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Regular Joe
 
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ATLANTA — Lt. Col. Charles “Chuck” Dryden, one of the first of the pioneering black World War II pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen, has died. He was 87.
Dryden died Tuesday in Atlanta of natural causes, said Roger Neal, a spokesman for the National Museum of Patriotism in Atlanta. Dryden was on the museum’s board of directors.
“He was not just a part of American history; he helped to make it,” museum founder Nick Snider said Thursday. “We refer to Col. Dryden as a living American treasure. Everyday of his life, he was fighting for a better America.”
Dryden’s 21-year military career included combat missions in Korea and assignments in Japan, Germany and U.S. bases. He retired from the Air Force in 1962.
About 1,000 pilots trained as a segregated Army Air Corps unit at the Tuskegee Army Flying School in Alabama during World War II.
Dryden was selected for aviation cadet training at Tuskegee in August 1941, only a month after the program began and four months before the U.S. entered World War II.
He was one of three men commissioned in April 1942 as a second lieutenant. Just five pilots had earned their wings in the program ahead of Dryden’s class of three.
Dryden was a member of the famed 99th Pursuit Squadron and later the 332nd Fighter Group, which served in North Africa and Italy.
His P-40 was nicknamed “A-Train,” and Dryden titled his autobiography “A-Train: Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman.” It was published by the University of Alabama Press in 1997.
Last year, President Bush and Congress awarded the Tuskegee Airmen the Congressional Gold Medal. About 300 surviving airmen — including Dryden — gathered in Washington for the ceremony in March 2007.
While attending the Washington gathering, Dryden told The Associated Press that he had mixed feelings about the event, since it came so many years after the war. But he added that the medal helped convince him that the country does recognize the airmen’s contributions.
“It’s really something,” he said.
He recalled that after returning from his overseas service, he was stationed in Walterboro, S.C., where he saw German prisoners of war get privileges in theaters and cafeterias that were denied to black soldiers.
Dryden was born in 1920 in New York City to Jamaican parents, Charles Levi Tucker Dryden and Violet Buckley Dryden. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Hofstra University and a master’s degree in public law and government from Columbia University.
In 1998, Dryden was inducted into the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame. He was also a professor of air science at Howard University.
REST IN PEACE
Man it don't look good, I wouldn't Jump that
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Stare Master
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Rest easy, Airman. Thanks for all you did for our Country.
Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ and the American GI. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.
"History teaches that when you become indifferent and lose the will to fight someone who has the will to fight will take over." COLONEL BULL SIMONS
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Seasoned Vet
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| Rest in Peace. Thank-you for your service, to this nation! 
------------------------------------------------------------ Out of every 100 men, ten shouldn't even be there, Eighty are just targets, Nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back." - Hericletus, circa 500 BC ----------------------------------------------------------- 
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Regular Joe
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Rest in peace, and thanks for your service.
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Trooper
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Last Login: 9/3/2008 6:49 AM
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| Rest in Peace. Thank you for all you did for all of us.
"American Parachutists...devils in baggy pants...are less than 100 meters from my outpost line. I can't sleep at night; they pop up from nowhere and we never know when or how they will strike next. Seems like the black-hearted devils are everywhere..."
(An entry in a German officer's diary found after the Battle of Anzio)
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82nd_Raider
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Rest in peace.
All the way, sir!!! 
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Regular Joe
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Last Login: 8/29/2008 4:26 AM
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RIP. '
Blue Skies, Black Death. We're off to see our maker!SDMF! 
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