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SEPTEMBER 1955          47

His stay at West Point included a form of hazing known as "the silent treatment." Throughout his first year, none of Davis' fellow cadets ever spoke to him, or answered when he addressed them. He endured these slights with such impressive fortitude, however, that at a ceremony marking the end of the year his classmates cheered him vociferously.

Arna Bontemps wrote in We Have Tomorrow (1945), "Ben Davis, Jr., had stood the most severe test any boy had stood at West Point in at least fifty years, and had passed it to the satisfaction of the whole class of his fellows. The wall of silence fell down like the walls of Jericho, and was never raised again." Davis was graduated with the rank of second lieutenant on June 12, 1936.

The first year after winning his commission he served as a company officer of the 24th Infantry at Fort Benning, Georgia. Then he attended the Infantry School on that post, and was graduated in 1938, when he became an instructor in military science and tactics at Tuskegee Institute, an assignment that lasted until 1941. During this tour at Tuskegee he was promoted to first lieutenant (June 12, 1939) and to captain (September 9, 1940). From February 1941 until May of that year he had "the pleasant assignment," in Richardson's phrase, of being aide-de-camp to his father at Fort Riley, Kansas.

Beginning flight training in May 1941, he was graduated with the first Negro air cadets from the Advanced Army Flying School in March 1942 and, after being transferred to the Air Corps the following May, was placed in command of the 99th Fighter Squadron at Tuskegee. Meanwhile, on March 1, 1942, he had been promoted to major and lieutenant colonel. The next year he went overseas with the 99th, and served as commanding officer of its fighter unit in the North African, Sicilian and Italian campaigns.

Following his return to the United States on October 5, 1943, he assumed command of the all-Negro 332nd Fighter Group at Selfridge Field, Michigan, and directed group training until January 1944, when he took the unit overseas and into combat as part of the 12th Fighter Command of the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces under General Ira C. Eaker. Equipped with the P-39 and the P-47, his unit "strafed enemy shipping and did low-level skip-bombing at Cassino, Anzio and other points in Italy."

On May 29, 1944, he was promoted to the rank of full colonel. "It was a happy moment for both father and son in September 1944," wrote Bontemps, "when Brigadier General Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. (see C.B., 1942), proudly pinned the Distinguished Flying Cross on the breast of Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., before members of the 332nd Fighter Group in Italy." The group was later assigned to the 15th Air Force, and by February 1945 it had completed 200 missions with the 15th "and had served as escort to heavy bombers without losing a single bomber to enemy fighters."

On April 16, 1945, according to a report in PM (June 27, 1945), Davis "led a strafing attack on railway targets in Austria, remaining

[[image - black & white photograph of Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.]]
[[photo credit: U. S. Air Force]]
[[caption: BRIG. GEN. BENJAMIN O. DAVIS, JR.]]

in the danger area for an hour to destroy locomotives and rolling stock. The action won him the Silver Star for gallantry--the first time it has been awarded to a Negro fighter pilot in the Army."

On June 21, 1945 Davis was placed by General Eaker in command of the 477th Composite (bomber and fighter) group at Godman Field, Kentucky, and about a month later he became field commander. The New York Times (June 25, 1945) remarked editorially that Davis' appointment marked "another first for the precedent-breaking Davises, father and son," pointing out that the younger Davis was "the first [Negro] to hold such an important command in the Army Air Corps. It is officers like the Davises," the editorial continued, "who have done much to break down prejudice within the Army officers' corps."

Assuming command of the Lockbourne Army Air Base in March 1946, Davis was charged with responsibility "for activities of the 55th Fighter Wing, the 82nd Troop Carrier Squadron, Army Air Force Reserves, Army Air Corps communications facilities, U.S. Air Force Weather Detachment, the 449th Signal Battalion, and the 332nd Fighter Wing." He retained this command until 1949.

Entering the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, in August 1949, Davis was graduated the following June. He then became a staff planning officer in the plans division of the office of the deputy chief of staff for operations at Air Force Headquarters, Washington D.C., until January 1951, when he was named chief of the fighter branch in the office. In July 1953 he entered the Advanced Jet Fighter Gunnery School at Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada. Joining the Far East Air Forces that November, he assumed command of the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing of the Fifth Air Force. A half year