Artist's rendering of the Rose Parade float honoring Tuskegee Airmen, created by the West Covina Rose Float Foundation.

History buffs have something special to watch for in the New Year's Day 2010 Tournament of Roses Parade prior to the 96th Rose Bowl football game. The theme for the event this time around is "A Cut Above the Rest." The City of West Covina, a Los Angeles suburb, decided to use that to honor the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II. The parade begins at 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time, 11:00 a.m. Eastern.

Chris Freeland, deputy city manager for the City of West Covina and volunteer executive vice-president of the West Corvina Rose Float Foundation, said, "This year we wanted to recognize the military, to have a military-themed float. As we did research into units in this area, we discovered that Los Angeles has one of the largest chapters of the Tuskegee Airmen Organization."

Sixteen surviving members of the World War II group will be riding on the float in the parade.

An artist's rendering of the float's design, shown above, shows the airmen will ride at the front. What appear to be black-and-white photos from World War II will actually be created from seeds, Freeland said, to conform to the parade's requirement that floats' surfaces must be covered using only natural materials such as flowers, bark, seeds, etc.

The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of African American fighter pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps of World War II; the U.S. Air Force did not yet exist as a separate entity. The Army had resisted using black men as pilots but, in response to a pending lawsuit, conceded to creating a segregated unit for them.

Information from the Tuskegee Airmen Organization Website and a guide prepared by their East Coast Chapter shows the group is credited with flying 15,553 sorties (one flight by one plane equals one sortie). Two of their pilots used only .50-caliber machine guns to sink a German destroyer.

For many years, it was believed that no bomber they escorted was ever lost to enemy aircraft, but recent research into flight records shows that was not the case. Their combat record was, nonetheless, remarkable.

In 1995, HBO presented an award-winning film based on their experiences, starring Laurence Fishburne, Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Cuba Gooding, Jr.

Click here to download a pdf listing the names of the Tuskegee Airmen who will be riding on the float in the Tournament of Roses Parade. To learn more about them, visit the Tuskegee Airmen National Museum Website.

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