Lt. Colonel George Hardy, Tuskegee Airmen (Full Interview)

our guest on Veterans Chronicles is retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel george hardy he is a veteran of World War two Korea and Vietnam totaling 136 combat missions between the three wars he is also a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen and Colonel hardy a great honor to have you with us sir thank you thanks for inviting me where were you born and raised Philadelphia Pennsylvania and did you have any history of military service in your family not really maybe I had some uncles who were in the service World War one right but World War two got a lot of people who didn't think about the military sure have interest in flying as a kid no no I didn't decide to fly till the end of 40 to the you know 43 where were you and Pearl Harbor was attacked and how did you react to that where was I I knew I was out upstairs I was a college senior and I was upstairs doing my homework but I had the Eagles game on low so my mother mother wouldn't hear it and on that game that's when they announced that Pearl Harbor had been attacked it happened at that time any afternoon say East Coast time right and I didn't know where Pearl Harbor was what say the Japanese attacked a naval base at Pearl Harbor listening to equals game so shows how long a fan I've been of the Eagles absolutely well you're in a good mood now they're not having a great start to the season they are world champions so that's good for that so what did you do that well I graduate from high school I'd born 1925 a graduate from high school in June of 42 but I was just turned 17 that same month so I had to wait a year to go into the service but in March of 43 the army said if you were a high school graduate if you're seventeen and a high school graduate you can take the exam which I did for tusky and I passed it and sworn into the service as a private and sent home until they turned 18 and what happened once he turned 18 well 18 I got orders to report to 13th of July 1943 one day keister field Mississippi for basic training I'm there to tusky what color trained attachment for supposedly for five months but it ended up three months and December 43 I started an aviation cadet training and graduated tusky September 44 and what was the training like because since you hadn't flown before was it a big learning curve well it was a learning curve good I hadn't even driven an automobile really that's right so uh but III picked it up easily and I shouldn't say easily I had some tough times but I picked it up and graduated as a second lieutenant in September 44 then start we don't have flown training planes until then it was then I just started flying p40 for ten hours and then the p-47 but combat training at Walla borough South Carolina and then over season February 45 at that time but there was this opportunity to serve and well that's what we thought of as an opportunity and we took it so and we had I will say we had I thought I had some good instructors our instructors were accepted in college in primary flying we had black instructors of Tuskegee Institute that part of training was contracted out by that military but then in basic in advance we had white army instructors and I thought my instructors are pretty good so what did you end up deploy well in February of 45 I went overseas and flew the last few months of the war I got 21 combat missions I was still 19 years old and flying a p-51 had my rolls-royce why did you love that one so much better well it's such easy airplane to fly though and just to smooth airplane also and and one thing to say yeah we did a good job because until the p-51 arrived over there the fighters couldn't go all the way to the target with the bombers but the 51 had to range that it could all the way to the target and bring them back because some earlier when the fighters had to leave the Bombers then the German airplanes could attack them when they did not fight with the 51 just stayed with them to the target and back so what was the first combat engagement like trainings one thing combat well is its I never buy time I got over there weren't that many German airplanes left the only airplanes I saw in the air were two six Tuesday jets and we turned out a couple times we turned into them but they left us so much faster than we were now although on the Berlin mission our guys shot down three of those things because they were more maneuverable they've come at you but you get on that tail and good shot we shot three of them down on Berlin well escort Obama's mainly to southern Germany we were stationed in Italy on the east coast of Italy where that little spur comes out we were just next to that okay and we take out over the Adriatic and meet the bombers somewhere outside before they got to Germany and escort them to Jeremy and bring them back but the only time I fired my guns was on strafing missions if you had enough fuel when you got back met the Bombers ago you'd go back over Germany looking for targets of opportunity we wanted to deny them moving stuff around doing a date I'm looking for trains or trucks or barges on the river so do you remember where you did that strafing oh no I don't remember it all merges into what I remember the first time I realized that that stuff I'd notice was I'm shooting back so yeah that's a well you just kept on and the pulled away just instant prayer and he got out so I was only hit once but just minor well we were glad you know because I you know I graduated in September 44 and one of our classmates was killed at Walla bar in training then we got overseas and three of my classmates were lost on missions and a couple killed in accidents so the mortality rate you know glad the war's over and because all those guys 18 19 20 years old dying it's not a good thing returning home well returning home I went back to that's the thing overseas that we were segregated over there we're on a separate base but coming back at the states then we realize that segregation is really full force back here when I went to Tuskegee and stayed there till it closed in 46 and I got out and went to lock burn what 332nd was and I got out in November released because I wanted to go to school so I got out went to NYU for a year or 48 40 47 to 48 then went back into the service in 1948 June 48 48 49 is also and President Truman well I signed to go back to the segregated base at Lockport in January 48 then the Air Force announced an efforts was created in September 47 what had been the Army Air Forces was now moved to and became the United States Air Force seven months later the Air Force announced they were going to integrate and that shook some of us up because they didn't say when and all I could envision myself is reporting to a base with all white people on it and I wouldn't know any of them of course you didn't meet them when and the segregated service say well don't went back in that's when I decided I'm a pilot but I need something else I'll go into maintenance and when I went back in in June I applied for electronics maintenance radar I wanted to fly one of those air defense airplanes we were building fighters with radar for viewing the coast what not if enemy airplanes came in we could launch those planes and using radar to track down the enemy airplanes and that's what I wanted to do and I think I've gone maintenance no matter what I was flying or not I'd be around airplanes so where were you and the Korean War broke out well I well President Truman signed the executive order in July of 48 99-81 and he sells the Army Navy and Air Force submit that plans for racial segregation well that caused a crisis tore across the country a lot of people may not remember that the South was originally democratic and they had their racial laws into effect and so when he signed that executive or millions of whites in the South left the dreadful Democratic Party I became part of the states rights party de gracia which Strom Thurmond is a candidate Strom Thurmond won a couple of states in the south but Truman won election which meant that his executive order remained in effect and so in 49 Army Navy and Air Force submitted their plans for a racial integration and the F wasn't plan was approved in May of 49 by the end of June they deactivated a all-black group in Lockland and within a matter of weeks everyone there had orders transferring them to Air Force bases all around the world so they had almost instant integration where did you go well I was in school at the time I went to school electronics school like keys to fail for 50 weeks starting in September 28 graduated in August 49 instead of getting the fighters I wanted to go to I ended up in the b-29 outfit on the island of Guam nineteen Bomb Group has a maintenance officer 28 bomb squad but as a pilot I also checked out in the b-29 and in the spring of 50 they put me on a flight crew as a co-pilot on a flight crew and that's how I got my 29 time over Korea but that's when I first ran into a real racial problem I had in May of 50 I got a new squadron commander and I soon found out he didn't agree with integration he wouldn't even speak to me except in the line of duty and then the Korean War started and we moved to Okinawa and our crew flew our first mission over Korea June 30th 1950 right after the war started but on the 12th of July on a 7th mission I was a co-pilot when you get to airplane you have things to do before you start engine I was doing my duties and the copilot seat getting me make short switches are saying and I heard this voice say Hardy get down out of the airplane that's my squadron commander he you mean place me on that flight and he didn't want me flying well that was the first beat when I shot down over Korea above the North Korea and my crew had to bail out and I wasn't with them and the first two people that bailed out was captured by the North Koreans and died in prison camp but the rest of them got back when uh about a week later two weeks as one commander was moved up the group as deputy group commander and a new squad commander put me back on flying again so I got to fly 45 missions b-29s over Korea well he just didn't go for racial integration but that's not the end of that story that's uh I came back from overseas and in the sac and I got more training in sac as a home electronics maintenance officer and maintenance and for I served at Walker Air Force Base at New Mexico ten cars well then up at limestone main b-36 outfit that's the biggest bomber we ever had but up there I applied to go to his technology at wright-patterson Air Force Base and was accepted and went there in 1955 and graduated in 57 with a bachelor's of science and electrical engineering then I went to Japan for a great tour Japan had maintenance supervisor electronics then the Plattsburgh New York was a maintenance squadron commander and my Wing Commander was that same officer who wouldn't speak to me on Okinawa on Guam in Okinawa I was up with him for almost three years and it was the best three years for my career under him the second time so he changed he he fellows is less effective this report he had the best of my six squadron commanders he had changed completely and I love working for him the second time Wow look Colonel Fred W Miller it's amazing and but I was very fortunate Air Force did a lot for me I went in his high school graduate basically but up there at life's a place verge right after the Cuban Missile Crisis ended I got a letter from Institute of Technology at wright-patterson Air Force Base I graduated from an 57 a BS in electrical engineering they notified me that we have a new graduate level course which has just been approved in reliability engineering and we don't have enough we want to start it right away right after 63 we don't have enough time to advertise so we went to a prior graduates people we thought might want to go and your name came up and he asked me I wanted to go back to school so I did for February 63 to August of 64 and got a master's degree in systems engineering - reliability and so that changed my whole core a career after that because I went into procurement what not up at Hanscom Air Force Base and there for five and a half years and just delighted up there and I had a program overseas overseas Audubon program automatic voice Network program manager and chief of engineering at three and a half years we cut over the first switches in Europe for in Europe one in Panama in June of 1969 but then the F was created a new gunship OSI 119 it was a to carrier plate was obsolete but it made a gunship out of it and then you look for pilots who had time and it had a lot of pilots so I ended up going to back to training and 119 trained as a crew member on that aircraft commander and went to Vietnam in 1970 and I was a lieutenant colonel down so when I got to Vietnam they took my crew away from me our base was at fan rang in southern part of Vietnam but the airplanes were two Forward Operating locations when are you doing Thailand I wanted Danang I became the commander you doing for about three months then moved to the commander at Danang and most of my commanders aircraft commanders flew ibadah at least 150 missions but Isaac only flew seven I flew 70 which was enough I guess we in fly at night looking for trucks picking up infrared to pick up trucks coming down from Vietnam so I spent a year over there and came back in 1971 and retired that you mm-hmm so just looking at the the swath of your career and when you look at the plane you start with and the one mm-hmm you finished with what comes to mind about the advancement over those years well it's technique on all of them say and I love flying once you got with the crew you get on a crew and you love being with the crew and then even in 119 I was the aircraft commander when I would fly and we had 11 people on a crew but the guns were fixed and the pilot flying the airplane myself the gun sight was right here and you had to fly around the target and aim the airplane and so as the pilot flying with looking at the forward-looking infra-red would pick up they put a crosshair at all so once you got them superimposed the pilot hemp fires the gun see one or two second verse and 20 mil you got the guns six barrels 100 rounds a second and effective against trucks because although all the shells coming out of that be flying at a low should be in the area of this room money at the ground say concentrators and it's very effective gunship what was your favorite of all be 51 51 naturally rolls-royce II was a big transition yes quite a transition be 51 you have a single-engine see single-seat and they are playing you by yourself but between nine and four engines and a lot more could go wrong so you had to work carefully with the copilot and the engineer when things went wrong to take care of them and and get them under control good to have plan under control did you did you have fighter escorts in Korea we really didn't you see the the North Koreans didn't have that much turn way of Fighters so we would fly single missions we flew some formation missions my last mission was trying to knock out a bridge from Manchuria to Korea the Chinese had come across and we're trying to stop them from begging supplies across bogie I want to go three ship normally a whole squadron and knock out the whole bridge but gonna go three ship because none of the bombs are supposed to go over the middle of the bridge and the Chinese a half of the brain's safe so we had to just bomb the southeastern portion of a bridge say and but that was my last mission because I had fractured my elbow before we took off and I was a quite a bit of pain as I did after we left it was 11 our mission and after we left the mission I did get a shot of morphine because the pain was so bad elbow how did you bring it well getting out of the vehicle at the airplane after briefing that vehicle jerked and my foot caught and I fell and caught myself on that arm I rolled over but uh I didn't feel anything at that time was after we got in the air that started to hurting us no my guess for a while so so I didn't get a Purple Heart for that because it didn't happen on the mission it happened before it took so we talked about the evolution of the aircraft yeah let's talk about the evolution of the military in general obviously we talked about the integration in the late 40s by the time you retire in the early 1970s what's the reality well the reality was in world war ii they would never have a person of afro-americans sent over a caucasian and then at the end of the war I was a commander of the detachment of the you Dorn and and a Danang and all of my pilots were Caucasian see and so I've seen I saw that changed doing the service which which is great you know I'm the story of your own commander say the story you told earlier of your own did the pilots who served under you have any issues as far as you know oh no no I I've been to a number of reunions with them and I got along very well with them all of but you don't have funny experience at a reunion down and in Florida one year I'm looking around above I was 20 years older than most of the pilots say I was in my forties in Vietnam they were in their 20s and I'm looking around and saying these guys I look at all you know it's 40 years after the war you know yeah and they were 20s then if they're gonna be bald they're bald now say at the reunion you know and I'm look around these guys are looking old yo and I was 80 years old at that time but always got along very well with them oh yeah I was still in touch with them in fact I just got a call last week from a follower of the 29 group I didn't go to their every Union this year and want to know what happened where I was so they keep in touch with me in touch all three the three three three well as a couple of your Tuskegee brothers have said that not only was Tuskegee critical in the integration in the military but it was kind of an important hinge point in the civil rights movement as well so when you think about the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen and your role within the airmen how do you process that well the thing is that it was our role because the Army in the Navy was still segregated rigidly segregated just when the Air Force broke off became a new service in and 47 a lot of the Air Force officers as the Air Force moved from the Army they moved up somewhat and a number of them had known about the group in the Mediterranean had been by there and shortly after they formed the head of personnel general Edwards started a study didn't make a lot of noise about it about racial integration he did start a study I guess a couple months after the Air Force form just to find out just test the waters you know about racial integration and then in April 7 months after they form the announce they're going to do it so the fact that we moved out from under the Army and the Navy not apar me the people who moved up now felt better about racial integration so that was a good move as far as racial integration was concerned as far as we're concerned how would you describe the leadership of Colonel and then general Benjamin Davis it's great great he a lot of people thought he was tough but he had to be and that's reason he liked he made sure that we stuck with the Bombers what not you leave the Bombers you're gonna be court-martial you know because when he was when he was interviewed to move to 15th Air Force the thing was happening that they were losing so many bombers did you head of 15th Air Force impressed upon them we've got to cut down these losses say and so general Davis took Colonel Davis took that as his goal and so he stretched stay with the Bombers because quite often some of the other groups German fighters would come in and they would fly after them chased him away and if the German fighter kept going they would follow it until they shot it down but now they may not have as many fighters to protect them when some other Germans hit them and they lost a lot of bombers like that say so Colonel Davis said don't go chasing people you stay with the Bombers he'll bring ten men on that bomber they will get back home again so you do such a good job of telling your story and that's that's a pattern I see with the Tuskegee Airmen because they tell it frequently they go to local groups they go to schools I think kids especially are a place where you all seem to really feel like it's important to make your story so talk about that not only are you though the story of the Tuskegee Airmen but you're now ambassadors for that history well that's it we have we have another group D a redtail group part of a commemorative Air Force and they have a trailer and an airplane that fly around the continent go to air shows around the country and that the trailer opens up into a theater Oh fifty kids or 40 adults one side of just three screens and the other sides of the seats what not and it's a 30-minute program about the Tuskegee Airmen and then they have a p-51 that flies with them when there's an airport say okay and I go around with them quite a bit I was with them and put together just last week they were down there and whenever school kids come they'll go in a school bus drive up after the show then the people who run it if I'm available all with Tuskegee Airmen they will talk to the kids also to answer their questions and just just and you know I talked when I talk to them I also talk to the girls I encourage the girls to because girls make good pilots we have some damn good pilots and the military fighter pilots now so it's not just the boys because it doesn't take strength to fly an airplane it takes technique you know and so I encourage the girls too because I know a lot of I know and remember women fight upon itself what are some of the reactions from people who hear your story that stick with you most well that they didn't most people don't know about it say and that's what surprises up to say and but then again I find that out a lot of kids don't know much about history you know I gave a talk at a military academy in Middle School in Sarasota and I just tried something different I started high school in September 39 39 the same one that Hitler invaded Poland to start the war and I so I want to talk to these kids I talked about the public the events had taken place and then bring out where I was at that time but I gave him this whole thing of events about 1940 France fell and in Germany and Britain the Battle of Britain whatnot and what I was doing when they finished one of the teachers said they learned more history today than they get in school which is not good you know that's not good so last question for you mr. Hardy is and I mentioned this to one of the others as well obviously the Tuskegee Airmen where we're hoping for respect you got the respect and now the group is revered what does that mean to you well it means a lot and it means so much because so many fellows paid a price for that so as so many like I'm the last of my class left two of us left on and both my roommates they had dad one was killed overseas in world war two and whatnot so he lost a lot of good friends who paid the price but they were part of the the effort to prove that we could fly fly as well as anyone else and it worked out that way so we consider ourselves a respected group of the aviation family when you look back almost thirty years of military service that that is what you're probably most proud of that's right no problem sir I thank you so much for your service to our country and thank you so much for your time here with us today and we hope you enjoy the conference thank you so much well thank you thank you I'm glad to be here as I say I'm glad to be anyplace our guest has been retired Air Force lieutenant colonel george hardy veteran of World War two Korea and Vietnam 136 career combat missions and a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen I'm Greg karumba this is Veterans Chronicles

Channel: American Veterans Center

Views: 25,549

Rating: 4.8857141 out of 5

Keywords: AVC, American Veterans Center, george hardy, lieutenant colonel george hardy, lt. colonel george hardy, tuskegee airmen, red tails, us army air corps, african american history, integration

Id: JTyxrHSigj0

Length: 28min 2sec (1682 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 10 2019