Tuskegee Airmen part of symposium

AUBURNDALE -- The movie "Red Tails" opened last weekend, bringing attention to the feats of the Tuskegee Airmen, the black fighter pilots who served with distinction in the racially segregated American military during World War II.

The film, starring Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr., serves as a preview for a coming attraction at Fantasy of Flight in Auburndale.

The aviation attraction will host a panel of actual Tuskegee airmen Feb. 9-11 as part of the annual Legends & Legacies Symposium Series.

"I think it's great timing," said Jennifer Montague, director of sales and special events at Fantasy of Flight. "I'm hoping with the movie it opens up a broader audience."

George Hardy of Sarasota is one of the World War II veterans scheduled to take part in the symposium. At age 19, Hardy joined the 332nd Fighter Group of the Army Air Corps, based in Italy, in April 1945.

Hardy arrived as a replacement pilot and flew as a wingman on 21 combat missions, including both high-altitude escorts of bomber aircraft and strafing missions. He flew a P-51 Mustang nicknamed "Tall in the Saddle," a plane formerly piloted by Captain Wendell Lucas.

"I was one of the later pilots who came in," Hardy recalled. "I didn't have an airplane yet; the older guys sort of owned the airplane. Wendell Lucas had flown his missions and could have gone home, but he stayed to become an operations officer. One day he said, 'George, you want to fly my airplane?' I leaped at the chance and flew most of my missions in his airplane."

Hardy, 86, remained in the newly integrated U.S. Air Force for the remainder of his career, retiring in 1971. He has been a winter resident of Sarasota since the early 1990s and a full-time resident since 2003, moving from Massachusetts.

"Red Tails," produced by George Lucas of "Star Wars" fame, has been in the works for more than two decades, and Hardy said he served on a research committee in the early stages of the project. He said his friend and Tuskegee Army Air Field classmate, the late Bill Holloman, had a more direct role as a consultant on the movie.

Hardy attended a recent advanced screening of "Red Tails" in Miami.

"It's a good film," he said. "There's a lot of action in it; that's what people want. Of course, a lot of it's animated. You just can't get airplanes these days to put on a big show any more."

"They Dared to Fly: Tuskegee Airmen" is the most popular event in the four-year-old Legends & Legacies Symposium Series, Montague said. It's the only event in the series held over three days and the only one held in Fantasy of Flight's spacious south hangar rather than the Officer's Club.

Two discussions will be held each day, at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Deric C. Feacher, Winter Haven's assistant to the city manager, will serve as moderator.

Hardy said he attended a reunion of Tuskegee Airmen in Orlando last spring, and at the time the organizers could identify only 48 of the pilots still living out of the approximately 450 who flew in World War II.

"Age is taking its toll," Hardy said. "We had several die in the past year."

The advancing age of the Red Tails -- so named for the color scheme of their planes -- means this likely will be the final year for the Tuskegee event at Fantasy of Flight, Montague said.

Hardy said he welcomes any opportunity to share the experiences of the Tuskegee Airmen.

"I don't get emotional any more," he said. "It's one of those things, it happened and all we can do is try to let people know how we felt about what happened and give some appreciation of the things we went through."

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518.