usual by an escort of fighter planes Each bomber had ten machine guns for defense but experience had shown the large lumbering bombers were not agile enough to protect themselves effectively from enemy fighters During this mission antiaircraft fire from the ground hit Scheib's bomber puncturing the oxygen tanks that supplied breathable air to four of the ten crew members The bombers were flying in formation at an altitude of 25 000 feet 7 620 m where the atmosphere was too thin to sustain the men Without oxygen the four crew members including the pilot soon passed out It would be only a matter of minutes before the men would suffer permanent brain damage and eventually death Luckily for copilot Scheib his oxygen supply was still working He was in charge now and he had to think fast What should he do If he stayed in formation the other bombers and their machine guns would protect his crippled plane and its crew from German fighters But he thought to himself If I stay here I'll take four dead guys back with me 1 For Scheib that was an unacceptable option The other possibility was to fly back to base at a much lower altitude Lower down oxygen masks were unnecessary But flying alone at a low altitude was very dangerous German fighters would easily spot Tail Heavy and see it was a straggler with no escort The Germans were known for attacking stragglers Scheib could revive his crew mates by flying lower but they might all pay a steep price for it if German fighters found them Scheib decided the risk was worth it He could not let his four comrades die He had to at least give them a chance So he waggled his plane's tail to let the
Sitting in the cramped cockpit beside the passed out pilot Scheib needed to think quickly to save his fellow
other bomber crews know he was leaving formation Then he steered Tail Heavy into a steep dive Ten thousand feet 3 048 m lower Scheib leveled out At 15 000 feet 4 572 m the air was rich with oxygen and his crew mates regained consciousness Scheib told all the men to put on their parachutes and be ready to bail out if German fighters pounced on them Scheib was on the lookout for German planes but what he saw next was something he did not expect Tail Heavy s flight engineer tapped him on the shoulder and pointed Scheib looked out the window and saw a P 51 Mustang The US fighter airplane had a tail painted bright red It was one of the Tuskegee Airmen known to other fliers as Red Tails The Tuskegee Airmen were an all African American unit of fighter pilots They had a reputation for protecting US bombers in the skies over Europe Where did this guy come from Scheib wondered The Red Tail had seen Scheib leaving formation and had followed him Soon another fighter showed up on his other wing A wave of relief washed over Scheib He knew he and his crew had a much better chance of surviving this flight now The presence of these two fighters announced to anyone watching that an entire escort squadron of fighter planes was nearby He felt nobody would dare mess with Tail Heavy knowing that Scheib was right His plane made it back to Venosa safely thanks in large part to its Red Tail escort But that was not the last time he would encounter the Red
D D K The Tuskegee Airmen sought to show African American pilots could fight just as well as their white
