Lt. Col. George E. Hardy, Tuskegee Airman, dies at 100 : NPR
Lieutenant-Colonel George E. Hardy, an aviator of Tuskegee, stands next to his former Mustang P-51D at the Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, October 4, 2016.
The senior plane Malcolm Mayfield / US Air Force
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The senior plane Malcolm Mayfield / US Air Force
Lieutenant-Colonel George E. Hardy, the last surviving member of the aviators of Tuskegee who piloted combat missions during the Second World War in Europe, died. He was 100 years old.
Hardy died Thursday, a spokesperson for Tuskegee Airmen, Inc., NPR. The organization remembered its inheritance as one of “courage, resilience, formidable skills and obstinate perseverance against racism, prejudices and other ills, in an article on social networks on Friday.
“Colonel Hardy was an incredible man. He was a patriot. He loved his family. He loved his community. He loved our organization,” said NPR Leon Butler Jr., national president of Tuskegee Airmen on Saturday, Inc. “He worked very hard. He worked tirelessly to preserve heritage, not for himself, but for those with whom he was supported, Original aviators of Tuskegee. “
Born on June 8, 1925 in Philadelphia, he joined the US Army Air Corps at the age of 18 in July 1943 and began pilot training at Tuskegee Army Air Field in December of the same year. He graduated from the pilot training in September 1944 at the age of 19 and was ordered a second lieutenant.
During the Second World War, he was part of the 332nd Fighter Group in Ramitelli Air Base, in Italy and assigned to 99th Fighter Squadron. He finished 21 missions across Europe, according to the US Air Force. He was the youngest red -tail fighter pilot with the aviators of Tuskegee, the first black airmen of the American armed forces, according to The Tuskegee Airmen, Inc.
Hardy recalled during an interview With the history project of veterans that, even if it was stationed in Italy, he did not meet the systemic racism he did in the United States, but there was still segregation.
Lieutenant-Colonel George Hardy, an aviator of Tuskegee, in December 2023.
Cheryl W. Thompson / NPR
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Cheryl W. Thompson / NPR
“We had our own club in Naples … So you did not go to the White Club,” he said in the interview. “It’s … the way life was.”
He left Italy as a first lieutenant when the war in Europe ended in 1945 and returned to the air field of the Tuskegee army where he was a supervising pilot until 1946, the date of the closure. He then returned home to Philadelphia before going to New York University and married in 1947.
Hardy was assigned to the 19th group of bombs, where he was the only American black officer, and sent to Guam in 1949. The following year, the Korean War began and he was transferred to Okinawa. During the Korean War, Hardy stole 45 combat missions and would go to heaven again in a conflict for the Vietnam War, where he stole 70 combat missions, according to the US Air Force.
He retired from the military service in 1971, according to a interview With the Aviation newspaper of AVI-8.
Hardy has received many honors for its military service, including the Distinguished Flying Cross With Valor, a mention medal with a group of oak leaves and an air medal with 11 clusters of oak leaves. In 2007, he and other Tuskegee aviators received the Congress gold medal.
While he was proud of his military service, his education was his greatest success, said Butler Jr.
He graduated from South Philadelphia High School and obtained a baccalaureate in electrical engineering and a master’s degree in engineering of the US Air Force of Technology, according to the US Air Force. Hardy also received an honorary doctorate from the public service at Tuskegee University, said US Air Force.
