Another Tuskegee Airman died Saturday, December 8, 2018 in New York. He was 100 years old. Wilfred DeFour served as an aircraft technician during World War II. CNN reported that DeFour attended a ceremony last month for the renaming of a Harlem post office in honor of the Tuskegee Airmen. The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators and trained at the Tuskegee Army Airfield in Alabama.
“I regret so many of my comrades are no longer here with us,” DeFour said, according to WABC. “It will mean there’s recognition for Tuskegee Airmen and that’s very important.”
The group was generally said to include pilots, navigators, bombardiers, maintenance and support staff who went through a U. S. Army Air Corps training program to bring African-Americans into the war effortt, according to Tuskegee Airmen Inc., a group devoted to the history of the airmen. After the war ended, DeFour worked for the U. S. Postal Service for 33 years.