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[[newspaper clipping]
the week

^[[Afro June 8]]

'Metamorphosis' of the Colonel
by VINCENT TUBBS

NEW YORK - Col. B. O. Davis Jr., commander of Lockbourne (Ohio) Army Air Field and the 477th Composite Group, is emerging as one of the better twin-engine pilots in the air forces.

He flew into Manhattan recently to have a word to say at a meeting of the Citizens' Committee on Harlem - the fourth such meeting at which he has appeared in recent weeks and which puts him in the forefront as an emerging racial leader as well.

In both instances the metamorphosis is noteworthy.

Colonel Davis earned his wings in single-engine craft and flew fighter planes during the war. The switch from fighter craft of P-40, P-51 and P-47 types to twin-engine B-25's is no joke - as any flyer will tell you.

The Old Days

The pursuit planes, in which

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the week

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99th and 332nd wartime pilots flew, land on two wheels and then the tail, the sort of orthodox way for land-loving air enthusiasts - something reminiscent of the old 3-point landings.

The B-25, beside being a heavier plane with an additional engine, utilizes what is called tricycle landing gear which entails entirely different landing technique.

The B-25 pilot puts down two wheels and then the nose...and if the touch isn't "just so," the results can provide work for the crash wagon.

I flew the Columbus-New York jaunt with Colonel Davis last week as a sort of hangover from wartime hitch-hiking but principally because trains were stopped, the commercial airlines were all booked up, and there I was stranded in Columbus, Ohio.

He flies beautifully, handles his plane with ease and dexterity. He is an excellent flying leader for our flying men.

On the other hand, it is noteworthy that he is manifesting an active interest in racial matters.

His Inheritance

In this connection, let me say that the younger B. O. has unjustifiably inherited a great deal of the older B. O.'s reputation as lukewarm on racial matters.

It is felt that the onus being dispelled has been unjustified because accusers have inevitably failed to consider that the colonel has been pretty busy with all the "firsts" and accompanying pressures that have been thrust upon him.

Arna Bontemps in a new volume, "We Have Tomorrow," points out the full year's silent treatment that Colonel Davis underwent at West Point. For twelve months his classmates refused to speak to him; so try, if you can, to imagine what sort of person you'd be if nobody in your neighborhood or with whom you work opened his mouth to you for a year.

Next, the colonel found himself at Tuskegee trying to make peacetime soldiers out of disinterested ROTC recruits.

Then along came the air school and he went into that, probably knowing that the War Department wanted to make him commander of the "experimental" colored flyers, and just you imagine what would have happened to his professional soldier's career if he, a West Pointer, had "washed out."

Overseas, where all the world watched our flyers, the mental strain of bossing the 332nd Fighter Group must certainly have been anything but fun...along with the physical hazard of flying combat missions.

7 1/2 Million Job

And now, with the war finished, he draws the assignment of bossing history's first mixed air base - a 7 1/2-million-dollar layout on a 2 1/2-square mile area with nearly 300 buildings and upwards of 2,500 persons as his immediate responsibility.

How, pray tell, could such a man - less than 40 years-old have time to dicker in the complex mathematics of solving the race problem?

Yet, in recent weeks, the colonel has been coming around.

He has appeared as the New York Veteran's Council commemoration of V-E Day, spoken at a Washington meeting to welcome home overseas veterans, appeared on the Chicago Woodlawn Forum, and is invited to sit as a consultant at the Des Moines First National Constitutional Convention of the American Veterans' Committee this month.

On top of all these public appearances, his decision to maintain Lockbourne Air Base as an integrated American institution is probably the most significant step of all.

Had he chosen to maneuver for the dismissal of all white civilian workers so that colored might replace them - a tack that would have pleased the segregationists - the world's most undesirable precedent would have been established.

80 Per Cent Whites

By keeping on whites as 80% of the 399 civilian workers alloted the base, Colonel Davis has nipped in the bud any plan the Bilboites may have had for relegating colored civilian air base employees to a few select jobs.

It seems now that the 632 workers about to lose their sources of livelihood when Tuskegee Army Air Field is closed next month will have a logical basis for applying to Randolph Field in Texas or Maxwell Field in Alabama and demanding employment on their merits and retention rights.

Colonel Davis's decision was a master stroke. It served to allay the fear of some white Columbus citizens that racial retribution would set in at Lockbourne and affect the employment status of no less than 300 indigenous Ohioans.

The practice of hiring civilian workers without discrimination has made friends. Whites employed at Lockbourne, in justifying their presence there to friends suffering a color phobia, tell the truths of truly American-like working conditions - the polyglot peoples of the nation functioning without friction.

Young B. O. is doing a magnificent job of being a flying leader and racial leader as well.

[[preprinted]] NASM PRESERVATION PHPTOCOPY - 19 April 2001 [[/preprinted]]