Unseen Enemy

World War II veteran Mitchell Higginbotham never served outside the United States, but the enemy he fought was just as formidable as Germany and Japan.

Higginbotham, a Tuskegee Airman and Dana Point resident, says proudly that “my most outstanding contribution to the war was in the fight for racial equality.” Like thousands of other African Americans, Higginbotham enlisted to fight fascism abroad but also ended up fighting racism in the ranks.

It was a fight that earned him a place in U.S. military history as one of 61 young black officers arrested for disobeying an order barring them from a whites-only officers’ club.

So while Higginbotham will attend a Veterans Day event today near his brother’s home in Cathedral City, joining other Americans in honoring the men and women who died in America’s wars, he also will be reflecting on the struggle for equality that ruined his chance for a career in the Air Force and stained his military record for 50 years.

It was coincidental that the April 5, 1945, incident occurred at Freeman Field, near Seymour, Ind. But the base’s name also defined the purpose behind the 61 officers’ act of defiance.

Higginbotham said he is still angry and saddened by the institutionalized racism of the day that limited his opportunities in the military and later in civilian life. Although he was trained to fly B-25 Mitchell bombers, the Army Air Corps did not allow him to fly in combat because the generals had little faith in African-American pilots.

After the war, returning pilots were gobbled up by U.S. air carriers, but Higginbotham’s dream of becoming an airline pilot were doused because of his skin color.

Instead, he went home to Sewickley, Pa., determined not to end up in the steel mill with his father. He got a job at Pittsburgh Airport. Along the way, he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in labor relations and ended up in Los Angeles in 1956, where he worked as a county probation officer for 30 years before retiring.

Now living comfortably in a retirement community with an ocean view, the widowed Higginbotham is surrounded by mementos from his days as a Tuskegee Airman, when hewas assigned to the 477th Medium Bomber Group, flying the same plane flown by the Doolittle Raiders to bomb Tokyo early in the war.

Like many Americans, Higginbotham acted on patriotic instinct after the attack on Pearl Harbor and immediately registered for the draft. As did his father.

“We went and signed up together, presented ourselves as father and son. Only he was classified as white because he was lighter than me, and I was classified as black,” he said, laughing.

His father ended up getting an age deferment, but Higginbotham hoped to join the Army Air Corps. Instead, he was taught to fly and assigned to Tuskegee, Ala., in July 1942 as a civilian instructor. Higginbotham persisted and was finally allowed to enlist in the Air Corps in January 1944, earning his pilot’s wings and commissioned a second lieutenant in December.

Expecting to be sent to Europe, where Tuskegee fighter pilots were establishing a storied combat record escorting white bomber crews, Higginbotham and the other black airmen were instead assigned to bases in the South to train.

“We all figured we were going into combat. That’s what we trained for. But it didn’t take long to figure out they had no intention of sending us anywhere. We were told we were going to be part of a new bomber group, but it was being put together piecemeal,” Higginbotham said.

Frustrated and angry, Higginbotham said he risked a court-martial by buzzing the segregated country club in his home town at tree top level during a training flight that took him over Pennsylvania.

Around March 1945, the 477th received orders to report to Freeman Field. Higginbotham said the airmen had already heard stories about officers clubs at the base, which were segregated despite a War Department decree against the practice two years earlier. The black club was disparagingly called “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by the Tuskegee Airmen.

Soon after arriving at Freeman, 104 black officers, including Higginbotham, walked into the white club in four groups. Higginbotham and 60 others were arrested.

The incident was widely reported in the white and black press of the day. Higginbotham still has a copy of the charges leveled against him and the others for “conduct unbecoming an officer, failure to obey a lawful order and breach of good order and discipline.”

Pentagon officials offered to drop the charges if they agreed to stay out of the whites-only club, Higginbotham said.

The 61 defendants rejected the offer and were flown to Godman Field at Ft. Knox, Ky. for courts-martial. According to Higginbotham, the black airmen were confined to quarters while German POWs held at the base were allowed to roam outside.

Fifty-eight airmen, including Higginbotham, received letters of reprimand that were placed in their personnel files. The other three were court-martialed, but only Second Lt. Roger “Bill” Terry was convicted of jostling a white officer.

In 1995, the Air Force cleared all of the airmen, threw out Terry’s conviction and returned his $150 fine. An Air Force official called the wartime action against the Tuskegee Airmen “a terrible wrong in the annals of U.S. military history.”

For Higginbotham and the others, the Air Force’s righting of the injustice done to them offered little solace.

“Our lives had already been screwed. Many of us were bright, intelligent guys who could have served our country well in Air Force careers. But the reprimands and courts-martial made it impossible for us to advance,” Higginbotham said.

Still, he marvels at the great strides blacks have made in the military since President Truman ordered the integration of the Armed Forces in 1948.

“I never could’ve imagined that [Army Gen.] Colin Powell would one day be [chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff],” Higginbotham said. “We’ve come a long way. It’s a source of great sentiment when I attend the Tuskegee Airmen reunions, and I see all of the brass [commissioned officers], black men and women that the Pentagon sends to join us. We’re just as patriotic and willing to die for our country as the next guy.”