American Veteran: Unforgettable Stories

KLAY: In the Spring of 1944, Harold Brown flew his P-38 fighter in close to an enemy German train, raking it with machine gun fire. As he pulled away, the train exploded, and his plane was damaged. He bailed out, and was quickly captured…by the people he’d just attacked. 

BROWN: Well, long story short, they bring me back to the place where we had been strafing, and I was met by perhaps 35 of the most angry people I've ever met in my life. There's no doubt murder's on their mind, and I knew precisely what they're thinking and what they were going to do. Something bad is going to happen in a very, very short period of time.

KLAY: From Insignia Films and PRX for GBH, this is American Veteran: Unforgettable Stories. I’m Phil Klay. I’m a veteran myself. I served in the Marines in Iraq from 2007-2008. Now I write books about war. In each episode of this podcast, we hear one American vet tell us: Who they were before they joined, what they did, and who they became. These are their stories.

BROWN: Well, both my parents were born in Alabama.

KLAY: Harold Brown’s story begins with the Great Migration, when millions of Black Americans fled the Jim Crow South. 

BROWN: My father was born in Jenifer, Alabama. My mother was born in Talladega.

KLAY: His parents came North before they even met. And each of them brought with them their own stories about why they left.

BROWN: My father was a big man, about 6'1, 6'2 inches tall, tall, slim guy. He goes into this hat store one day, and tries on a few hats, and none of them fit, so as he got ready to leave, the store owner said, now, John Brown, now, you tried on a few hats, you own those hats, so you got to pay for them and take them, and dad argued and said, no, but they don't fit, I don't want them. The sheriff comes down and said, now, John, you've been taught better than that, you know when you try on a hat, you own it, but they don't fit, and they said, okay, this time we'll let it go, but if you ever come in this store again and try on a hat, you own that hat. Well, that pretty much convinced my dad that I got to get out of this place so that's when he left Alabama.

KLAY: As a child, Harold’s mother had moved North with her mother, Harold’s grandmother. 

BROWN: My mother, she was the oldest of five children.

KLAY: They’d left behind Old Man Heath, Harold’s grandfather, along with four younger siblings. So when Harold’s mother got a bit older, she went back down South to reunite the family.

BROWN: My mother was quite young, 16, 17 years old, working, saved enough money, went back down to Alabama, Old Man Heath, who was her father, didn't even know that she was in town, went in with clothes for her four brothers and sisters, waited for them to leave the school, and she snuck them out of town and brought them back before he ever found out, because if he had known, he never would have allowed those children to go.

KLAY: Harold’s mother met and married his father in Minneapolis. Harold was born in 1924. He and his brother grew up in a very different racial environment than their parents did back in Alabama. 

BROWN: We had Polish people living across the street from us. We had Swedish people living on one side of us. We had Jewish people that was down on the corner from us, and right behind the house, we had two Latino families. We went to Blaine School, and at Blaine School, there were only three blacks there. If I didn't look in the mirror and know who I was (laughing) I would never know who I was, because it never showed up in the relationship I had with all my friends.

KLAY: Harold’s mother played some piano, and she had ambitions for him. She wanted Harold to become a pianist. So every day after school she made him practice for an hour…

BROWN: That went on until I was 11 years old in the sixth grade, and I woke up one morning, and I was going to become a pilot. Don't ask me how it happened. I have no idea, but that was it. I announced it to my mother, mama, I do not want to play the piano, I'm going to become a pilot. My mother looked at me and said, boy, are you crazy? When you come in from school, you get on that piano stool. Yes, ma'am. I defied her. I sat on the piano stool and just crossed my arms, and I refused to practice. Well, the piano teacher said, Mrs. Brown, Harold isn't practicing, so you're just wasting your money.

BROWN: Those were back in the days, you know, the little Piper Cubs put-put-putting along. Everybody's looking up, oh, there's an airplane and I thought that was the most fascinating thing in the world. As a matter of fact, when I turned 16, I managed to save 35 dollars, and flying lessons at that time was seven dollars an hour for dual instructions, and I gave him my 35 dollars, and that bought me five lessons.

KLAY: Harold didn’t want to just fly. He wanted to fly military aircraft. Now, in the late 1930s, there were no Black pilots in the military. But…World War II was looming. Pilots would be in demand. So the president made a decision...

BROWN: Roosevelt finally said, okay, that's it, in March of 1941, yes, we'll train one squadron consisting of 35 pilots and 27 aircraft , and then in July, they named the first class. And when they named the first class, oh, this was really getting exciting, you know, because initially I always took the view by the time I'm ready, they will have resolved all of the problems, and that's just the way it worked out. I graduated in high school in 1942. I was 17 years old. So, I immediately went down, applied, was accepted, and that was it.

KLAY: Harold and other Black applicants went to Washington DC, where only a small percentage of them would be selected for pilot training. It wasn’t because they were unqualified. It was because even with a war on, even with real life or death stakes that necessitated getting every qualified pilot up into the air, a lot of white people in and out of the military opposed allowing black men to be trained as pilots. So each training class was restricted to only one squadron of Black pilots--a quota, in effect.

KLAY: In December of 1944 he got the letter telling him he was in, and he was told to report..to Biloxi, Mississippi.

BROWN: Never been South in my life, had no idea, and my mother sets me down, now Harold, let's chit chat, this is how you have to behave, and I'm saying, oh, mom, come on. Now, if a white couple is walking down the street and you're coming up the street, you very politely step off the street, into the curb, and allow them to pass, those little kinds of things, and I'm sitting there laughing to myself, saying what is this jazz my mother's telling me, you know?

BROWN: So I take the train from Minneapolis to Chicago, from Chicago I'm now heading down to Nashville, Tennessee, get into Nashville, Tennessee around midnight, a little young 18-year-old nothing, walk up to the guy and said, sir, can you tell me on which track the train to Biloxi, Mississippi comes in on? He said, why, of course, he says, go right around the corner and the gentleman will answer your question for you. So, I went around the corner, and up comes the same guy, and he says, sir, can I help you? And I said what in the world? I said, yes, sir, can you tell me on which track the train to Biloxi, Mississippi comes in on? He says, well, that comes in on track number four. I said, well, thank you, sir, and I walked off, I saw the big sign, colored, and went around to the other one, white, and I said, oh, that's what Ma was talking about.

KLAY: Harold did his basic training in Biloxi. Then did his flight training at the Tuskegee Army Airfield. Only 30 pilots in his group made it through and he was one of them. In May of 1944, his unit, the 99th fighter squadron, with a large, all-Black support staff, was sent to Italy.

BROWN: Overseas, we were at Ramitelli. Our unit was totally segregated. We had no mixing, no nothing. We had our own base, everything.

KLAY: Their squadron flew P-51s, or Redtails as they were called because of the distinctive red paint on the tails. Their job was to protect bombers on raids up north…

BROWN: The Germans would either attack you before or right after. No one attacks you going into the target. We would fly around. Periodically, you might see a big explosion, and you say, uh oh, there goes a bomber. Guys are screaming over the bombers, hey, I got two engines out, fighter cover, fighter cover. They're screaming for fighter cover. It is a disorganized mess.

KLAY: The Tuskegee Airmen performed superbly. They got a reputation among the bomber crews, who were all white. 

BROWN: They nicknamed us the Red Tail Angels because we never went off and left them, unless, of course, they were attacked, and then of course we obviously engaged the enemy. Now, after you fly so many missions, you would go on rest and recuperation, and most of us went over to Naples, and we all had nice, big, beautiful hotels and whatnot, and you stay over there for one week, and you would periodically, you know, run into bomber pilots, and they would come up, oh, are you one of the Red Tail fighter pilots? Yeah. Let me buy you a drink. But that was the only, only contact that we ever had.

KLAY: While their main job was to protect bombers, occasionally the 99th would attack targets on the ground. There was one busy railway corridor running northwest toward Linz, in Austria. When Allied bombers were overhead, the trains would shelter in tunnels, until the coast was clear. One day, on a special mission, the 99th caught the Germans by surprise…

BROWN: And it was just loaded with railway traffic, and we said, oh, look what we got. It was like throwing the fox in the briar patch, and you could just hear the guys, I just got one, did you see that one blow up, oh my god, all kinds of chatter was going on, and we were just having a field day. I was with the lead flight with Major Camon. Cam looks down and said we missed one, look at that big locomotive down there, come on, Harold, let's go get them. We go down on this last one. He's in front. I can see the smoke coming from his guns. All of a sudden, he says I'm out of ammunition. I said I got some bullets. So, he pulls off. So, here I am going in on this locomotive, and I got that locomotive lit up like a Christmas tree, because every time a bullet hits, you get a nice splash, and I got close, and I said why doesn't that thing blow up, why doesn't it blow up? And then I thought, I got to get out of here. So, just as I pulled up, that's when it explodes, and my engine was damaged. I pulled up, and I saw my oil pressure going to zilch. Then I lost my coolant and all of my coolant came across my windshield. It would be just a matter of seconds--the airplane was going to freeze up.

[MID-ROLL]

BROWN: They always briefed you, stay with your airplane as long as possible, never go down in a target area for the obvious reasons. Those people are upset. So, I did get a little ways from the target, but not that much. The engine didn't run far enough, so I pulled it up, bailed out, and I was in the chute. I land in snow, very, very deep, went down into a small wooded area. A few minutes later there were a couple of guys up on the top of the hill. They jumped off their skis, pulled rifles out. So, I threw my hands up, and I threw my gun away. They bring me back to the place where we had been strafing, and I was met by perhaps 35 of the most angry people I've ever met in my life. And they're hollering, screaming.

BROWN: So there was one guy in the crowd. I saw him in the back, but I didn't pay any attention to him. Next thing I knew, I felt a hand on my shoulder. He pulled me back, stepped in front of me, put a round in his rifle, and held the rifle on that mob. Now, he's a constable there. He knows everybody in the crowd. He could've had a relative in that crowd, but he said no, and they are screaming at him. Their fists were balled, and they're screaming in German, and he's hollering back at them. Of course, I don't know what they're saying. So, we slowly backed up into a pub, just a short ways back up a block or so. We go in the pub. He threw everybody out. We barricaded ourselves in there. And it was starting to get dark, and sometime around midnight, you know, they started slowly dispersing. We went out the back way. We walked about 4 or 5 kilometers or so down to the next village.

KLAY: Harold was finally safe from the mob. Now he just had to survive life as a prisoner of war. 

BROWN: I just felt all alone, frightened to death, and, the next day, I hear a mission, I could hear the big bombers, as they flew over. I hate to admit it, but I said, geez, I just might have company tonight. And they did bring in the crew around midnight who had bailed out of a bomber. And they brought the 10 of them in, and there were 3 or 4 jail cells there, and they put 3 or 4 in each one. Now I got company.

KLAY: The bomber crews as we said were all white. He was the only black prisoner there, and yet, there was comfort in his fellow Americans. Over the next week Harold and the 10 men of the bomber crew were transported north, into Germany, to a prison camp on the outskirts of Nuremberg…

BROWN: It was a great big huge camp, and there were 10 thousand of us in Nuremberg. Within the camp itself, you have one small section of building with barbed wire, another one here, another one here. Whenever they bring a new prisoner, everybody's hanging on the fences, like, hey, what outfit were you in, you know, what's the news and whatnot. We come to this particular compound that I'm assigned to, who do I see hanging on the fence, but George Iles, my dearest friend.

KLAY: George Iles was another Tuskegee Airman. Iles had been shot down on February 25, just a few weeks before Harold. Reunited as POWs, they helped each other out under very dire, very chaotic circumstances…

BROWN: What kept us alive was the Red--International Red Cross got us food parcels. I teamed up with Iles so instead of opening a can, and I a can, we'd open up one can and save a can. The Germans didn't have anything. They couldn't even feed themselves. They would bring in what looked like a garbage can full of hot water, it looked like. They'd call it soup, but there's never nothing in it. On this one day, we got in the soup. We said, oh, boy, it's loaded with beans. I said, oh, man, and everybody was just so happy. Then as they started scooping it out, the beans was breaking loose, and every bean had a little weevil in it. There's a group of us all standing around. Iles looks at me. He says what do you think, Harold, and I said, oh, man, he's, I don't know if I can handle this, Iles. He said, now, remember, Harold, that's protein, and protein's healthy for us. I'll never forget that. I said let's go for it. We ate the first bowl, and the guys were standing around watching Iles and I eat this first bowl. They said what? Then they all jumped in and got it.

KLAY: Harold thinks he and Iles were the only black men in that POW camp. They weren’t segregated from the others, as they had been back at the base.

BROWN: The first time I was integrated was in a POW camp. That's (laughing) that's a sorry commentary, but that was the truth.

KLAY: This was the spring of 1944. German defenses were collapsing. The POWS were moved from Nuremberg, away from the advancing American Army.

BROWN: We knew that they were getting close because out in the background, at night, we could hear the guns and whatnot, and even the guards was telling us, well, you'll soon be liberated, Patton and his Third Army is just X number of miles, and they were getting ready to leave because if he gets too close, they had to get out of there.

KLAY: The Third Army did get too close, and the Germans did get out of there. After just a few weeks as a POW, Harold watched American tanks, led by General George S. Patton, roll into the camp.

BROWN: About two or three tanks back it’s his spotless jeep, and there's a mob. I was fortunate enough to be reasonably close, because if you can imagine the thousands of people, many people could hardly even see him that was way in the back, but here he is standing on that little jeep, with his hands on his hips, and his mouth is running, I'm on my way to Berlin, and when I get to Berlin, I'm going to get that dash, dash, dash and everybody's hollering, screaming Every word he says, they're hanging onto it, yay Patton, and if you can imagine umpteen thousand hungry POWs howling and screaming, you're talking about the day of jubilation. And I'm certain that Patton was in second heaven overlooking all these prisoners that he has just liberated. He had to feel pretty good about himself, also.

KLAY: So the war, for Harold Brown, was over. It took months, but eventually he was shipped out of Europe and back to the United States. He’d served his country, been a POW, but it was still 1940s America. During the war, Langston Hughes had written a poem that asked,

‘How long I got to fight

BOTH HITLER — AND JIM CROW.’

KLAY: Now Hitler was gone, but Jim Crow was still there.

BROWN: We got off the boat, everything was the same. Patrick Henry was still a segregated base, no changes, no nothing, just the way I left it. I got on the train and went back to Minneapolis.

KLAY: Harold actually stayed in the service and was stationed in air bases throughout the country. Remember it was his lifelong dream to fly, and at that time there was no better place for him to do that than right where he was, segregation or no. 

KLAY: In 1947, the Army Air Corps became the United States Air Force, so now there were four branches of the military. Then, in 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed orders to desegregate the entire military. One of the largest, and most valorized institutions in America was suddenly on the forefront of civil rights. It affected Harold almost immediately…at least, in one half of his life. 

BROWN: So, I lived in an integrated base in the military, leave the base and went home to a segregated civilian life. So, I had both sides of it.

KLAY: At the time the United States was not directly engaged in a war. But the Cold War had begun, and a large standing military remained in uniform. The Air Force sent Harold back to school, to Biloxi, Mississippi, to study electrical engineering. And when the Korean War started, in 1950, Harold served yet again. Not as a pilot this time. Instead he installed radar systems up and down the Korean peninsula. 

BROWN: If the Koreans got too close, the MPs are coming, get out of here right now, they have broken through, we jump in our Jeep and head south, and there were several times that that happened.

KLAY: After the Korean War, Harold got back to doing what he loved…flying planes, including some of the most advanced military jets of the day...

BROWN: I was flying the B-47, the big six-jet engine bomber for the last 10 years, and that's when it dawned on me, I fulfilled my dream, you know, Harold, there's more to life than pushing six throttles, and I said, no, I've had enough, I'm going to retire. So, I retired 40 years old and 23 years of service.

KLAY: Harold retired in 1965 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He got a doctorate in education, and eventually became vice president of Columbus State Community College in Ohio. His long service in the military, he says, made it all possible.

BROWN: I grew up in a hurry. I never would have had some of the responsibility had I not been in the service, but I got a tremendous level of education, and I had more responsible jobs, big jobs, very important jobs, and that really had me prepared. When I left, going out in civilian life is really a piece of cake.

KLAY: I remember a Marine veteran once telling me, the benefit of having served in combat is that no matter how tough things get in your civilian life, you can always think, Hey, at least I’m not back in Iraq. 

KLAY: Harold retired from academia in 1986. With his wife he wrote a memoir, “Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story of a Tuskegee Airman,” which was published in 2017. 

KLAY: It took a few decades, but popular culture finally got around to celebrating the accomplishments of the Tuskegee Airmen. There were history books and documentaries and even an HBO feature film from 1995 starring Laurence Fishburne.

Audio: “If I had I’d pin some wings on me…”

“You fellas on your way to Tuskegee?” “Yes Sir..” “(LAUGHS) You too?” “ Finally..”

KLAY: In the meantime, the country did change. About 15 years after Truman integrated the military, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were signed into law. But for Harold, the example set by the Tuskegee airmen was crucial to the long, painful, and ongoing process of bringing full citizenship to Black Americans…

BROWN: We led the whole integration with the Tuskegee airmen, and it was only because of our outstanding record. If we had not done that, I don't know what would've happened.

Audio: “Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter!”

BROWN: I don't even recognize America now when I compare it to what it was back yonder. Oh, we still have a ways to go, don't misunderstand me. Yeah, we still got problems to be resolved, but when I think of where we came from and where we are today, there's just no comparison to what it is today as the way I remember it when I was a young man going off to war.

[CREDITS]

KLAY: American Veteran: Unforgettable Stories is a production of Insignia Films and PRX for GBH. The lead podcast producer is Curtis Fox, the composer and sound designer is Ian Coss, and the executive producers for Insignia Films are Amanda Pollak and Leah Williams. Kathleen Horan did the interview with Harold Brown. Thanks to Matt Gottesfeld for his research. For GBH, Devin Maverick Robins is managing producer, and Judith Vecchione and Elizabeth Deane are executive producers. 

KLAY: Funding for American Veteran: Unforgettable Stories was provided by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding was provided by The Wexner Family Charitable Fund, Battelle Memorial Institute, JPMorgan Chase, and Analog Devices.

KLAY: If you like what you’ve heard please help us get the word out--tell your friends and family, post a link to the podcast on social media, write a review in the Apple podcast store. For more powerful memories from veterans, visit PBS.org/AmericanVeteran, where you can also watch the American Veteran television series and digital short films. You can also learn more by using #AmericanVeteranPBS. 

I’m Phil Klay. Thanks for listening.

<NARRATION> Harold Brown, whose story you just heard, passed away on January 12, 2023 at the age of 98. His legacy as a Tuskegee Airman, POW, and trailblazer in military integration lives on through his words and the impact he had on American history. We remain grateful for his service, his perseverance, and his willingness to share these important memories.

[GBH sting] 

Note: Red text denotes Archival Transcription.