KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana |Tuskegee Airman Dies

Tuskegee Airman Dies

Pompey L. Hawkins, who served with the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, has died. He was 91.  Hawkins died early Sunday morning at the Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis, said Maria Williams-Hawkins, a family spokesman who is not related to Hawkins.

Hawkins and five other Indiana members of the first group of black American fighter pilots were honored in February at a Ball State University event organized by Williams-Hawkins.

That same day, the U.S. House passed a bill requiring House and Senate leaders to present a Congressional Gold Medal collectively to the Tuskegee Airmen. The Senate already had passed a similar bill.

About 1,000 black pilots were trained to fly and maintain combat airplanes at the Tuskegee, Ala., air base during World War II. Facing strong discrimination in the segregated military, the airmen flew bomber escorts. They were credited with never losing a bomber and with shooting down more than 100 enemy aircraft. Military officials estimate about 200 of the Tuskegee Airmen are alive today.

Hawkins, who enlisted in the Army at age 25, served in the ground crew.

While serving at Keesler Field in Biloxi, Miss., in 1942, Hawkins marched the base's 400-man black detachment to the post exchange and other facilities that served only whites, The Indianapolis Star reported in a 2003 story. Afterward, he was court-martialed after he defended himself from an attack by an officer, but was acquitted after he documented racial discrimination on the base.