Dozens of Black pilots disappeared during WWII. Who are the men still lost?
Up First (NPR)AI Summary
→ 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 INSIGHTS - **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. → NOTABLE MOMENT Thompson reveals her father was himself a Tuskegee Airmen cadet who washed out before flying due to landing difficulties — a personal connection that took years to motivate her to pursue the book rather than assign it to a colleague. 💼 SPONSORS [{"name": "AT&T", "url": "https://att.com/iphone"}, {"name": "Rivian", "url": "https://rivian.com"}, {"name": "Charles Schwab", "url": "https://schwab.com/oninvesting"}, {"name": "Babbel", "url": "https://babbel.com/npr"}, {"name": "NetSuite", "url": "https://netsuite.com/story"}] 🏷️ Tuskegee Airmen, WWII Missing In Action, Racial Segregation Military, African American History