One of the drawbacks to chronicling the fighter combat aspects of World War II in Europe is that the Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 1 team couldn't cover all the many fronts in the European air war-including Italy, North Africa, and Russia-and the brave men and women who flew and fought for their countries.

While Combat Flight Simulator 1 may not depict the activities of the U.S. 15th Air Force in southern Europe (concentrating instead on the 8th Air Force and its strategic bombing campaign against Germany), Combat Flight Simulator is indebted to a unique group of fighter pilots who served there-the Tuskegee Airmen.

These brave and dedicated men were the first African-Americans to serve the United States as combat pilots, but they had to fight two wars simultaneously. The first was a personal one, against the racism and exclusion that had kept African-Americans out of the U.S. military, and against prejudice in the military they were finally allowed to join-and the second was the war other Americans were fighting in Europe.

Between 1941 and 1946 the flight training program at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama graduated nearly a thousand pilots. When the Tuskegee Airmen got to Europe as part of the 15th Air Force, originally stationed in Italy, they established an enviable record, destroying nearly 1,000 enemy aircraft, protecting the bombers and their crews more effectively than most escort fighter units, and winning hundreds of medals-and the respect of their white Army Air Force peers in the process. Their success was one of the factors behind President Harry Truman's decision to integrate the U.S. military in 1948.

Robert Ashby, Woodrow Crockett, and Robert Lawrence of the Tuskegee Airmen were three of the six veteran pilots who provided invaluable assistance at the press kickoff for Combat Flight Simulator 1 at the Santa Monica Museum of Flying in September 1998. They helped brief more than 30 members of the computer gaming press about to engage in a multiplayer dogfight. While the battle continued, they provided on-the-spot pointers to the fearless but inexperienced writers and editors, giving them the benefit of their combat experience for use in a slightly safer venue.

Microsoft extends its thanks to the three Tuskegee Airmen who participated, and to their organization which, since its founding in 1972, has sponsored youth programs, encouraged academic excellence, addressed social concerns including equal treatment of African-Americans in the military, and have told their inspiring story, in part through support of The National Museum of the Tuskegee Airmen in Detroit.