Charles Warren Dickerson

Charles W. Dickerson enlisted into the US Army Air Forces after attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Charles was sent to the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama where he trained as a pilot with the 66th Army Air Forces Flying Training Detachment. He qualified as an expert rifleman and sharpshooter, like his father who was awarded the French Croix Du Guerre during World War I. He received his wings and was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant on Nov. 3, 1943. After this, he was sent to Selfridge Army Airfield in Michigan. Lieutenant Dickerson was killed on Feb. 2, 1944, when his P-39Q (s/n 42-21238) went into a stall and crashed. At his funeral, Judge Sol Rubin said, "If Lieutenant Dickerson's death serves to show us that in death we are all equal, and that in life we must be all equal, then it will not have been in vain."