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. + Biography: (See below for family accounting of contemporary events, as of 2016) −

The Early Years

He was born in Detroit September 23rd, 1921 and raised to about age eight in Dublin, Georgia, by his Mother, Lois Rodgers. They moved to Roselle, NY (near Elizabeth) in 1929 to live with cousins along with his older brother, Raymond Rogers, who raised him from then until after high school. The school system was great. He worked a short while and continued to run track with a team that frequented met (then and may now) at Madison Square Garden, in Manhattan. His interest in aviation started in Roselle, NJ in 1930 or so. Men running a huge auto repair garage nearby restored a damaged biplane. He was there, many days to observe and finally, after weeks, it flew. He was hooked. The big problem was minorities had no place in aviation.

Several times he walked to Newark Airport to observe Ford Trimotor and Curtis Condor Passenger Aircraft, as well as watched take-offs and landings from afar. When World War II broke out there was a program announced to allow even Negroes to apply for flight training. He was only a high-school graduate, but he 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. http://dublinlaurenscountygeorgia.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-tuskegee-airmen-of-laurens-county.html

To Tuskegee:

Finally, they went to Tuskegee, the institute, as students. Finally, in May 1943, I’m sent to Pre-Flight Training at Tuskegee Army Air Field and What an experience that was! 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 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:

− 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. They never lost a bomber to enemy aircraft and Rodgers admits he didn’t know how they herded hundreds of them into well-protected targets in Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Linz, Salsburg, Stuttgart, Regensburg and Berlin. 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:

(1944) (Captain Marion Rodgers, a rather modest Detroit youngster, vividly described the August 12 mission in Southern France, August 12th and 14th, 1944, by the 332nd Fighter Group. His 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.

Rodgers vividly described the August 12 mission in Southern France, August 12th and 14th, 1944, by the 332nd Fighter Group “It was my first strafing mission. 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)

The Later Years

Mr. Rodgers’ achievements in the communications-electronics field have been numerous, as the single key individual handling NORAD/ADCOM and then "Space Command" communications-electronics duty requirements for 16 years, as editor of the "Communications & Electronics Digest, for NORAD. His accomplishments include literally hundreds of communications-electronics improvements to most major command, control and communications systems support the command mission.

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).

An individual effort which is most note-worthy is the initial phase of the Off-site Test Facility project which was completed in only months, a project that would have normally taken two to three years. Mr. Rodgers has given generously of his off-duty time for community affairs during his service in Colorado Springs, including 20 years as the sole weekly host to 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.

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. (She passed on 12/21/2013 at 85, perhaps a month prematurely, due to court actions in El Paso County, Colorado), She had survived insulin dependency for 74 years, and cancer for 40, and had a very full life.

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