High flight

“The brightest news awaiting [General] Clark at Anzio was not on the beachhead but a mile above it. On January 27 and 28 [1944], an obscure fighter unit, known formally as the 99th Fighter Squadron (Separate), made its first significant mark in combat with guns blazing, shooting down twelve German aircraft. . . . [T]he contributions of a couple dozen black pilots—known collectively as the Tuskegee airmen, after the Alabama field where they had learned to fly—would resonate beyond the beachhead, beyond Italy, and beyond the war.” – Rick Atkinson, The Day of Battle