First Assignment

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"I started out really as a photographer at an air base squadron at Tuskegee, Alabama. And incidentally at Tuskegee it was the training for black pilots. About 1,000 were actually given wings at this institution.

It really was not at Tuskegee Institute as much as it was an air field near there. I was there for my first six months in the Army. I was at Tuskegee. I'm a member of a group called the Tuskegee Airmen, which has a local chapter.

The 99 Pursuit Squadron and 332nd have a reputation and a record that no other pursuit squad had in the world. They never lost a plane to any of the fighter pilots. They escorted, and they were given a Presidential citation in '45, near the end of the war. Well, they also did such things as flying off that Angio Beach end, I think it was the 99th that was assigned to fly off that beach end, which was unbelievable. Actually, they train on a field similar to that in Tuskegee. They had a little small dirt field. And they used to do this in their training, take off in an old P47, lift the pressure on the wheel, dip one wing to the left and let one wheel come up and dip the other wheel and let the other wheel come off the ground. And that was one of their practices. One or two of them were killed in training, but as I say, they did graduate 995 pilots." 

Editor's Note:

Scott was assigned to the 318th Air Force Base Squadron at Tuskegee for the first six months of his training.