Marion Rodgers

Marion Raymond "Rodge" Rodgers USAF (b. 1923) was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African-American military pilots who fought in World War II and were the first African-American military aviators in the armed forces. He served the military for 22 years, becoming a Lieutenant Colonel and commanded the renowned 99th Squadron of "Red Tails" after combat. In 2007, the Tuskegee Airmen were collectively awarded a Congressional Gold Medal at a ceremony in the U.S. Capitol rotunda. In his nineties, as one of the last surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen, Rodgers was honored at several public events.

Early life and education

Rodgers was born in Detroit, Michigan, September 23, 1921. Until about the age of eight, he lived with his mother, Lois Rodgers, in Dublin, Georgia. In 1929, he moved to Roselle, New Jersey to live with cousins and an older brother, Raymond Rogers, who raised him until after high school. His interest in aviation started in Roselle when he was about nine years old, as he observed men who were running an auto repair garage nearby restore a damaged biplane. Rodgers developed a fascination with aviation, but there were few opportunities at that time for African-Americans to enter the field.

World War II

When World War II broke out, a program was announced to allow African-Americans to apply for flight training, so Rodgers, though only a high-school graduate, applied. His I.Q. was 139 and he passed all the aptitude tests given the recruits. He was selected but couldn’t go immediately. Tuskegee was limited in funding to support all the selectees and he was in the Army anti-aircraft artillery for about three months as a Radar Operator, guiding the 90 millimeter shells to hit aerial targets. Then he got called not to Tuskegee but to Keesler Field, along with 200 other back-logged aviation Cadet-Selectees for basic training again.

Finally, they went to Tuskegee, the institute, as students. In May 1943, he was sent to Pre-Flight Training at Tuskegee Army Air Field. "What an experience that was!" Rodgers recalled. " Preflight was difficult. Heads were shaved, West Point-originated verses memorized and recited and upper class-men exercised and tested their commitment. The recruits went to ground school every day for military customs, leadership, discipline, navigation, aeronautics, radio code, fuel management, weather, aircraft recognition, mathematics, physical fitness, etc."

Primary flight training in PT-17 (220 horse power) Stearman Biplanes at Moten Field. Charles “Chief” Anderson was the instructor for all black pilots. Rodgers flew the PT-17 65 hours. Then back to Tuskegee Army Air Field and closer military scrutiny, while they flew the Vultee BT-13A (450 horse power) for 80 hours in what was called basic training. It had much more power than the PT-17. It was easy to land, but challenged them in other ways, such as acrobatics and navigation. The advanced phase for the next two months included the AT-6 (550 horse-power), was much harder to land but easy to ground loop. Success awarded Second Lieutenant coveted Silver Wings. Rodgers was quoted in a biography prepared by Commemorative Air Force in its Red Tail project, as saying, "I made it, somehow, and was very proud. It was a segregated program. All the instructors in Basic and Advanced Training were white, but most were fair and conscientious. A few should have been somewhere else. " Rodgers flew the P-40 (single engine fighter with 1150 hp) for eight hours, then shipped to Selfridge Field, Michigan for combat replacement Pilot Training in the P-39 Bell Aerocobra (1150 hp) for 101 hours and the P-47 Thunderbolt (2000 hp) for five hours.

Ramitelli, Italy was the next destination to join the 99th Fighter Squadron to fly P-51 Mustangs, the best fighter built during WWII. In 69 combat missions, He flew 370 hours. The pilots flew escort for B-17s and B-24s with occasional strafing and reconnaissance missions. Rodgers became commander of the 99th Fighter Squadron at Lockbourne Air Base in Ohio for a year before the Air Force was integrated. He was appointed by Bill Campbell who had followed Chappy James as commander of the, previously, all African American Squadron.

Specific Missions Flown

In an interview, Captain Marion Rodgers described the August 12 mission in Southern France, August 12 and 14, 1944, by the 332nd Fighter Group: "My most exciting missions were strafing missions in Southern France, Rumania, Hungary, and Germany. Tuskegee Airmen destroyed aircraft, locomotives, ammo and fuel dumps, box cars, trucks, and even radar stations. Their passes approached 600 mph and they were hundreds of miles from friendly territory."

On top of the world, protecting his country

“It was my first strafing mission," Rodgers told a biographer. "We went into the target area at 15,000 feet. I was number four man in the lead flight. Our leader brought us over the target, which were radar stations near the coast. Then he rolled his plane over on its back and went down on the target in almost a vertical dive. He was quoted as saying: "I had been nervous up to this time but when I started my dive it all left me. Now my attention was centered on bringing my ship out of the dive because it had gathered tremendous speed and the ground was rushing towards me. I still hadn’t located the target. I was slightly to the right of the ship ahead of me and I saw him veer off to the right rather sharply, but I followed the other ships ahead of me while still pushing my own ship through a near split S".

“As my ship leveled out about 50 feet above the ground, I had a glimpse of something that looked very much like the picture we had seen of radar stations. I had a chance to hold my trigger down for two seconds, then zigzagged out to sea on the deck. “When I returned to the base I found out that our flight of eight had lost two ships, one of them being the ship that had veered to my right. I had no vision of the flak." (1962-1985)

Later life

After World War II, Rodgers worked in the communications-electronics field. He worked in management for the NORAD/ADCOM and then "Space Command" communications-electronics duty requirements for 16 years, and as editor of the Communications & Electronics Digest, for NORAD. He made communications-electronics improvements to most major command, control and communications systems supporting the command mission.

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Proud to serve his country, Colonel Marion R. Rodgers with Hooks Jones Tuskegee Airmen in their red jackets.

Rodgers served in the Air Force 22 years on active duty, rising to the rank of LtC. He worked 17 years Civil Service and one year with NASA, on the Apollo 13 project (1980s).

Rodgers also worked for 20 years as a weekly host on KKTV’s “Involvement” series, interviewing local talent and civil rights leaders. He was the head of the Inter-Governmental Relations Committee and eventually served as the chairman for a Task Force on Metropolitan Government.

At age 92, Rodgers received media attention when he flew a P-51, by way of co-piloting, courtesy the "Wish of a Lifetime" Foundation.

Rodgers also participated in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) locally and nationally, along with his wife of 65 years, Suzanne T. Rodgers.

When the film "Redtails" was released in January 2012. Rodgers participated in several events of celebration, before and after the release. In an interview with the Denver Post about the film, Rodgers noted, “Our airstrips weren’t as nice as the ones shown in the film. ”

Awards and Commemorations

For his heroic actions during World War II, Rodgers was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Along with the other Tuskegee flyers from Colorado, Rodgers is honored at the Denver International Airport in a permanent exhibit with a poster size photo and his biography. The Georgia State Assembly has formally named the intersection of US Route 80 at US 441 Bypass in Laurens County after Tuskegee Airmen Colonel Major Herndon Cummings, Colonel John Whitehead, and Colonel Marion Rodgers. In 2014, The Non-Commissioned Officers Association gave Rodgers a World War II legacy medal.

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