A German Soldier Saluted a Black Pilot. His Own Country Didn't.

On August 12, 1944, Alexander Jefferson, a Tuskegee Airman from Detroit, was shot down over southern France. The first German soldier he met saluted him, because all he saw was the gold bar on his collar. This is the story of what came next: a Luftwaffe interrogation, a prison camp room shared with white American officers, a pool of Red Cross parcels, a winter march, and the letter in an Army magazine that asked the same question. Chapters 00:00 The Salute 01:04 From Detroit to Tuskegee 02:12 The Nineteenth Mission 03:40 The Crowd on the Train 04:55 Oberursel 05:46 Stalag Luft III 06:30 The Room 07:39 The Common Pool 09:55 The March 11:04 Moosburg 11:57 The Pier 12:15 A Letter in Yank 12:47 Why It Happened 14:03 After the War SOURCES Alexander Jefferson with Lewis Carlson, Red Tail Captured, Red Tail Free: Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman and POW, Fordham University Press, 2005 — Jefferson's own account of the shoot-down, the salute, the interrogation and camp life. Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 1929 (ICRC) — rules on treatment, rations and Red Cross parcels. Yank, the Army Weekly, April 28, 1944 — letter from Cpl. Rupert Trimmingham. Executive Order 9981, July 26, 1948 (U.S. National Archives) — desegregation of the armed forces. Congressional Gold Medal awarded to the Tuskegee Airmen, 2007 (U.S. Congress). National Air and Space Museum / National WWII Museum entries on the Tuskegee Airmen and Stalag Luft III — numbers of pilots and prisoners. Sources & Archives U.S. National Archives Internet Archive Wikimedia Commons Periscope Film Archival Footage Archival footage: U.S. National Archives, Prelinger Archives, Die Deutsche Wochenschau; some scenes use illustrative footage of the period, not the people named. How This Episode Was Made Original research and script by World War 2 Desk. Archival film, photographs, documents and other historical material from the U.S. National Archives, Prelinger Archives and other collections are re-edited to match the narration and combined with our own maps, document reconstructions and graphics. Some scenes use illustrative footage of the period to represent locations, events, equipment and environments described in the narration and are not necessarily footage of the specific people named. Sources are listed above.