After the liberation of Ethiopia in 1941, a generation of PanAfricanists committed itself to participate in the reconstruction of the country. They were teachers, professionals, technicians, journalists, photographers, and administrators. John Robinson, an American aviator who had already fought against the Italians as a military pilot in 1936, returned to Ethiopia in 1944. In a few years, he trained more than eighty air force cadets who later became the first Ethiopian civilian and military pilots. David A. Talbot, a Guyanese journalist, succeeded a black American, William Steen, as editor of the Ethiopian Herald. He also broadcast on the radio, and was in charge of English publications in the Ministry of Information. Mignon Ford, from Barbados, opened the Princess Zenebe Worq School in 1941, and Dr Tomas Fortune Fletcher, an American, became the director of the Medhane Alem School. The examples are numerous, and they illustrate the importance Ethiopia had in the lives of these professionals who identified themselves with the country and felt directly concerned by its reconstruction. Some stayed only until the end of their contracts but others, like Mignon Ford or David Talbot, remained in Ethiopia until the end of their lives.