Herbert Eugene Carter
*Herbert E. Carter was born on this date in 1919. He was a Black military pilot and a United States Air Force officer.
Herbert Eugene Carter was born in Amory, Mississippi, and was one of ten children. His father, George Washington Carter, was African American, and his mother, Willie Ann Sykes Carter, was Native American. George Washington Carter was Amory's utility superintendent, "a prominent position for a black man of that era." His parents sent him to Tuskegee, Alabama, at age sixteen to continue his education; there, he lived and worked with his older brother, who also ran the grocery store. He went on to Tuskegee University.
Carter enrolled in the university's Civilian Pilot Training Program branch to use his flying skills and education to become a rural veterinarian, "flying from farm to farm." But he became committed to a life as a military aviator. Carter was a cadet in Class 42-F of the Tuskegee Airmen and a Maintenance Engineering Officer.
In 1939, he met Mildred Hemmons, a business major at Tuskegee University. While a cadet, Carter was not allowed to date. Instead, he would schedule a maintenance flight check during the weekend and meet Mildred, who flew a rented plane above nearby Lake Martin. On August 21, 1942, they married.
During World War II, Carter was assigned to the 99th Flying Training Squadron, serving as Chief of Maintenance and a fighter pilot. Carter flew seventy-seven combat missions in the North African, Sicilian, and European campaigns. One of the squadron's best-known tasks was to escort bombers and defend them from enemy fire. The men were so good at protecting them," Carter recalled, "that the bombers started referring to them as the Red-Tail Angels."
Carter served in the United States Air Force for 25 years before retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 1969. While an active-duty Air Force officer, he obtained a Bachelor of Science in education in 1955 and a master's degree in education in 1969, both from the Tuskegee Institute. Following his retirement from the Air Force, Carter served at the Tuskegee Institute as an associate dean for student services, associate dean for admission and recruiting, and financial aid counselor.
In 2004, Carter received the French Legion of Honor for "outstanding service rendered to France during the Second World War." Lt. Colonel Herbert Carter died on November 8, 2012, at 93. He was the last surviving Tuskegee Airman from Mississippi. On August 7, 2020, Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama, named its newest airport terminal the Colonel Herbert E. Carter Terminal.
