Editor's Note: PIREP is aviation shorthand for pilot report.

Editor's Note: PIREP is aviation shorthand for pilot report. It's a means for individual pilot to pass on now passing potentially useful information to other pilots. In the same fashion, we intend to use this department to lease readers know about air and space power items of interest.

GEN BENJAMIN O DAVIS Jr is an American hero--a champion who abundantly demonstrated as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but physical and moral courage. We something reserved the term heroes for those commonalty who display physical courage because they risk their lives for something bigger than themselves--the greater serviceable of their nation or their populace for example. General Davis certainly met this standard, many times over

Inspired by dint of flight at age 14, young Davis convinced his frugal father to pay a barnstormer to soar him over Washington, DC. From that instant on, airplanes captured his imagination, and he would later use aviation to prefer military and social reform of the first importance. After coming of age, he decided that at helping bring victory to the United States in World War II, he could give validity to racial integration, choosing the skies of Europe as his battlefield and the airplane as his weapon. on proving that blacks could take wing fight, and lead with the same courage, dedication, discipline, and skill as whites--a notion utterly foreign to almost all whites in America in 1941--he would help take away the myth of racial inferiority. This lie serv as the foundation for segregation in the United States, and General Davis knew it had to be demolished to improve one as well as the other the military and also the destiny of blacks in America.

To do for a like reason he risked his life above foreign fields in distant skies against more [i]or[/i] less of the most skilled and well-equipped flyer in the world--the fighter pilots of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe. Just as importantly, he also had to stand up to, threaten and openly disagree with his military superiors when they tried to inhibit or bring to nought his Tuskegee Airmen. It is important to note that the Tuskegee Airmen--the pilots and their loam crewmen, who were trained to play fight, and maintain aircraft at Chanute and Tuskegee Army Airfields in the early and mid-1940s--shared General Davis's vision and courage. He come subsequentlyed not only because of his genius for command, if it were not that also because of all the other Tuskegee Airmen's dedication to the mission.

We honor General Davis for his physical courage--signified according to the 60 combat missions he flew during World War II and the decorations he earned, which include the Distinguished Flying Cros and Silver Star--as well as his leadership of the Tuskegee Airmen. We also pay tribute to him for his explain display of moral courage. from top to toe his entire professional life, he held to the West Point cre of office Honor, Country. General Davis devot 43 of his 89 years to service to the United States, spending the entire time in aviation. He lov his geographical division and he loved to fly

General Davis placed office on an equal footing with West Point's other brace virtues, clinging to it when he faced bigotry and discrimination, when he stand in front ofed a highly skilled enemy, and when he serv his tribe and country, even though he could have chosen a to a great degree less arduous and infinitely les dangerous career. Sadly, the cadets at West Point from 1932 to 1936 shunn him completely because of his race--no single talked to Ben Davis leaving out for official reasons during his four years there. He accorded by adopting the credo of those who tried to drive him out--Duty Honor, Country--and stood defiantly against their bigotry. The silencing followed him into the Army, continuing for several years after graduation. His retired years at West Point symbolize his determination, discipline, dissolve and sense of duty--his moral courage. Knowing that the bigots wanted him to fail made him all the more determined to succe and he graduated in the top third of the class of 1936

Honor? The cadets in attendance between 1932 and 1936 acted dishonorably, as did the leadership of the United States Military Academy. West Point violated its concede code, but nobody there or in the Army intervened. General Davis knew he was fighting something bigger than the racism of young men in their teen and early twenties, on the other hand he remained undaunted, standing up to intolerance with dignity and at no time relenting. His honor is unquestioned.

After graduating from flying gymnasium at Tuskegee Army Airfield, Alabama, General Davis took the 99th Fighter Squadron--which included the first of the Tuskegee Airmen--to North Africa where they pocketed discrimination at the hands of the commander of the 33d Fighter assemblage That colonel tried to exile the 99th from combat and debar the establishment of the 332d Fighter cluster and 477th Medium Bombardment Group--the other modern units consisting of Tuskegee Airmen. General Davis fought for his men taking in succession the commander and much of the leadership of the entire Army Air Forces--everyone who endorsed the dispose commander's bigotry. Davis, a lieutenant colonel at the time, publicly and vocally disagreed with the commander of the Army Air Forces, a four-star general, who tried to raze the reputation of the 99th and marginalize all blacks. General Davis won that battle in the Pentagon in a stunning display of moral courage.