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Tuskegee Airman dies
Tuskegee Airman, Oliver Goodall, rests between meeting guests at the Tuskegee Airmen educational screening event on December 6, 2009, at St. Francis High School in La Canada, CA.
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St. Francis High School, La Canada, CA
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An African-American World War II pilot has died a few weeks after he honored one of his comrades.
88 year-old Oliver “Ollie” Goodall - a Tuskegee airman - died Tuesday at his Altadena home. With others, Goodall helped to break down the military’s color barrier in the 1940s.
Last month Goodall honored one his closest friends - Roger “Bill” Terry – during the dedication of a square bearing his name in South Los Angeles.
“We met in ’43. We graduated together. We flew together. We worked in the office club together," Goodall said as he laughed. "So it was remarkable. Every time you saw me, you saw Bill.”
In 1945, Goodall, Terry and other black officers fought to integrate an all-white Army officer’s club at Freeman Field, Indiana. Goodall later helped organize the Tuskegee Airmen Scholarship Foundation.
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