Celebrated Tuskegee Airman Charles McGee dies at 102 : NPR

Tuskegee Airman Charles McGee and his nice grandson Iain Lanphier are seen throughout President Donald Trump’s State of the Union deal with on Feb. 4, 2020. McGee, one of many final surviving Tuskegee Airmen, who flew 409 fighter fight missions over three wars, died Sunday.

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Tuskegee Airman Charles McGee and his nice grandson Iain Lanphier are seen throughout President Donald Trump’s State of the Union deal with on Feb. 4, 2020. McGee, one of many final surviving Tuskegee Airmen, who flew 409 fighter fight missions over three wars, died Sunday.

Patrick Semansky/AP

Charles McGee, a Tuskegee Airman who flew 409 fighter fight missions over three wars, has died. He was 102.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of Protection Lloyd J. Austin III on Sunday introduced his dying on Twitter, each of them calling McGee an American hero.

“Whereas I’m saddened by his loss, I am additionally extremely grateful for his sacrifice, his legacy, and his character. Relaxation in peace, Normal,” wrote Austin, who didn’t specify the place McGee died.

The Tuskegee Airmen is the nickname of the primary African American unit to fly fight airplanes in World Conflict II.

Charles McGee receives a congratulatory ship off after visiting with 436 Aerial Port Squadron personnel at Dover Air Drive Base to assist have fun his a centesimal birthday in Dover, Del., in 2019.

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Charles McGee receives a congratulatory ship off after visiting with 436 Aerial Port Squadron personnel at Dover Air Drive Base to assist have fun his a centesimal birthday in Dover, Del., in 2019.

David Tulis/AP

McGee was amongst greater than 900 males to coach in rural Alabama from 1940 to 1946 after the Military Air Corps was compelled to confess Black pilots. About 450 deployed abroad and 150 misplaced their lives in coaching or fight.

McGee was one in every of only some pilots — white or Black — who flew fight missions in that battle and in the course of the Korean and Vietnam wars.

“You can say that one of many issues we have been preventing for was equality. Equality of alternative. We knew we had the identical expertise, or higher,″ he informed The Related Press in a 1995 interview.

After he turned 100, McGee was accorded an honorary fee selling him to the one-star rank of brigadier common beneath a congressional measure signed by President Donald Trump. In 2020, McGee gained applause from members of Congress when launched by Trump throughout his State of the Union deal with.