and left as the entire dinner period passed with the Tuskegee Airmen ignored. Frustrated and angry, the entire group stormed into the Officers’ Mess. Upon hearing the Airmen’s complaint, mess personnel apologized to them, and treating them with the respect

Early the next morning, however, Lt. Colonel Phelps invaded the Airmen’s quarters and demanded an explanation. After listening to their story, he announced his intention to court-martial the entire class of twentyseven men for disobeying his orders.

Daniel leans toward me, pauses for effect and continues. “One of my roommates, Savoy, says that if we’re going to be court-martialed let it not be by a Lt. Colonel. It would look better on our record if it were a General.”

“So, Savoy writes a letter of explanation to the General in charge of the southwest section, General Barton K. Yount, and brings it to me for my signature. I notice the letter’s not signed and ask Savoy if the other men have read the letter, whether they agree with the letter, and why had they not signed it. He admits that the Airmen were waiting to see who would sign it first because that person would be considered the ringleader and would come under the greatest attack by Phelps. Knowing this, I signed the letter first and stepped inside a very personal battlefield.”

By Friday of the same week, General Yount was on the base. He met with the white officers and ordered them “to treat the Negro officers with the same dignity and the same privileges as any other officer on the base.” Discussion followed and became so heated that fistfights broke out among the officers. General Yount quelled the disturbance when he ordered the playing of the National Anthem which brought all officers to attention. After the General departed, Daniel heard that Phelps’ final words to the white officers were a threat to get even with the Negro airmen “if it were the last thing he ever did.”

Lt. Colonel Phelps quickly lashed out at the Airmen by ordering a full gas-mask drill, a grueling task that involved only Daniel’s class. Held indoors, with outside temperatures of 110 degrees in the shade, the men were required to wear a full-face gas mask for four hours, from 1 to 5 p.m. Once inside his scorching barracks, Daniel cleverly locked the doors, forcing Phelps to ask permission before entering. When Daniel heard someone beating on the door, he knew it had to be Phelps hoping to catch the men no longer wearing the stifling masks. Asked by Daniel to identify himself, the infuriated Phelps refused and Daniel refused entry to an unidentified person.

After three attempts to get Phelps to identify himself and request entry, one of the men yelled out, “Damn it to hell, if you can’t identify yourself, I suggest that you urinate on the floor, slide under the door on your rear and, please, while you’re doing so, sing the Negro National Anthem.”

When the furious officer identified himself, he was granted access. Quickly apologizing, Daniel told Phelps, “I thought it was a classmate playing a trick on the men.” Seeing that the men in Daniel’s quarters were not wearing their gas masks, Phelps immediately ordered their court-martial. It was Savoy who spoke up reminding Phelps that Army regulations required only a semi-annual full gas mask drill and that specific drill had been carried out three weeks earlier.

Daniel felt Phelps’ hard grip again when their final exam papers were returned. With a perverse smile, the Lt. Col. admitted he lost Daniel’s final exam paper and required him to retake the test. But on a retake of the written exam, the highest score allowable would only be a seventy. Fortunately Daniel’s high score in flight training brought his final average to eighty-nine, four points above what he needed to pass. He was one of only three of his twenty-seven classmates who had escaped Phelps’ revenge. Daniel’s military training ended in October 1945 and he became the first Black triple-rated flying officer certified as a pilot, a bombardier and a navigator.

In 2007, Daniel and each of the Tuskegee Airmen received a congressional Gold Medal. In 2008, the remaining Tuskegee Airmen each received an invitation to attend the inauguration of President Obama. Daniel was there, proud to be part of another historical event.

Daniel, now 89, delivers his final words from his comfortable Clermont home, “I was just trying to outwit and outmaneuver them. That’s all I was trying to do.”

return to Pulse...