I know I didn't.

It's the story about the Tuskegee Airmen and how they made history during World War ll.

Leroy Roberts flew a P-51 fighter. He was just 20.

Now he's 82 and so proud -- proud to have been one of our country's first African-American military pilots.

The Tuskegee Airmen would show America it was time to end discrimination and segregation. If you think America wanted them to succeed, think again.

"People wanted you to fail?" I asked Leroy. "Because of the color of your skin?" Leroy responds: "That's right. And we were determined to not fail".

The government called it an 'experiment'. An experiment to see if blacks could fly.

Bill Booker was a flight engineer and gunner. He says this notion that blacks couldn't fly dated back to 1925 -- a government study.

"The outcome of the study was that no they weren't qualified," Bill says. "That they were cowards and couldn't be trusted and they didn't have the brain power to operate complex machinery."

The Tuskegee Airmen proved them wrong. These pioneers did something no group of pilots had ever done. They flew more than 200 missions without ever losing an aircraft -- a military record.

How did they do it? "By diligence," says Leroy Roberts. Tenacity and a few other thins you might throw in there."

So there you have it. The story of the Tuskegee Airmen. The all black squadron with a mission -- to show America they could fly. They proved it. And defended our country with the best of them.

You can see the planes they flew at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. It's part of the new "Personal Courage Wing".

For More Information:

Museum of Flight -- www.museumofflight.org.