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AIR
Sweet Victories
On the operations-tent bulletin board at a U.S. advanced fighter base in Italy good news was pinned up last week: an official commendation by Army Air Forces' Chief "Hap" Arnold. Reason for the commendation: the squadron had shot down eight German aircraft in one day, four in another. Score for three day's missions had totaled twelve kills, two probables, four damaged.
[[image]] 
Gabriel Benzur
MAJOR ROBERTS OF THE 99TH
He heads a good outfit.

Any outfit would have been proud of the record. These victories stamped the final seal of combat excellence on one of the most controversial outfits in the Army, the all-Negro 99th Fighter Squadron (TIME, Sept. 20).
Its pilots had survived disappointments, discouragements and months of routine operations in which they did not even sight an enemy. They had finally got their big chance flying over for the Allies' Nettuno beachhead, and they knew what to do with it.
Shooting It Out. Wiry Major George Spencer Roberts,* 25- year-old commander of the squadron, pulled at his pipe, told newsmen that so far as he and the boys were concerned, it was just a matter of getting an opportunity and jumping on it.
"We have not turned out to be super-duper pilots- but as good as the U.S. Army turns out," he said. "That's important. Because we had one handicap: peo-
*Successor to West Point-trained Lieut. Colonel Benjamin O. Davis Jr., who returned to the U.S. last September to organize the first all-Negro fighter group (three squadrons).
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TIME, FEBRUARY 14, 1944

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ple assumed we were not producing because we were Negroes. Our men have been under a strain because of the civilian attitude. It is remarkable that they kept up their morale. But now that we have produced, things have changed."
Before things changed, the men of the 99th had traveled a long, hard road. Training for the all- negro squadron had started back in July 1941. the program was experimental, and suffered accordingly; there were slights, snubs and delays. The men did their operational training in P-40 Warhawks, were finally organized as a squadron 18 months ago. They went to Africa last spring.
At first they showed no signs of setting the Mediterranean on fire: they were too new, too unsure of themselves. In one combat they destroyed a German plane and reported another probable, but two of their own ships were shot down. Some Air Forces officers began to lose what little confidence they had in the outfit, and reports of mediocrity began turning up in Washington.

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U.S Army Air Forces-Wide World
ARMY'S NEW P-38
On one engine, 300 miles an hour.

Sweating It Out. the 99th flew on, through a long series of monotonous missions, bomber escort or fighter-bomber jobs. For six months the men never saw a German plane. But the outfit was pulling itself together, acquiring confidence and smoothness, developing good flight leaders, and piling up combat time. When its chance came again, over  Nettuno, the squadron was veteran, well-led, sure of itself.
Now the 99th is in, and the men know it. They have the quiet, assured, professional air of any proved combat outfit. They look, talk and act like any other group of airmen with seven months' combat flying under their belts. Their ground crews are tops; their maintenance as good as any in the Air Forces.
Like other squadrons, they have their separate mess, quarters and administration. But at Red Cross clubs, movies, officer's clubs and post exchanges they mingle freely with white soldiers and have felt no particular race consciousness. Said a fellow flyer last week (a Missourian in a white squadron operating from the same base):
"They are a first-rate bunch, fighting the same war that we are."
The Air Corps regards its experiment as proven, is taking all the qualified Negro cadets it can get. Some are training with white cadets as bombardiers and navigators. A Negro B-26 bomber squadron is to be organized this summer.

Hotter Lightning
The Air Forces this week cited one example of a fact all airmen know; the first model of an aircraft is not the best model, by a long shot.
The example was the twin-engined Lockheed Lightning (P-38), one of the world's most versatile military aircraft. The big thing about the improved P-38 is that its Allison engines have been boosted 30%, past 1,500 h.p. (by a better turbo-supercharger system). Among the results: 
> The P-38, which has long been ferried across the Atlantic under its own power, now has even greater range, increased rate of climb, more ceiling (above 40,000 ft.), a lot more speed.
> On one engine, the P-38's top speed is more than 300 m.p.h.,a handy feature when a pilot has one engine shot out and has to streak for home.

MORALE
Scarlet Scourge
The patience of Army postal officers was at an end. They issued a stern edict: after St. Valentine's Day, imprints of lipstick will no longer be tolerated on V-mail.
Explained Major Kenneth H. Donnelly, postal officer of the Sixth Service Command: lipstick smears when it passes through V-mail photographic equipment, ruins the letter that bears it, and others that follow. The automatic feeder must be stopped and cleaned after every passing of "the scourge."
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TIME, FEBRUARY 14, 1944

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