Survey #20 Second Lieutenant, Washington Du Bois Ross

Washington Du Bois Ross

Survey #20 | Second Lieutenant, United States Army Air Forces | Tuskegee Airman | World War II

The first time Washington Du Bois Ross flew in an airplane, he was a boy growing up in Ashland, Kentucky. A group of barnstorming pilots had arrived in town, offering rides from an open field for a penny a pound. Ross, his younger brother, and his sister gathered their pennies and climbed aboard a Ford Trimotor.

As the three engines roared to life, the airplane began to shake and rattle. The children looked at one another, suddenly uncertain about their decision. But when the aircraft finally lifted off the ground, everything changed.

For seven minutes, Ross looked down on the town where he had grown up. When he returned home, he told his mother that if he ever had the opportunity to become a pilot, he would take it.

Years later, he would become one of the pioneering Black military aviators known as the Tuskegee Airmen, flying fighter aircraft over Europe during World War II.

Ross was born in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, a historically Black community, and was the fourth son in a family of five boys and one girl. His family later moved to Ashland, Kentucky, where he attended segregated elementary schools. He subsequently attended an integrated high school in Ohio.

His father was a teacher who pursued additional education, and Ross grew up in a household where schooling, discipline, and church were central parts of family life. Sundays meant Sunday school and services at the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Attendance was not a matter for discussion.

These early experiences gave Ross a particular understanding of the opportunities available to Black Americans—and the barriers that stood in their way.

When he attended Hampton Institute in Virginia, war was already underway in Europe. Although the United States had not yet entered the conflict, the federal government was expanding civilian pilot training programs at colleges and universities. Hampton was among the historically Black institutions participating in the effort.

Ross enrolled.

His first training aircraft was a Piper Cub, a small airplane that seemed almost like a toy compared with the larger aircraft he remembered from his childhood. Nevertheless, the opportunity fulfilled the ambition he had carried since that first flight over Kentucky.

Approximately fifty students participated in the program at Hampton, including two women, according to Ross's recollection.

The path from civilian flight training to military aviation, however, was obstructed by racial discrimination.

At the time, Black Americans were largely excluded from military pilot positions. Ross recalled the resistance of senior Army Air Corps leadership to the idea that Black men could become capable military aviators. He also remembered the pressure brought by civil rights advocates, political figures, and the Black press—including newspapers such as the Pittsburgh Courier, the Chicago Defender, and the Amsterdam News—to challenge that exclusion.

Eventually, the Army established a segregated military flight-training program at Tuskegee, Alabama.

Ross passed the required examinations and physical evaluation, but waited approximately a year before receiving orders. During that period, he worked at a Navy yard, where he observed military life from another perspective.

When his opportunity finally arrived, he traveled to Tuskegee.

His training progressed through primary, basic, and advanced flight instruction. Ross remembered that the primary program, operated by Tuskegee Institute, was staffed by Black instructors and personnel. At the Army-controlled facilities, however, white officers and instructors held authority over much of the training.

Forty-two cadets began his class. Many did not complete the program.

Ross's youngest brother also entered flight training but was eliminated during primary instruction because he could not master landing the aircraft. Ross remembered that their mother was relieved.

For those who succeeded, graduation meant receiving a commission as a second lieutenant and qualifying as a military pilot.

Ross completed the program as a fighter pilot.

His training introduced him to increasingly powerful aircraft, including the P-40 Warhawk and the P-39 Airacobra. Each had its own characteristics, and each required adjustments that could be unforgiving.

Ross remembered his first takeoff in the P-39 particularly well. Unlike the aircraft he had previously flown, its engine was positioned behind the pilot. As he accelerated down the runway, he watched the airspeed increase while the aircraft stubbornly remained on the ground. The fence at the end of the runway grew closer.

Unable to stop, he pulled back on the control stick.

The airplane shot upward.

He later recalled that nobody had warned him how differently the P-39 would behave. He learned its characteristics through experience, as pilots sometimes had to do.

Ross eventually joined the 332nd Fighter Group overseas, serving with the 302nd Fighter Squadron. By the time he joined the group in Italy, the Tuskegee pilots were engaged in combat operations in the Mediterranean theater.

His early assignments included patrols associated with Allied operations near Anzio and the advance toward Rome. The group flew several types of fighter aircraft before transitioning to the P-51 Mustang.

Ross had definite opinions about the airplanes he flew.

He admired the P-47 Thunderbolt for its power and combat capabilities. Its large radial engine and heavy armament made it, in his judgment, an excellent fighter. The P-51 Mustang, however, offered the range necessary for long-distance bomber escort.

When people later asked which airplane he preferred, his answer depended on the mission. For fighting, he favored the P-47. For escorting bombers, the P-51 was better suited to the task.

With the Fifteenth Air Force, Ross flew escort missions protecting American heavy bombers, particularly B-17 Flying Fortresses, as they traveled toward and away from targets in enemy territory.

The fighter groups could not always accompany the bombers for their entire journey. Instead, units coordinated their missions, with one group escorting bombers toward a target and another meeting them for the return flight.

Ross approached his assignment with a practical objective: complete the required combat missions and return home.

He and another pilot volunteered for additional assignments whenever aircraft and pilots were needed. By making themselves available to the operations officer, Ross was able to accumulate his missions more quickly.

Not every mission was equally dangerous.

One operation remained particularly vivid in his memory.

Ross was assigned to a low-level strafing attack against German positions near Marseille, France. Unlike bomber escort, which generally took place at high altitude, strafing required fighter pilots to descend toward defended targets, exposing their aircraft to concentrated ground fire.

As Ross approached, he could see flashes from German antiaircraft guns.

The sky ahead seemed to light up.

Recognizing the danger, he turned his aircraft around and returned to base. Only afterward did his crew chief show him where the airplane had been struck by enemy fire.

Ross had not realized he had been hit.

Other pilots on the mission were shot down, including fellow Tuskegee Airman Alexander Jefferson, who became a prisoner of war.

The experience reinforced Ross's dislike of low-level strafing missions. He had survived, but he understood how easily the outcome could have been different.

Interestingly, when Ross reflected on the most dangerous moments of his flying career, he did not necessarily think first of combat.

He believed some of his closest calls occurred in the United States.

On one training flight in a P-39, his engine suddenly stopped while he was approximately 5,000 feet above the ground. Ross suspected that carburetor icing may have been responsible.

He remembered an instruction repeated relentlessly by his first flight instructor: maintain airspeed.

With the engine no longer producing power, Ross lowered the airplane's nose to prevent a stall and searched for somewhere to land.

Near a small Michigan community, he found himself approaching a house and two trees. He maneuvered between the trees, shearing the wings from the aircraft.

He survived and walked away.

The incident attracted considerable attention from local residents and a newspaper reporter. Ross recalled that the reporter seemed surprised by his educational background and asked whether, growing up in Kentucky, he had picked cotton.

Ross responded with characteristic humor and impatience, pointing out that Kentucky was not known for cotton production.

The exchange was another reminder of the assumptions Black Americans encountered, even when their accomplishments should have spoken for themselves.

Ross returned to the United States in 1945.

He chose to fly home rather than travel by ship, passing through North Africa before eventually reaching Miami. After the war, he continued flying and trained on the twin-engine B-25 Mitchell.

He appreciated the B-25's reliability, range, and ability to continue flying on one engine. He also understood the risks of returning from high-performance fighter aircraft to less powerful training airplanes.

His aviation experience had taught him that confidence could be dangerous when it was not accompanied by judgment.

But the challenges Ross encountered after returning home were not limited to flying.

Despite his military service, college education, and experience as a combat pilot, he struggled to find professional employment in Detroit.

Ross had earned a degree in secondary education and wanted to teach. Yet opportunities for Black male teachers, particularly in high schools, were severely limited.

He applied to automobile manufacturers, including Ford and General Motors.

At Ford, he met with a personnel representative who acknowledged his qualifications but explained that the company could not offer him a position appropriate to his education and experience.

The only job available was sweeping floors.

Ross accepted it.

He was attending Wayne State University at the time and brought his textbooks to work. When the production line was operating and there was little opportunity to clean, he found a place beneath the bright factory lights and studied.

During breaks in production, he swept.

When the line resumed, he returned to his books.

He remained at Ford for approximately a year, witnessing the realities of automobile manufacturing during a period of major changes in vehicle design and production.

He eventually left the factory and worked for the United States Postal Service for approximately ten years.

In 1957, Ross entered the Detroit public school system.

The Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik had intensified national interest in mathematics and science education, creating greater demand for teachers in those subjects. Although Ross never received the high school teaching position he had originally sought, he built a long career in education, primarily at the junior high school level.

He ultimately worked approximately twenty-nine years in the school system, with additional credit for military service contributing to his retirement.

His wife, whom he had met while attending Hampton Institute, also became an educator.

She had previously worked in banking as one of the early Black tellers at First Federal. Ross encouraged her to use her college education in the school system, where the couple could enjoy more compatible schedules and pursue their shared interest in travel.

Together they raised four children—three sons and a daughter.

Travel became an important part of their lives, particularly after retirement.

Throughout his interview, Ross spoke with humor, precision, and an unmistakable willingness to challenge what he considered foolishness or injustice. He remembered the technical details of aircraft with the same clarity he brought to stories about factory work, education, and family life.

He also continued to speak publicly about the Tuskegee Airmen, explaining the distinction between the broad historical designation and the specific military units in which they served.

For Ross, the story was not simply about becoming a pilot.

It was about a generation of Black Americans who had to demonstrate their abilities in institutions that had already decided what they could not accomplish.

He had been trained in a segregated military, flown combat missions in defense of his country, and returned to a society that still denied him opportunities commensurate with his qualifications.

Yet he built a life defined by education, work, family, and an enduring enthusiasm for aviation.

The boy who gathered pennies for a seven-minute airplane ride over Ashland, Kentucky, eventually crossed oceans in military aircraft and flew some of the most recognizable fighters of World War II.

That first flight had shown him a world beyond the boundaries of the town where he grew up.

The rest of his life demonstrated how determined he was to reach it.