Day Twenty - 4th November

This part of the trip, we were travelling from Montgomery to Birmingham, pretty much the last stop on our personal trail of civil rights historical trail. However, we decided to detour out of the way to visit the historic airfield where the “Tuskegee Airmen” were trained during WW2.

The “Tuskegee Airmen” (a term that now encompasses the pilots. mechanics and in fact all support personal) were African-Americans who were trained and allocated to a segregated air combat unit during World War 2. The popular thinking amongst the southern white military leadership was that African-Americans did not have the abilities, temperament or courage to fly & fight in air combat, so this unit was created with the express intent to create a segregated unit and to “prove” the assumption.

Naturally, the assumption was complete rubbish and those pilots & crews gained a reputation for being proficient and effective fighter pilots, with a dedication to protecting the bombers they were escorting. Instead of racing off and looking for air combat victories (and this leaving the bombers unprotected) they stayed with the formation, so bomber losses were reduced when they were escorting the formations.  Their aircraft had distinctive red-painted tail surfaces so were known as “red-tailed angels”.

The airfield is about an hour’s drive east of Montgomery, and we could get there quickly following the I-85 until we had to make a turn off for the field.

The airfield is still active, indeed a lone Cessna was doing flight training when we arrived, and there are two main hangars with a few original outbuildings still extant. Where some buildings had been demolished, replacement open structures had been built to represent what had once been there.

The first hanger contains a Stearman PT-17 Kaydet and Piper J-3 Cub, two important aircraft as these were used for initial and advanced flight training. The hanger contains a number of displays and pictorial information plaques about initial training and how the support crews lived and worked on the aircraft. Interestingly, many African-American women were employed on the field as well in many support roles.

The second hangar focuses on the air combat and contains a P-51 Mustang hanging from the ceiling. There’s a number of films that play and what was particularly sad is that while these pilots were fighting for their country overseas, on return home they immediately had to subject themselves to a segregated society. A term was therefore coined, that of Double Victory, victory over Nazism and victory over segregation. It’s significant that shortly after the end of WW2, President Truman ended segregation in the armed forces.

As we had arrived there very early, there were only a few people there and the airfield and buildings are now part of the national parks service, and so entry is free. The US National Parks Service is a great organisation that manages and runs such diverse attractions like the Airfield, Grand Canyon, various Civil War battlefields and the Bahia Honda Park outside Key West. Entry is usually free although sometimes there’s a charge (or a car entry charge like at Vicksburg) but the cost is usually minimal, and often there’s a good visitor center, and the displays or exhibits are very good.

After about an hour and a half here, we decided to get back on the road and head to Birmingham, We had to double back on ourselves but were soon through the interstate system and on our way north. This drive would take about 1.5 hours and on the way were treated to seeing fields of cotton, both ready for picking and with huge cotton bales (for all the world looking like a giant bundle of cotton wool) in those fields that had been harvested.

Birmingham was one of the ‘battle grounds” for the civil rights movements during the 50’s and 60’s and there were so many bombings of churches during this time, it got the nickname “Bombingham”. The most notorious incident occurred in September 1963, when members of the KKK planted a bomb in the church offices. It went off later than expected and killed four young girls as they were getting ready for a church service.

Our hotel this time was a few km’s outside of the main center in a relatively new-ish suburb called Homewood. We found that were possible, staying on the outskirts of town and driving in when we need to can help keep down the hotel costs and usually getting into town in no great drama.

Finding the hotel was a bit of a mission (the GPS sending us in one direction when we actually needed to be going in the opposite direction) however we managed to get there and check in early. Usually check in is about 3pm, but so far we have been able to check in early and dump our bags.

Feeling a bit jaded from the travelling so far we decided to just hunker down and relax for the afternoon, although on the way in I (Joe) had seen across the parkway from us, a “Hobby Lobby” store. This is an arts & crafts chain that is a bit like Spotlight but which also has a kits / paints section as well, and as it was within walking distance, I figured I’d go visit it.

These mall type areas are not made for pedestrians – all the access is expected to be via car so to get to this place on foot, I had to walk on the grass verges all the way until I got to the 6 lane parkway that separated me from “Hobby Lobby”. Managing the traffic light sequence I managed to get across without too much drama, and went for a shufti. It wasn’t a bad place and I picked up a kit for a pretty good price. These malls are huge and I walked along the frontage for about 10 minutes and still hadn’t got to the end. It was another pretty hot day so after a while I retraced my steps, dodged parkway traffic and went back to the Hotel room.

One of the Birmingham attractions we’d wanted to visit was the “Vulcan Tower”. ‘The Vulcan statue is the largest cast iron statue in the world, and is the city symbol of Birmingham, Alabama, reflecting its roots in the iron and steel industry’ (Wiki), and offers spectacular views of the city. We decided to go there and catch the sunset, so setting the GPS to take us the “easiest” route, we set off. Our route took us through a lot of quiet, wooded, tree-laded suburbs which is not at all what we expected from this city, as we’d both imagined a rather grim & grey urban sprawl.

The access to the tower is pretty cheap, and the tower is open until 10pm. We went up and the platform around the top of the tower is an open grate, so is not one for those afraid of heights. The views though are stunning, and we were really surprised at how much the area is forested. It really was quite a pretty city and we enjoyed the views as the sun slowly went down.

We retraced our journey via the lovely leafy suburbs. The houses were a nice mix of new and older styles, and quite often there are no boundary fences between houses. There autumn leaves were falling and added a nice touch of colour as we drove through.