Meet a Tuskegee Airman

Enriching military history, Lt. Col. Robert J. Friend, USAF (Ret.) talked about his experiences as a fighter pilot during World War II beginning on Feb. 27 in the Pogue Auditorium at the George C. Marshall Foundation in Lexington.

Col. Friend is the last surviving member of the 332nd Fighter Group of the Tuskegee Airmen. He flew 142 combat missions over Europe during World War II, many of those as the wingman for Col. Benjamin Davis, the squadron commander, who became the first African American general in the U.S. Air Force.

The public is invited and must register by calling Leigh McFaddin at (540) 463-7103, ext. 138 or by sending an email to mcfaddinlh@marshallfoundation.org. Members and students will be admitted free; non-members will pay $15 at the door.

Army Chief of Staff Marshall was directly involved in the establishment of the military program for aviation at the Tuskegee Institute. Correspondence between Marshall and Dr. Frederick D. Patterson, president of the Tuskegee Institute, shows that Marshall expressed an interest in developments at the Tuskegee Institute throughout the war and offered his support to help the program succeed.

Four hundred and fifty of the pilots who were trained at Tuskegee served in North Africa, Sicily and Italy from April 1943 until July 1944 when they were transferred to the 332nd Fighter Group in the 15th Air Force. Robert Friend was one of those pilots.

After leaving the Army, Col. Friend began a career with the Air Force and served as assistant deputy of launch vehicles, Foreign Technology Program director and director of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Program.