History buffs had something special to watch for

in the New Year’s Day 2010 Tournament of Roses Parade prior to the 96th Rose Bowl football game. The theme for this year’s parade was "A Cut Above the Rest." The City of West Covina, a Los Angeles suburb, decided to use that to honor the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II.

Chris Freeland, deputy city manager for the City of West Covina and volunteer executive vice-president of the West Covina Rose Float Foundation, said, "This year we wanted to recognize the military, to have a military-themed float. As we did research into units in this area, we discovered that Los Angeles has one of the largest chapters of the Tuskegee Airmen Organization."

Sixteen surviving members of the World War II group rode on the float in the parade. California riders: Theodore (Ted) Lumpkin Los Angeles, Oliver Goodall - Altadena, Clarence (Red) Finley - Los Angeles, Wilbert (Bill) Johnson - Los Angeles, Jerry Hodges - Los Angeles, Lowell (C) Steward - Los Angeles, Dr. Robert McCoy (Rocky) Higginbotham - Rancho Mirage, Mitchell (Mitch) Higginbotham - Dana Point, Larry E. (Boon) Brown – Sacramento, Harlan Leonard - Riverside, were joined by: Dr. Thurston Gaines – Arizona, Isham “Rusty” Burns - Palm Desert, Robert “Bob” Ashby – Arizona,  Charles E. (Col Mac) Mc Gee - Maryland, Alexander Jefferson – Michigan and Dr. Granville (Duke) Coggs – Texas.

The airmen waved and smile while riding on the float with what appeared to be black-and-white photos from World War II which were actually created from seeds. Freeland said, to conform to the parade’s requirement that floats’ surfaces must be covered using only natural materials such as flowers, bark, seeds, etc.

The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of African American fighter pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps of World War II; the U.S. Air Force did not yet exist as a separate entity. The Army had resisted using black men as pilots but, in response to a pending lawsuit, conceded to creating a segregated unit for them.
Information from the Tuskegee Airmen Organization website and a guide prepared by their East Coast Chapter shows the group is credited with flying 15,553 sorties (one flight by one plane equals one sortie). Two of their pilots used only .50-caliber machine guns to sink a German destroyer.

For many years, it was believed that no bomber they escorted was ever lost to enemy aircraft, but recent research into flight records shows that was not the case. Their combat record was, nonetheless, remarkable.

In 1995, HBO presented an award-winning film based on their experiences, starring Laurence Fishburne, Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Cuba Gooding, Jr. To learn more about these courageous soldiers, visit the Tuskegee Airmen National Museum website.