Dozens of Black pilots disappeared during WWII. Who are the men still lost?

What It Covers

NPR investigative correspondent Cheryl W. Thompson discusses her book *Forgotten Souls*, detailing 27 Black Tuskegee Airmen who went missing during WWII and the families still awaiting government acknowledgment decades later.

Key Questions Answered

• •Government neglect pattern: Of 27 missing Black airmen documented in Thompson's research, only 2 have been located in the past 8 years. Families report receiving zero contact from the U.S. government — no updates, no searches, no acknowledgment of their losses.
• •Racial disparity in search efforts: The segregated military's hostility toward Black pilots extended beyond combat. When airmen went missing over enemy territory, the government routinely cited danger as justification for abandoning search operations, a standard applied unevenly compared to white pilots.
• •Human cost of MIA status: Families of missing airmen — some now in their 90s, one daughter who was 3 when her father disappeared and is now 84 — report that the absence of closure, not just the loss itself, caused multigenerational psychological devastation for parents, siblings, and children.
• •Preserving personal correspondence: Thompson recovered letters written by missing airmen through relatives who inherited and retained them across generations. These documents reveal the men's pre-war identities — most were college-educated, aged 20–28 — and provide the primary evidence base for humanizing historical research.