Entitled: "Escape kits (cyanide) being distributed to fighter pilots at air base in southern Italy" shows (seated): Theodore Lumpkin, Jr. Standing (left to right): Joseph Chineworth, Class 44-E; Robert Robinson, Class 44-G; Driskell Ponder, Class 43-I; Robert Williams, Class 44-E. Ramitelli, Italy. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the US Armed Forces. The 332nd Fighter Group operated with the Fifteenth Air Force from May 1944 to April 1945, being engaged primarily in protecting bombers that struck such objectives as oil refineries, factories, airfields, and marshaling yards in Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Greece. They also made successful strafing attacks on airdromes, railroads, highways, bridges, river traffic, troop concentrations, radar facilities, power stations, and other targets. The unit received a Distinguished Unit Citation for a mission on March 24, 1945 when the group escorted B-17s during a raid on the Daimler-Benz tank factory at Berlin, fought the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet interceptors that attacked the formation, and strafed transportation facilities while flying back to the base in Italy. Photographed by Toni Frissell March 1945.