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program started at the various black colleges and Tuskegee was the main one
because they had a pretty good environment there. And blacks came in with CPT

and taught individuals to fly. Like Chappie James, he went through CPT at
Tuskegee. And there were quite a few other individuals Roberts, (Spanky Roberts)
he went through CPT. I would say the first maybe ten or fifteen classes they went
through CPT they learned how to fly before they came to Tuskegee Institute where
the primary training took place. The primary training and learning how to fly the
old PT 17 and PT 19 aircraft. All of this happened right there at the Tuskegee
Institute with black instructors. But when they went over to the Air Base, when
you graduated from primary and went into basic you went to the Air Base. And
there were all white instructors there. The white instructors continued instructing
at the Air Base until there were sufficient pilots coming from back from overseas

and from Europe and they came in and gradually assumed the role of instructors.
And we got rid of all the white instructors.

Ivan: Can you tell me what the mood was like? I mean you weren’t there when the
switch over happened but what did you hear about the difference between the
switch? You know what it was like before with the white instructors and what it
was like afterward with the all black cadre?

Bob: Well there are many views of what was going on at that time. One of the major

views was that they had a quota, and that they can only graduate so many per
class as it went along. But apparently, this was the major aspect of it…some of
them said they had really good (white) instructors. They felt that they were there
to do a job and they would do a really good job and teach these guys how to fly
and get them ready for combat. So it was a, I would say the major difference was
that they had this... they thought that it was a quota system. And that was the
major emphasis on how many guys would graduate from cadet training.

Ivan: Okay.

Bob: And this went on right on up through, like my class we started out in primary with
a hundred and seventy-five and we graduated thirty-five.

Ivan: Wow.