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Forgotten Souls : The Search for the Lost Tuskegee Airmen
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Overview
NPR investigative journalist and the daughter of a Tuskegee Airman, Cheryl W. Thompson explores the stories of the 27 Tuskegee Airmen - the Black pilots who fought for America in WWII - who went missing in combat, the lives they lived, the reasons their planes went down, why the remains of all but two were never found, and the impact their disappearances had on their families and communities. In 1945, World War II ended one of the deadliest conflicts in history. Geared for battle were nearly 1,000 trailblazing Black pilots trained at the Tuskegee Army Air Field, an unrepentantly segregated facility in Alabama. Hailing from the Iowa cornfields to the Texas Gulf Coast to the tobacco plantations of North Carolina, the Tuskegee Airmen already proved, under the toughest circumstances, to be among the most resilient and defiantly patriotic men of the Army Air Corps. 27 of them disappeared during the final critical missions in Europe. So, too, would the government's efforts to find them or help to bring closure to the loved ones that the valiant 332nd Fighter Group left behind. In Forgotten Souls, award-winning investigative journalist Cheryl W. Thompson delves into the true stories of the Black combat pilots who faced unimaginable racism--before, during and after the war--from a military that told them they were less than, even as their courage and aviation prowess saved scores of White brothers-in-arms from the enemy and possibly death. As cruel as war itself could be, the friends, family, communities and fellow Tuskegee Airmen who mourned the lost pilots never imagined how unforgivable it could get. After 80 years, Forgotten Souls honors the impact they made, and the sacrifices they endured on America's behalf.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781496750778
- ISBN-10: 1496750772
- Publisher: Dafina Books
- Publish Date: January 2026
- Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.95 pounds
- Page Count: 240
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For decades, the family of Captain Lawrence E. Dickson tried to find his records. After Dickson’s plane went down in Italy in 1944, his family was told that his documents had burned in a fire, having been stored in a room that wasn’t fireproof and didn’t have sprinklers. “They didn’t want the records to get wet,” one archivist explained to author Cheryl W. Thompson. She fired back, “So they thought it was better to have them burn?” Dickson’s remains were found in 2011, but the U.S. government did nothing to retrieve them until 2017. The poor storage of his records and the slow recovery of his remains might be shocking unless you grasp the full story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the Black pilots of World War II whose actions “saved scores of their White counterparts from the enemy’s death grip.” Dickson was one of 27 Tuskegee Airmen who disappeared while on critical missions in Europe, and while most were never found, few were even searched for. In Forgotten Souls: The Search for the Lost Tuskegee Airmen, Thompson recounts their stories, as told by official documents, family members and airmen themselves. Thompson, whose father was a Tuskegee Airman, is an investigative reporter for NPR, having worked on multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning projects. For her book, she tracked down the remaining Redtails (a nickname inspired by the red paint on their planes’ tails) and the missing men’s family members. Many of her subjects were or are in their final years, and for that reason, she is indiscriminate about which details to share. After all, where else will these memories be preserved but within this book? And so Forgotten Souls is filled with stories that seem to repeat with each man—these were the sports he liked, this is what he liked to do as a child, here’s what it was like when his mother’s heart was broken. The repetition has a certain magnitude, with families ripped apart over and over. Thompson emphatically portrays the racism endemic to the U.S. military over decades, a thorny history of obstinate cruelty. She quotes a 1925 study by the War Department as an example, which calls Black men “mentally inferior” and “rank coward[s] in the dark.” The racism extends to the treatment of family members on the homefront: Dickson’s widow, Phyllis, wrote to the War Department for months after he was reported missing, but they didn’t even tell her he’d received the Distinguished Flying Cross. Forgotten Souls is a family affair. There are stories of dogfights, and a chapter on the racism involved in airplane assignments is interesting, even though the author’s knowledge of aircraft is limited. But Forgotten Souls isn’t about the airplanes; it’s about keeping memories safe. It’s a kitchen table with all the chairs pulled up and all the elders sharing their heartaches. Thompson keeps the record, and reading these men’s stories is one way to honor them and their families.
For decades, the family of Captain Lawrence E. Dickson tried to find his records. After Dickson’s plane went down in Italy in 1944, his family was told that his documents had burned in a fire, having been stored in a room that wasn’t fireproof and didn’t have sprinklers. “They didn’t want the records to get wet,” one archivist explained to author Cheryl W. Thompson. She fired back, “So they thought it was better to have them burn?” Dickson’s remains were found in 2011, but the U.S. government did nothing to retrieve them until 2017. The poor storage of his records and the slow recovery of his remains might be shocking unless you grasp the full story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the Black pilots of World War II whose actions “saved scores of their White counterparts from the enemy’s death grip.” Dickson was one of 27 Tuskegee Airmen who disappeared while on critical missions in Europe, and while most were never found, few were even searched for. In Forgotten Souls: The Search for the Lost Tuskegee Airmen, Thompson recounts their stories, as told by official documents, family members and airmen themselves. Thompson, whose father was a Tuskegee Airman, is an investigative reporter for NPR, having worked on multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning projects. For her book, she tracked down the remaining Redtails (a nickname inspired by the red paint on their planes’ tails) and the missing men’s family members. Many of her subjects were or are in their final years, and for that reason, she is indiscriminate about which details to share. After all, where else will these memories be preserved but within this book? And so Forgotten Souls is filled with stories that seem to repeat with each man—these were the sports he liked, this is what he liked to do as a child, here’s what it was like when his mother’s heart was broken. The repetition has a certain magnitude, with families ripped apart over and over. Thompson emphatically portrays the racism endemic to the U.S. military over decades, a thorny history of obstinate cruelty. She quotes a 1925 study by the War Department as an example, which calls Black men “mentally inferior” and “rank coward[s] in the dark.” The racism extends to the treatment of family members on the homefront: Dickson’s widow, Phyllis, wrote to the War Department for months after he was reported missing, but they didn’t even tell her he’d received the Distinguished Flying Cross. Forgotten Souls is a family affair. There are stories of dogfights, and a chapter on the racism involved in airplane assignments is interesting, even though the author’s knowledge of aircraft is limited. But Forgotten Souls isn’t about the airplanes; it’s about keeping memories safe. It’s a kitchen table with all the chairs pulled up and all the elders sharing their heartaches. Thompson keeps the record, and reading these men’s stories is one way to honor them and their families.