Philip Baham thought for a moment about the time of the last world war, when our nation had a segregated military fighting fascism overseas and racism at home.

"You know," he mused, "segregation often didn’t make any sense at all. The Negro servicemen had to sit in the balcony in base movie theaters, while the white servicemen were down below. But the balcony had the best view!"

Thursday night, Baham was in another movie theater, viewing a sneak preview of "Red Tails," filmmaker George Lucas’ self-financed commemoration of the Tuskegee Airmen, the famous all-black Army Air Forces group of World War II.

The film, which opens today and stars Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard, describes the exploits of the 332nd Fighter Group, whose red-tailed airplanes were assigned to protect U.S. bomber groups attacking Germany.

Hawaii resident Baham was a crew chief and engineer aboard B-25 bombers of the 477th Bombardment Group — an outfit that some official histories list as "477th BG (Negro)" — and is an organizer of the local chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen veterans organization. (The African-American aviators were known as such because their primary training began at Tuskegee University, a black college in Alabama.)

"I worked on BT-13s, AT-6s, L-5s, P-47s, B-25s, but my favorite was the Peter-Five-One," recalled Baham, 88, rattling off the types of planes the group flew. "That’s what I called the P-51 Mustang. Beautiful plane. Easy to work on. The P-47 was probably a tougher airplane, but it was murder to work on.

"I was drafted in New Orleans, trained at Sheppard Field, Texas, and served at Godman Field, next to Fort Knox, Ky. When the war in Europe ended, we were all packed up, had our gear in seven brand-new B-25s, ready to fly to Saipan and fight the Japanese. But the experienced men in Europe got rotated there first."

Life at Godman Field had its problems. The barracks for the black soldiers were unheated and falling apart. Baham recalls that a railroad track separated Godman from Fort Knox, and that, while they were barred from visiting Fort Knox, the white servicemen across the tracks could wander around Godman as much as they wanted. That even included German prisoners of war, who had more freedom of movement than the black soldiers.

Filmmaker Lucas included that detail in "Double Victory," an adjunct documentary about the Tuskegee Airmen, and Baham confirms it. He served as part of a panel discussion following a screening of the documentary to a standing-room-only crowd Sunday at the Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor.

The legend of the Tuskegee Airmen was so enticing that the museum reprised the screening a couple of hours later for the overflow crowd.

Baham separated from the military in 1946 and worked in a New Orleans shipyard for a while. "Then I got a bad divorce, and I just hopped onto an airplane and came to Hawaii," he said.

He worked for Hawaiian Dredging, served as an engineer for 24 years in the Military Sealift Command, and then was an engineer on Honolulu Harbor tugboats while moonlighting as a security guard. "Eventually, I thought, man, I got enough pensions, and besides, my knees were giving out. I’ve been on a scooter for 10 years now."

He points out that the story of the Red Tails is more complex than portrayed in the movie. Lucas deliberately focused solely on the camaraderie of combat, painting the Tuskegee Airmen as dashing heroes who overcame adversity at home and abroad.

"The beginning of the Tuskegee Airmen was the rough part. They didn’t light up until they got into combat and proved themselves. And later, when the fighter pilots returned from the front, the way they were treated by white officers — the movie doesn’t show much of that. Maybe George Lucas can make a sequel some day."

Baham also recalls when first lady Eleanor Roosevelt paid a visit to the fledgling outfit. "She said, ‘I want to ride in an airplane.’ The Secret Service said no. And she went, ‘I want to ride in THAT airplane with THAT pilot,’ and off they went."

Roosevelt sat in the back of the small aircraft, piloted by Tuskegee instructor C. Alfred Anderson, nicknamed "Chief." Anderson was black, and the Secret Service agents were aghast. They circled a couple of times and landed, and Roosevelt got in a car and drove off.

"You know, from that point on, we started getting what we needed out of Washington," said Baham. "She was enlightened, you know? But later, I asked Chief what they talked about, up in the air. He said she did all the talking. He couldn’t slip a word in edgewise."

That would make a good movie scene.

"Yes, it would. Maybe someday."