Lost Tuskegee Airman Identified

For the first time, remains from one of the 27 Tuskegee Airmen declared missing during World War II have been positively identified, the Pentagon announced last week. U.S. Army Air Forces Capt. Lawrence E. Dickson served as a pilot with the 100th Fighter Squadron, 332nd Fighter Group, in the European Theater. On Dec. 23, 1944, Capt. Dickson departed Ramitelli Air Base, Italy, on an aerial reconnaissance mission flying a P-51D aircraft. On his return flight, his airplane developed engine trouble, and two P-51s were sent to escort him back to base. Capt. Dickson radioed that he was going to bail out, but the two other pilots said they were unable to see Dickson's white canopy, due to the snow-covered ground below. The airplane crashed, but Dickson could not be found, and he was subsequently declared missing in action.

In 2012, investigators from the Pentagon's Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency found the crash site near the Austrian border, with help from a local resident who had seen the site as a child. Last summer, students from the University of New Orleans and the University of Innsbruck were part of an excavation team that found what they believed were Captain Dickson's remains, according to The New York Times. DNA analysis confirmed the identity of the pilot. Capt. Dickson's daughter, Marla Lawrence Dickson Andrews, now 76, was just two years old when her father disappeared. "I had given up a long time ago," Ms. Andrews, 76, said on Monday, The New York Times reported. "Now, I don't have to worry."