12/14/2008

Associated Press

Indiana's last surviving member of World War II's history-making Tuskegee Airmen won't be able to attend President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration because he's battling stomach cancer.

Walter Palmer, 89, said he wishes he could take up California Sen. Dianne Feinstein's invitation to surviving members of the nation's first squadron of black military pilots to see the swearing-in of the nation's first black president.

"I'd like to go, but not this time," he said.

Last week, Feinstein, D-Calif., sent the invitation to Tuskegee Airmen Inc., an Arlington, Va.-based group that represents 330 of the original pilots, whose ranks were once about 1,000.

The all-black U.S. Army squadron made history during World War II as the country's first black military pilots, but returned home to discrimination and exclusion from victory parades.

For decades they were also left out of history books despite their considerable achievements in World War II, escorting American bombers as they hit German targets.

Palmer, a fighter pilot, flew 158 such missions over Europe, coming under frequent attack by German interceptors.

After the war, he and the other airmen were excluded not just from victory parades but also the postwar opportunities that awaited many returning heroes.

For Palmer, who retired from the Army and flying after injuring his eye in a car accident, the best he could do was a low-level courthouse job in his native New York.

He eventually moved his family to Indianapolis, but much has changed in the 36 years since then. The Tuskegee Airmen rose from a historical footnote to become the subject of major motion pictures and documentaries.

Last year, Palmer and about 300 other Tuskegee Airmen went to Washington to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the nation's highest honors. President Bush made the presentation in the Capitol Rotunda, but Palmer was not impressed.

Bush, he said, is "a typical politician," adding that his cynicism may be a result of his mistreatment after World War II.

"I haven't talked to any of them who wasn't scarred by it," said Maria Williams-Hawkins, a Ball State University professor who has interviewed many of the airmen for a documentary film she hopes to produce.

The indignities suffered by the airmen, who were trained at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, were no different from those suffered by other blacks.

But Palmer said they seemed worse because the airmen had further to fall — from the prestige of being a military fighter pilot, to being denied recognition for their wartime service.

Palmer flew a P-51, the legendary Mustang, powered by a two-speed, supercharged 12-cylinder Packard engine. He called his plane "the Duchess," his nickname for his wife.

"Nothing could equal the exhilaration of flying," he said.

Palmer said he doesn't see himself as a civil rights pioneer but rather as "a fighter pilot, that's all."

In recent years he has spoken to numerous schools and civic groups. And in October, he tossed the coin at midfield before the kickoff of the Circle City Classic football game.

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Information from: The Indianapolis Star, http://www.indystar.com