Operating Raytheon T-1A Jayhawks, the squadron prepares prospective flight instructors to teach undergraduate pilots and combat systems officers at various bases in the Air Education and Training Command (AETC).

Considered ready for combat duty, the 99th was transported to Casablanca, Morocco, on the USS Mariposa and participated in the North African campaign.

The 99th's first combat mission was to attack the small, but strategic, volcanic island of Pantelleria in the Mediterranean Sea, in preparation for the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943.

[1] But Colonel Momyer reported to NAAF Deputy Commander Major General John K. Cannon that the 99th was ineffective in combat[3] and its pilots cowardly, incompetent, or worse, resulting in a critical article in Time magazine.

In response, the House Armed Services Committee convened a hearing to determine whether the Tuskegee Airmen experiment should be allowed to continue.

To bolster the recommendation to scrap the project, a member of the committee commissioned and then submitted into evidence, a report by the University of Texas that purported to prove that African Americans were of low intelligence and incapable of handling complex situations (such as air combat).

[5] The squadron earned its second Distinguished Unit Citation on 12–14 May 1944, while attached to the 324th Fighter Group, attacking German positions on Monastery Hill, attacking infantry massing on the hill for a counterattack, and bombing a nearby strong point to force the surrender of the German garrison to Moroccan Goumiers.

[4] After the war, the squadron returned to the United States, where it flew training missions under the command of Marion Rodgers[6] until its inactivation in 1949.