Remains of one of the U.S. military’s first African-American fighter pilots may have been discovered in the Alps. Wale Aliyu reports.
What to Know
- The remains of a Tuskegee Airman who went missing in 1944 may have been been found in an excavated crash site in Europe.
- The remains are preliminarily believed to belong to Captain Lawrence Dickson, a fighter pilot and member of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen.
- He disappeared after his plane went down over what was then Czechosovlakia on Dec. 23, 1944.
The remains of a Tuskegee Airman who went missing in 1944 may have been been found in an excavated crash site in Europe.
The remains are preliminarily believed to belong to Captain Lawrence Dickson, a fighter pilot and member of the legendary group of African American World War II airmen, according to the federal government. He disappeared after his plane went down over what was then Czechosovlakia on Dec. 23, 1944.
73 years after his disappearance his daughter, New Jersey resident Marla Andrews, received a call from the Army’s Past Conflict Repatriations Branch believing the remains might belong to Dickson.
Andrews was 15 months old when her father went missing. Dickson was 24.
"Out of all the things that I regret, I think one of them is that he had to serve it at a segregated division of the army." said Andrews about her father.
Dickson's plane went down during his 68th misson, though he was scheduled to come home for R&R after 70.
Local
The Army has told Andrews that evidence shows it is likely her dad, but not to get her hopes too far up because the testing could take months.
"There’s been millions of people that experienced this over the centuries of men going to war and not coming back so I try to hold onto the few memories that I have." said Andrews.
