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99th Squadron
The Afro-American, July 17, 1943

Suffers First Losses
Two Planes

Eisenhower, Doolittle Congratulate Flyer Who Got First Nazi

Prize Was Sole Bottle of Coke at Advance Air Base; Five Other Generals Greet Tuskegee Flyers
By OLLIE STEWART
AFRO War Correspondent with U.S. Troops in North Africa
[Copyright. Republication in whole or in part expressly forbidden.]

ADVANCE ALLIED AIR BASE—(By cable, censored)—The 99th Fighter Squadron's first battlefront losses were suffered July 2 when two of its planes failed to return from a mission over Sicily—the mission on which 1st Lt. Charles Hall of Brazil, Ind., earned credit for the first positive destruction of a German plane.

One of the pilots of the missing U.S. planes is believed to be safe. The fateful encounter with German Focke Wulf 190's came while the Tuskegee-trained flyers were returning to their base after an early morning bomber-escort mission. Two other enemy planes were damaged and probably destroyed by 1st Lt. Charles B. Ryden of Bronx, N.Y., and 2nd Lt. Walter I. Lawson of Newton, Va.

Greeted by Eisenhower
Upon their return, Hall was given a party by his fellow pilots and warmly congratulated by Lt. Col. B. O. Davis, Jr., commanding officer of the squadron, who participated in the mission.

That afternoon, the entire squadron received the personal congratulations and handshakes of General Eisenhower, Allied supreme commander in North Africa; General Spaats, Air Marshal Cunningham and Generals Doolittle, Cannon, and Curtis.

This party visited our field and was received by Davis, Capts. George R. Roberts of Fairmount, W. Va.; and Lemuel Custis of Hartford, Conn., and Lt. Clarence Jamison of Cleveland.

Ask About Gen. Davis
Eisenhower asked Davis about his father, expressed great satisfaction over the work that the squadron is doing and asked one question for which all of us will remember him.

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