Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.

Military leader

• Born: December 18, 1912
• Birthplace: Washington, D.C.
• Died: July 4, 2002
• Place of death: Washington, D.C.

The second African American general and the first to attain four-star rank, Davis, like his father, pushed the boundaries of military segregation to become a commanding officer and combat aviator. His wartime service with the Tuskegee Airmen advanced the U.S. Air Force’s racial integration, which he also helped to plan and implement.

Early Life

Born on December 18, 1912, in Washington, D.C., Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., was the second child of Elnora and Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., an Army officer who went on to become a brigadier general. In accordance with the elder Davis’s duty assignments, the family frequently relocated, residing in Arizona, Wyoming, Ohio, and—during his father’s overseas tours—in the District of Columbia with grandparents Louis and Henrietta Davis. Three years after Elnora’s death in 1916, Davis’s father married university instructor Sadie Overton.

In 1920, the family moved to the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, where Davis joined his father, stepmother, and sisters on the porch in silent protest of a nighttime Ku Klux Klan parade. Upon his father’s reassignment to the Ohio National Guard in 1924, the family moved to Cleveland. In 1929, Davis graduated from Cleveland’s integrated Central High School, going on to attend Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Western Reserve University in Cleveland. In the summer of 1930, he accompanied his father to France on a tour with the Gold Star Mothers, an association of women who had lost sons or daughters in World War I.

Determined on an Army career, Davis sought the nomination of African American congressman Oscar DePriest of Chicago to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. With DePriest’s sponsorship, Davis entered West Point in 1932. There he endured four years of social ostracism by his white peers, who never spoke with him except when duty required—a practice known as “silencing”—and refused to room or eat with him. In 1935, he applied for admission to the Army Air Corps but was rejected because of his race. The next June, Davis graduated ranked 35th in his class of 276 cadets. He became the fourth African American graduate in the entire history of the U.S. Military Academy, as well as its first African American graduate in the twentieth century.

Upon his graduation, Davis married New Haven schoolteacher Agatha Scott in the Cadet Chapel at West Point. The couple had no children.

Life’s Work

In September, 1936, Davis commenced duty as a second lieutenant with the Twenty-fourth Infantry Regiment at Fort Benning, Georgia. There, as at West Point, the Army community shunned him. In 1937-1938, he studied at the Infantry School, which he entered two years earlier than his West Point peers. Hoping for regimental service, Davis was disappointed by his next assignment—professor at the Tuskegee Institute—as this suggested that his military career might consist of non-command placements selected to avoid giving a black officer authority over white soldiers. In 1939, Davis was promoted to first lieutenant, and in 1940, to infantry captain. When his father took command of the Fourth Cavalry Brigade at Fort Riley, Kansas, in 1941, Davis joined him as his aide.

Ordered by the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration in 1941 to create an African American air unit, the Air Corps—which had rejected Davis in 1935—wrote to request his application. That year, Davis went to Tuskegee, Alabama, to train with the newly formed Ninety-ninth Pursuit Squadron (popularly known as the Tuskegee Airmen), which he served as commandant of cadets. He received his wings as an Air Corps pilot in March, 1942, and two months later received simultaneous promotions to major and lieutenant colonel. He commanded the Ninety-ninth Squadron in combat missions over Sicily until October, 1943, when he returned to the United States to train the newly formed 332d Fighter Group.

On returning to the United States, he found that War Department criticisms of the Ninety-ninth Squadron’s performance in Italy threatened the future of African American aviators in combat. Addressing the War Department Committee on Special Troop Policies, Davis defended the Ninety-ninth’s record, arguing that initial inexperience and a manpower shortage—not race—were responsible for any mishaps. In January, 1944, Davis redeployed to Italy with the 332d; in June, 1945, he assumed command of the 477th Composite Bombardment Group.

When President Harry S. Truman’s Executive Order 9981 mandated the desegregation of the U.S. armed forces in 1948, Davis was summoned to help the Air Force formulate a plan for racial integration. When this plan took effect in 1949, Davis presided over a screening board that assigned African American officers to formerly all-white units.

After attending the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, in 1949-1950 as the only African American officer in his class, Davis worked as a staff planning officer at the Pentagon. In 1953, he deployed to Korea as commander of the Fifty-first Fighter Wing. Transferred to Tokyo in 1954, he directed operations and training in the Far East Air Force (FEAF). That October, he received a promotion to brigadier general.

As a general officer, Davis subsequently served as vice commander of the Thirteenth Air Force and commander of Air Task Force Provisional 13 in Taiwan (1955-1957); chief of staff of the Twelfth Air Force in Germany (1957); deputy chief of staff, operations, for the U.S. Air Force in Europe (USAFE) in Germany (1958-1960); U.S. Air Force director of manpower and organization (1961-1965); chief of staff of the United Nations command and U.S. forces in Korea (1965-1967); commander of the Thirteenth Air Force in the Philippines (1967-1968); and deputy commander in chief of U.S. Strike Command in Florida (1968-1970). In 1959, Davis was promoted to major general (two stars) and in 1965, to lieutenant general (three stars).

After retiring from the Air Force in 1970, Davis briefly served as Cleveland’s director of public safety and also as a member of the Campus Unrest Commission, which formulated policy on governmental response to campus protests. Subsequently, as U.S. director of civil aviation security (1970-1971) and assistant secretary of transportation for safety and consumer affairs (1971-1975), Davis helped to establish air security procedures in response to the threat of hijacking.

In 1998, Davis received a final promotion to the rank of general (four stars). He died in Washington, D.C., on July 4, 2002, and was buried near his father in Arlington National Cemetery.

Significance

As the U.S. Military Academy’s first African American graduate of the twentieth century and the U.S. military’s second, and highest ranking, African American general, Davis, like his father, broke long-standing barriers against the promotion of black soldiers to positions of military leadership. During World War II, he commanded squadrons of Tuskegee Airmen, whose combat record challenged racial stereotypes and furthered racial integration within the armed services—particularly the Air Force, which desegregated before the other branches. Davis himself assisted the Air Force in drafting and implementing a postwar desegregation plan. His achievements and skill contributed to far-reaching changes in the organization and culture of the U.S. military.

Bibliography

Davis, Benjamin O., Jr. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., American: An Autobiography. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. Packed with detail, Davis’s autobiography reflects on his personal life and career through 1989.

Earl, Sari. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.: Air Force General and Tuskegee Airmen Leader. Edina, Minn.: ABDO, 2010. Written for younger readers, this biography details Davis’s extensive military career.

Osur, Alan M. Blacks in the Army Air Forces During World War II: The Problem of Race Relations. Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1977. Osur’s scholarly work examines the role of Air Corps leadership in negotiating wartime racial conflicts.

Sandler, Stanley. Segregated Skies: All-Black Combat Squadrons of World War II. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992. Situates Davis’s World War II career within the broader narrative of the Tuskegee Airmen’s training and combat service.