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Col. Elmer D. Jones (Ret.) is a Tuskegee Airman. |
Col. Elmer D. Jones (Ret.) is a Tuskegee Airman, one of the pioneer black members of the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II.
Now 91, he recalls with pride his service with the segregated group that proved its ability to perform effectively in aerial combat despite military and political opposition.
The colonel, a resident of Arlington and a native of Washington, spoke last week at a Veterans for Paul Ortiz rally in that independent candidate's race this fall for Aquia District supervisor.
Jones' initial unit, the 99th Fighter Squadron, flew in North Africa in 1943, providing ground support for Gen. George Patton's troops, and later was part of the all-black 332nd Fighter Group, providing escort for allied bombers over Europe.
In some 15,000 combat sorties, the Tuskegee Airmen shot down 111 German aircraft, sank a destroyer and lost 66 pilots. They established a reputation of not losing any bombers under their protection during missions.
Jones was one of three graduates of Howard University's Primary Civilian Pilot Training program selected in the summer of 1940 for advanced flight training at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. There, nearly 1,000 black pilots, half of whom went overseas, were trained and became known as the Tuskegee Airmen.
Jones majored in engineering, as well as taking the flight training. As a result, Tuskegee trained him and five fellow aviation cadets to be technical officers. When the U.S entered World War II in December 1941, Jones was made a 2nd lieutenant and assigned to aircraft repair and technical supply.
He went overseas with the 99th in April 1943 as the squadron's engineering officer and rose to major during the North African and European campaigns. Returning home at war's end, he earned master's degrees in electronics and in management and was assigned to postings in research and development. He retired in 1970 as a colonel.
In 2007, Jones and other surviving Tuskegee Airmen were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, voted by Congress, for their service.
"I have it home in a drawer," he said last week.
Instead, he wears, on a red-white-and-blue neck ribbon, a medal given to him and his surviving colleagues during a Tuskegee Airmen ceremony in 1993.
The medal is called the Gen. Noel F. Parrish Award, named for their third commander at Tuskegee. Previous commanders at Tuskegee had enforced segregation at the training field. Parrish countered the racism and also pushed Washington to permit black pilots to serve in combat.
Parrish was, Jones said, "a man we all admired." Segregation was finally abolished in the U.S. military in 1948 by an executive order from President Harry Truman.
Jones also wears, on his uniform's lapel, the bar of his Legion of Merit, his veteran's pin, and a pin from the 2006 dedication of the Air Force Memorial in Arlington that honors all members of the U.S. Air Force--established as a separate service in 1947--and its predecessor organizations.
Ortiz, who served in the Marines for 30 years and retired as a colonel in 2005, first met Jones in the early 1990s when Ortiz was asked to speak to the Tuskegee Airmen chapter in Washington.
"We became friends," Ortiz recalled. "I later asked him to speak to a group of students at the U.S. Naval Academy, which included my son."
Hugh Muir: 540/735-1975
Email: hmuir@freelancestar.com
