Colorado Springs WWII Aviation Museum featured on History Channel documentary Wednesday
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- A documentary on the historic Tuskegee Airmen, airing at 6 p.m. Wednesday on History (the cable network also known as the History Channel), will have a strong emphasis on Colorado Springs.
The hourlong documentary, titled Tuskegee Airmen: Legacy of Courage, will include a visit to the city's National Museum of World War II Aviation and its Tuskegee Airmen exhibit honoring the first group of Black pilots to train and serve in the military.
Gene Pfeffer, the museum's curator and historian, explained how the History crew's visit went.
"First of all, they wanted to get an overlay about what we were about in the museum, and then focus down on the redtails (planes) and the Tuskegee Airmen displays that we have," he said. "Then we sat down near the exhibits and did a question and answer session for an hour or so. When they saw everything that we have here, they decided to include more of the museum in the documentary."
Also included in the documentary is the late Lt. Frank Macon, one of the Airmen, who lived in Colorado Springs and died at age 97, a few days before Thanksgiving.
Macon was interviewed for the documentary while a History crew spent two days in Colorado Springs working on the documentary late last year.
KRDO NewsChannel 13 was with Macon at the Colorado Springs Airport on the 75th anniversary of D-Day in 2019 when, at age 95, he flew a vintage WWII T-6 plane provided by a local restaurant owner.
Macon also donated a plane he owned, a Stinson V-77, to the museum and the aircraft is among the museum's collection.
Robin Roberts, anchor of ABC's Good Morning America, produced and narrated the documentary. She was born in Tuskegee, Alabama and her father was an Airman.
Macon was one of two surviving Airmen in Colorado. Fewer than 50 of the original 14,000 Airmen are believed to be still living.
Mark Dickerson is a retired Air Force colonel who heads the local chapter of Tuskegee Airmen, Inc., one of many chapters across the country meeting regularly to honor and remember the Airmen.
"The documentary does exactly what we -- as part of our chapter, and as part of the national organization -- want to do," he said. "Remind people to keep the word on the surface, rather than have it slowly burrow down into people's memories. And one thing that people don't realize is we're not talking about just the pilots. We're talking about ground crews, support crews. They all sacrificed in a segregated society to do the only thing they wanted to do, which was to serve their country."
