Tuskegee Airman Haydel White Sr. Submitted by N.O.V.A. September 2006 Times Picayune 09-08-2006 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ Haydel Joseph White Sr., a member of the groundbreaking Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, died Saturday, his 85th birthday, at West Jefferson Medical Center of complications from a stroke. Mr. White, who was born in Wallace and grew up in New Orleans, earned a business degree from Xavier University. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps shortly after the United States entered World War II. He was assigned to Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama, where the first African-American airmen were trained. Mr. White became a captain and spent most of the war there, said his daughter, Wendy Adcock. His bomber squadron was scheduled to fly out to Europe, but the war there ended before the men could depart. Even though the Tuskegee Airmen were members of an elite corps on their base, they were subject to Jim Crow laws whenever they traveled. In trains, they were relegated to boxcars, Adcock said. In March 1945, Mr. White participated in what became known as the Freeman Field Mutiny in Indiana. In that incident, 162 black officers defied their commanders and entered the whites- only officers' club instead of going to the facility that had been set aside for them -- a rundown building that had housed the club for noncommissioned officers. They were arrested, but charges were dropped against Mr. White and nearly all of the other officers. He received an honorable discharge in 1946. After the war, Mr. White worked for the Schenley Corp. and Pepsi-Cola, which sent him to Nigeria, where he opened the country's first Pepsi plant, Adcock said. When Mr. White returned to New Orleans, he became a longshoreman and was one of the first to integrate the Clerks and Checkers Union. After retiring in the early 1980s, he and his wife, Agatha Henry White, were on the board of Bridge House. She died in 1997. He was a member of St. Maria Goretti Church. He lived in eastern New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina forced him to evacuate, Adcock said. He lived several months in Lake Charles before moving in with relatives in LaPlace, where he suffered a stroke in January. In addition to his daughter, survivors include a son, Haydel White Jr., and five grandchildren. A Mass will be said today at 10 a.m. in the rectory of St. Maria Goretti Church, 7300 Crowder Blvd. Visitation will begin at 9 a.m., and a Rosary wwill be said at 9:45 a.m. Burial will be in Mount Olivet Cemetery. Majestic Mortuary Service is in charge of arrangements.