The movie about black Tuskegee Airmen in WWII titled "Red Tails" is currently making the rounds.
This story and movies have been around a long time--with the current movie by George Lucas of Star Wars fame spending $58 million for the remake.
Is the movie factual and accurate? In its long, arduous effort to release a successful movie, Hollywood has played fast and loose with the facts. The airmen did see significant combat in Italy and North Africa in WWII. Slightly over 1,000 trained in Tuskegee with 445 seeing combat as the 332nd Fighter Group. Their mission was to escort heavy bombers into combat. Overall the unit did shoot down a total of 109 enemy planes. Yet, their records reflect that they were the only WW II unit to have actually lost more planes than they shot down! The Tuskegee group had no aces--five kills or more. Comparatively, Maj. Richard Bong alone claimed 40 enemy planes shot down.
Perhaps the most glaring misstatement about the "Red Tails" is that they never lost a plane they were escorting. This is simply amazing to the point of being laughable. The 332nd unit records document pilots witnessing 25 escorted bombers being shot down. A fairly complete and accurate essay covering the Tuskegee Airmen was published in 2008 by Dr. David Haulman.
The movie industry is notorious for embellishing the truth to maximize patrons, but it is unfair to notable groups as the Tuskegee Airmen not to state their story factually.
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