The Ethiopian-Italian War: The African-American Connection

A fascinating story about a little known chapter in history. Here's a tiny snippet:

Colonel John Robinson (the Black Condor [sometimes called the Brown Condor]), helped in establishing the nascent Ethiopian air force. Colonel Robinson commanded The Ethiopian Air force and actively participated in reconnaissance mission for the Ethiopian Army during the Italian invasion.

[...]

Ethiopia had neither combat trained national pilots nor combat aircraft at the time, out of less than two-dozen mostly dysfunctional aircrafts. With that one aircraft, the intrepid Brown Condor flew incessantly on dangerous missions—not to mention a terrain and airspace he was unfamiliar with—from Addis to Adwa and back. He was carrying supplies, fighters and the Emperor from place to place in the very heat of the war, when the Fascists were controlling the skies and raining down bombs and poison gases. They tried to down him but could not.

There's a lot more where that came from, and I highly recommend reading the whole thing. Sort of puts a different spin on the whole "Africans are primitive tribesmen without any pre-existing sense of nationhood" garbage put out by certain individuals, doesn't it? Keep this as well as the long and proud history of Ethiopia in mind while think about the plausibility of tables like this one: anyone who seriously thinks Ethiopians are more than 2 standard deviations below the Italians in intelligence is absolutely barking mad.

Comments

[arcane]

That's interesting, indeed. There has always been lots of very good black fighter pilots. Just look up the Tuskegee Airmen, and of that group, who can forget General Daniel "Chappie" James? He's an American hero.

Also look up people like Pappy Boyington, a "Native American" fighter pilot in WWII.

And here's an interesting news article about how the first black South African fighter pilot has gotten the chance to fly the new Swedish Gripen fighter.
http://www.gripen.com/4.d90453fb0202f81e7fff389.html

I will point out, however, that the best fighter pilots in the world are Americans, Brits/Canadians/Aussies, and Israelis.