Between 1942 and 1947, during World War II, the Tuskegee Airmen became legends as America’s Black Air Force. Today, Pasadena is home to at least two of the famous Black pilots, called "The Lonely Eagles," Leroy Criss and Oliver Goodall.

Leroy Criss attended Monrovia High School and later graduated from UCLA, before joining the Airmen. Oliver Goodall was a student at the University of Detroit. Their personal stories are the stories of living legends. As part of the Tuskegee Airmen they were part of a parallel Air Force. One White and one Black. The purpose of the Tuskegee Airmen was to shut up the critics who complained that during World War II there were no Black Pilots. The Tuskegee Airmen were set up to fail, but instead, excelled in what they signed up to do.

In a recent interview the two sat down and told how the standards for the group of Black Pilots were sent to Training as pilots at Tuskegee, Alabama. Their mission was to merely fly supplies to whites who were flying and fighting in battle. Only after a series of accidents where the supply planes were forced to demonstrate their talent as fighter pilots were they allowed to fight. Even then they were originally allowed to fly only as support and cover for the white flown Bomber planes.

The Tuskegee Airmen were given left over planes to fly while the better, newer planes were reserved for white pilots. The group was full of college graduates including doctors and lawyers who had signed up to serve their country in times of war. One of the events that helped Blacks to get a break from the discrimination in their assignments was when, over the objections of many white military brass, then, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in 1943, used a Black Military Doctor to operate on her daughter. He later was scheduled to go to Tuskegee. She told him to let her know if there was anything she could do for him. Her interest in the Tuskegee Airmen forced others to take notice of them also.

Criss and Goodall talked nostalgistically about flying formations like the lazy eights where they would fly the plane in the pattern of the number eight. They talked of how the white instructors were always shocked and surprised at the prowess and brilliance of the Black pilots who, instead of being the jokes that they were billed to be, turned out to be the pride of the AirForce. After proving their worth as support pilots in the hand me-down planes, they became the most requested and preferred support pilots for white pilots who had heard of the talented Black Pilots in the "Red Tail Painted Planes" who never lost a plane they were supporting. The red tailed planes of the Tuskegee Airmen was the idea of one Black Engineer who thought it was a good method of identifying the Black airmen who had the red tails painted on all of their planes. When the Red Tails showed up on a scene, victory was the inevitable result.