Considered ready for combat duty, the 99th was transported to Casablanca, Morocco, on the USS Mariposa and participated in the North African campaign. From Morocco they traveled by train to Oujda then to Tunis, the location from which they operated against the Luftwaffe. Flyers and ground crew alike were isolated in their initial command, the 33d Fighter Group by the racial segregation practices of the Army and group commander Colonel William W. Momyer. The flight crews were handicapped by being left with little guidance from battle-experienced pilots except for a week spent with Colonel Philip Cochran. 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 194