Ex-Tuskegee Airman Alfred Thomas Farrar dies at age 99
Farrar left his Lynchburg hometown for Tuskegee after graduating from high school to began his aviation training in 1941.
Credit: Kendall Warner/The News & Advance via AP, File
FILE - In this Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2020, file photo, Alfred Farrar, a Tuskegee Airman who is celebrating his 100th birthday in December, poses for a portrait in the doorway of his home in Lynchburg, Va. Farrar died on Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020, in Virginia, only days before a ceremony planned to honor his service in the program that famously trained Black military pilots during World War II. He was 99. Farrar s 100th birthday would ve been on Dec. 26.
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One of the famed Tuskegee Airmen the first Black pilots in the segregated U.S. military and among the most respected fighter pilots of World War II has died from complications of the coronavirus, it was announced Friday.
Theodore Lumpkin Jr. was just days short of his 101st birthday.
Lumpkin, a Los Angeles native, died Dec. 26, according to a statement from Los Angeles City College, which he attended from 1938 to 1940.
Lumpkin was drafted in 1942 and assigned to the 100th Fighter Squadron in Tuskegee, Alabama. The Tuskegee Airmen escorted bombers in Europe.
In this Aug. 3, 2011, file photo, Harry E. Johnson Sr., left, president & CEO of the Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation, takes Tuskegee Airmen, including Theodore Lumpkin Jr., center, and Dabney Montgomery, right, on a tour of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
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Alabama News
Updated:
Courtesy: AP News
LYNCHBURG, Va. (AP) – Former Tuskegee Airman Alfred Thomas Farrar died on Thursday in Virginia only days before a ceremony planned to honor his service in the program that famously trained Black military pilots during World War II.
He was 99. Farrar’s son, Roy, says his father died at his Lynchburg home. Alfred Farrar would have turned 100 years old on Dec. 26. Farrar left his Lynchburg hometown for Tuskegee, Alabama, after graduating from high school to began his aviation training in 1941. His son says Farrar learned to be a pilot during his time in the U.S. Army Air Corps program but didn’t fly any combat missions overseas.