Civil Air Patrol

One of Bubba's Civil Air Patrol officers, Mr. Johnson, a licensed black pilot, taught Bubba how to fly in a Waco Bi-wing plane and the Boeing PT-17. They flew out of lakeside airport, a small air field for private pilots near Collinsville, Illinois, a short distance from St. Louis.

Bubba was 17 when he received his single engine pilot's license, certificate number 691822, dated August 29, 1946, from the Federal Aviation Administration becoming one of, if not the youngest black pilot in America and a Flight Corporal in the Civil Air Patrol. He was a senior at Booker T. Washington Technical High School enrolled in their auto mechanics course.

Bubba was born to fly, as were many black Americans from St. Louis who were among the Tuskegee Airmen who had an influence on Bubba's life. They were his heroes.

When I was twelve years old and in my final years of grade school, I remember celebrating "Captain Wendell O. Pruitt Day" proclaimed by the major of St. Louis. Bubba and his Civil Air Patrol squadron attended the celebration at city hall.

Captain Pruitt was a fighter pilot with the 99th Pursuit Squadron. During the war, he had shot down in aerial combat three German ME-109 fighters, shared with another black pilot the sinking of a nazi destroyer, and destroyed eight airplanes on the ground. Captain Pruitt was killed in a plane crash on returning to America at Tuskegee in April 1945.

There were many other pilots from St. Louis in the 99th and 302nd. They were:
Lieutenant John F. Briggs Jr.
Captain Henry R. Peoples
Captain Charles L. White
Captain Clarence H. Bradford
Lieutenant Earl Carey
Captain James McCullin - Captain McMullin died in the Battle of Pantelleria Island in July 1943, the first battle fought by the Tuskegee Airmen and the first battle in U.S. history won by air power.
Lieutenant Charles V. Brantley - This pilot shot down one of the first jet aircraft, a German ME-262 on March 24, 1945.
Captain Hugh J. White
Lieutenant Norvell Stoudmire
Lieutenant John W. Squires

Bubba was now obsessed with flying and most ofhis spare time was spent in the air or talking about flying. Every movie about flying and airplanes or the men who flew them was attended by Bubba, Cookie, and I.

I credit the St. Louis Argus and the Pittsburgh Courier, both black newspapers, with keeping the black community informed about the heroic black pilots. The white newspapers, with the exception of the Post Dispatch, did not consider information about blacks important, but daddy was a proud black man who made available to us anything about black history in the making.

This is a replica of a P-51C Mustang flown by then Captain Clarence Oliphant of the 302nd Fighter Squadron, identified with his wife's name, returning from a long-range escort mission to Berlin, Germany in 1944. Retired Major Oliphant is a resident of Seattle, WA., who I had the honor of meeting in 1990.