The 616th Bombardment Squadron was activated in 1943 as one of the four squadrons of the 477th Bombardment Group, the first (and only) bombardment group in the United States Army Air Forces to include black pilots. Members of the squadron participated in the Freeman Field Mutiny, protesting racial segregation in the military. The squadron was inactivated in 1945 when the 477th became a composite group that included bombardment and fighter squadrons.
The 477th group was reactivated in January 1944 at Selfridge Field, Michigan as the "first colored bombardment group in the Army Air Forces" with personnel drawn from Selfridge and from Tuskegee Army Air Field, Alabama.[3] It was the second combat group to be activated with African American personnel and would be the only African-American bombardment group.[4] The group moved to Godman Field, Kentucky in May.[1] The unit encountered problems attributed to the lack of experienced personnel, which required even basic training in military occupational specialties to be conducted within the unit, rather than at technical training schools.[5]
The initial commander of the 477th group enforced the then-standard practice of racial segregation on the posts where the squadron was stationed. The squadron's members were involved in the civil rights action referred to as the Freeman Field Mutiny; the "mutiny" came about when African-American aviators became outraged enough by racial segregation in the military that they resorted to mass insistence that military regulations prohibiting discrimination be enforced. The Freeman Field Mutiny was a crucial event in the African-American struggle for equal civil rights.[6]
^The officers were under arrest for refusing to sign a document acknowledging that they had read a regulation denying them access to an all-white officers' club.
^Approved 14 August 1944. Description: On a light turquoise blue diamond bordered dark blue, a caricatured wolf in red flight suit and helmet, seated in cockpit of dark blue caricatured aircraft, with wings, tail fin and propeller hub yellow orange, dropping a large dark blue aerial bomb, with red nose and tail fin, from open bomb bay doors, all emitting white speed lines to rear.
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