Ernest Henderson interview recording, 1994 July 13
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Sally Graham | Today is July 13th, and I'm Sally Graham and I'm sitting at Mr. Henderson's living room. So your story is very fascinating, and I'm sitting amidst all your photographs. So why don't you, I guess start with your childhood? | 0:03 |
Ernest Henderson | Childhood? All right. I was born up in Lawrence County, South Carolina on a two horse farm, they call it. My father was a renter, in other words, we would rent the land and work all the year. And at the end of the year—Cotton was our main crop, and that's when we received the money. At the end of the year when we sold the cotton. | 0:25 |
Ernest Henderson | During the year, my father would've to borrow money and borrow food. In other words, get flour and meal, sugar on credit. And at the end of the year, when sold the cotton, we had to pay back the man. So we had very little left. This was a peculiar thing about the farm at that time. Each bale of cotton brought in a certain amount of money. If we raised, had a good year and get 14 bales of cotton, the man in charge, would seem to have it figured out. | 0:52 |
Ernest Henderson | So there'd be two bales of cotton left for us. All the rest go to him. If you have a poor year, you get only five bales of cotton. Two bales came to us the same way, and he kept three. In other words, it seemed as though two bales of cotton is all we could get at the end of any one year. But we went through that, we made it. And of course, as a farm boy, had to do all the things that a farm boy does, working, feeding cows, feeding the horse, going to schools that are ill prepared. | 1:26 |
Ernest Henderson | And one day I was in the field plowing behind an old slow mule, and I heard a noise. I thought it was behind me. I looked back and I didn't see anything. And then I looked up, a small airplane was flying overhead, the first airplane that I had ever seen. I said, "Whoa." I stopped the mule and watched that plane until it faded into the distance. I thought to myself, if I could just touch one of those little flying machines, I'd be happy, not knowing that 10 years later I was a flight instructor in an airplane teaching others to fly out. But I had a long way to come before I got to that point. | 2:01 |
Ernest Henderson | And leaving the farm, I went to elementary school in the country, and went to high school at Bell Street in Clinton, South Carolina. And of course, I had to sell vegetables to get money to go to high school because high school would charge a tuition at that time. And then when I finished Bell Street High School, I wanted to go to Hampton Institute, take business administration. And of course, I had to sell products and farm to get money to go to Hampton. | 2:42 |
Ernest Henderson | Finally, I got into Hampton Institute, had $2.50 cents left after I paid my tuition and everything. So I was there on the campus, and my parents couldn't afford to send me to college. I went with the idea that I was going to work my way through. And they had a program where the first year in college you work during the day and go to school at night. That's what I did for the first year. After the first year, then I started going to school in the daytime and working at night, I would have a full course of studies in the daytime and at night, I would night guard. I would come on guard at 11 o'clock and work until six in the morning. And the next week I'd come on at six in the evening and work until midnight that night. | 3:16 |
Ernest Henderson | So I was working at night and going to school in the daytime. And I became a member of the ROTC. And I loved that organization very much. I became a second lieutenant in the ROTC. I liked the drill, and that was my first opportunity to give orders to others because I had been receiving orders all of my life and now I could talk to those cadets, giving them commands as what to do. | 4:10 |
Ernest Henderson | And that's where I really built up my self confidence where I could talk to others. Now, that was about the year 1939. And at that time, war began to break out in Europe, World War Two, and people were fighting. And here in the United States, the White students our age in college started enlisting in the Army Air Corps to go in as pilots rather than as regular army men on the ground. | 4:38 |
Ernest Henderson | And they were accepted. Anyway, our Blacks tried to go in also, but they would not accept our applications because of our color. They said we couldn't fly. In fact, when we first went to the place to register, they said, "We don't need any night fighters." Of course, we passed that over. We were just trying to get into the Air Corps because of our color, they said that. And then of course, so we said that we're not going to let anything stop us. | 5:11 |
Ernest Henderson | And what they did, they tried to appease us, I believe. The federal government honored the Civil Aeronautics Administration, the CAA, organized some civilian flying schools and put them into six Black colleges. One was Delaware State College, West Virginia State College, Howard University, Hampton Institute, ANT in North Carolina and Tuskegee, Alabama. That was six. And of course, we were flying small airplanes, little civilian planes, very light, no connection with the army whatsoever. | 5:43 |
Ernest Henderson | And so I took that course, and of course I liked it. When I finished that course, I received my private pilots license. And upon receiving my private pilot's license, that gave me permission and authority to fly anytime I wanted to. And the type of airplane that I used, I could take up friends, take up passengers, but I could not charge for any flying I was doing because it was private, it was not commercial. | 6:32 |
Ernest Henderson | And of course we were not satisfied. And so we let the government know that we're not satisfied. So they organized at Tuskegee, an advanced flying school for civilian pilots, still civilian, not the army. So I went to Tuskegee, Alabama where I took the advanced flying course. I took the commercial course, and got my commercial pilot license, which took 200 hours to get the commercial course. And I took on the 40 hours at Hampton Institute to get the private license. But Tuskegee took 200 hours to get the commercial license. | 6:59 |
Sally Graham | What year were you at Tuskegee? | 7:38 |
Ernest Henderson | I went to Tuskegee in 1941, the early part of 1941. And of course, I got my commercial pilots license. And we also had a cross country course and that would teach us how to fly from one airport to another, and without getting laws. See, we could get up and fly around the airport, it was easy, but to fly from one airport to another and to another and back home without getting lost, we had that course which was called the Cross country course. | 7:40 |
Ernest Henderson | And after we had the cross country course, we took the instructor course, which made us instructors then. So that at that time I was a flight instructor, had a commercial pilots license. I also had a ground school instructor rating. I could teach a ground school in aviation. And of course, at that time we were still flying civilian planes, and they would not let us get into an army aircraft. | 8:09 |
Ernest Henderson | And so Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt, who was a president's wife at that time, came to Tuskegee. She heard of our plight, our desire to get into the Air Corps. So she came down there to look us over. She came to the little airport. It was a dirt field, no runway, just an open field. She watched the men take off and land, and the students take off in land. So she decided to fly herself. She took a flight with our chief pilot. He was Black. | 8:41 |
Ernest Henderson | There's something in the chair. I got to get that out. | 9:14 |
Sally Graham | (laughs) Okay. | 9:20 |
Ernest Henderson | She took a flight and she came back down and went back to Washington to talk with her husband to convince him to let us fly in the army. But in the meantime, a Black pilot filed a lawsuit against the War Department for not letting him in the Air Corps. And about a week after that suit was filed, they announced that they were opening up the flying school at Tuskegee to train cadets to be taught by Black pilots. And that's what we wanted. And that's when we really got an opportunity to start teaching with the Air Corps. | 9:21 |
Sally Graham | And what year was that? | 9:56 |
Ernest Henderson | That was in early 1942. Yeah, late 1941, early 1942. And men came to Tuskegee to go into the Air Corps, but they had to take instructions from us. They asked the civilian pilots to teach them. Now, after the end of the first course of cadets, these are the cadets that you see. Well, I'll show you, at that top right hand corner there— | 9:58 |
Ernest Henderson | And when the cadets came to Tuskegee to take their training, we were civilian flight instructors, teaching Army Air Corps cadets. This was the setup. The federal government supplied the cadets, the men to take the training, and the airplanes. And Tuskegee Institute took the responsibility of lodging them in and given them training. So Tuskegee furnished the instructors and lodging, while the federal government furnished the cadets and the airplanes. | 10:27 |
Ernest Henderson | And then we started teaching them to fly. And the primary flying course, that's what I taught. We were flying PT17s, that's over there, that yellow plane, that's the kind that we flew. | 11:13 |
Sally Graham | PT17? | 11:30 |
Ernest Henderson | Yes, PT stands for primary trainer. PT17. And we trained them in that. And of course, in that plane we taught them many, many maneuvers. Many things that they had to do, not just takeoffs and landings, but we had to teach a lot of unusual flying. May I see that plane? | 11:32 |
Sally Graham | Sure. | 11:57 |
Ernest Henderson | Just to give you an idea. First we had to teach them to straighten level flight, which is carrying the airplane straight and lever. And we taught them turns, ordinary turns. And then we taught them climbs, and we taught them glides to come down. So those four things are the fundamentals of flying, straight and level, turns, climbs and glides. And everything else you'll do in an airplane, it's a combination of those things. So we had to teach them first to make some, not only normal turns, but steep turns because we knew that when they got in the Air Corps and maybe got in battle against the enemies, they would have to make some very steep turns. We taught them very steep turns. | 12:01 |
Ernest Henderson | And the man who can make the steepest turn without stalling out is the man who will live the longest. That's the way we put it. Because we had to teach them to make steep turns. And we also had to teach them many things to do with the airplane. Not that they would do it in combat, but they had to have a good feel of the airplane. So in case they got into a situation, they'll know how to get it out. We had to teach them how to do slow rolls, just like this. Roll it over. | 12:49 |
Ernest Henderson | To the right, and slow rolls to the left of. Then we had to teach snap rolls. Snap rolls, you pull the airplane down, and pull it up and flip it over. Stop it in the right position. That's a snap roll. | 13:18 |
Sally Graham | A snap roll? | 13:37 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah. | 13:39 |
Sally Graham | And when you were learning how to be a pilot, are these the kinds of things that they taught you? | 13:42 |
Ernest Henderson | We had to learn that. They taught it to us first. We had all this down past when we started teaching to go cadets, all of this was taught to us first before we started teaching them. And they were taught to do half snaps, snap it over, stop it inverted and roll back over. It's a half snap. They had to do the half snap, and then they had to do the half roll and split S. Half roll, you roll it over on the back, and bring it out from the bottom. That's a half roll and split S. | 13:49 |
Sally Graham | Half roll and split S. | 14:23 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, you roll it over on the back and bring it out from the bottom. That's a split S. Now, they had to lot off—Now, when a student first starts flying, we take our time before we get to these maneuvers. They do a small thing first, but when they get to this, they feel real used to it. | 14:26 |
Sally Graham | How many months would it take to get to a half row and split S? | 14:42 |
Ernest Henderson | To get to half row and split S would take about three weeks. Three or four weeks. | 14:45 |
Sally Graham | Three weeks? | 14:54 |
Ernest Henderson | Yes. We worked real fast. And then of course, there's one thing about the army. They had a very fast course. In other words, they had to solo within eight hours, between eight and 12 hours of flying time. We start flying, and of course the first flight, we just take them up and go orientation, just flying around and let them feel how the airplanes flies. We're not doing any maneuvers. And the second flight, when we take them up, we start doing steep turns you see. And then the next time we take them up, we start doing steep climbs. Can you imagine that? Very steep climbs turning to the left and to the right. | 14:57 |
Ernest Henderson | And we taught them forest landings. Now forest landing is when—A real forest landing, the airplane engine stops, and you've got to find a place to land. And it glides, those planes will glide a long way. It's not like these big jets, because the jets come down, but these planes just could glide them a long way and find a pasture, and land in the pasture if you want to. | 15:40 |
Ernest Henderson | And of course now, we taught them forest landings, but we did not land. What I would do, I would say, "Close the throttle." It was still idle, and it would run. I'd close the throttle, I'd say, "Forest landing." He was in the back seat. I was in the front, and he would've to look out, first to try to find some smoke. See which way the wind's blowing. We have to land facing the wind always, not downwind, facing the wind. If the smoke was blowing that way, no, the winds come from this way. So he's going to come around on that side and land this way. | 16:08 |
Ernest Henderson | So after he found out the direction of the wind, he would find a nice field to land in. Maybe a pasture is very good. The best place to land is in a pasture, because it's usually hard where the cows have been grazed and everything. If there are no stumps. Now, in a open field, a cotton field is all right, except it may be soft. And when your land, the airplane might nose over. So we taught forest landings, and then we had to teach different types of eights. | 16:42 |
Ernest Henderson | We taught pile on eights, which was, we'd pick up two points, one point there and one point here, fly to that point and fly around that point at about 500 feet off the ground and come back, fly around this point and go back 500 feet off the ground, fly around that point and come back. We are teaching them to make turns close to the ground and have control of the airplane, and everything. That's why we taught them, those eights. | 17:12 |
Ernest Henderson | And then the high maneuvers that we taught, we taught them laser eights, a maneuver which I'm very proud of because a laser eight is flying the airplane like this. It looks very uneventful, unconcerned. But this maneuver saved one of my students' life overseas. | 17:39 |
Sally Graham | How was that? | 18:00 |
Ernest Henderson | Here's what happened. When he went overseas, they were flying. Well, I might as well tell you now. The airplanes that we flew at Tuskegee were all used planes. Montgomery, Alabama had a White school for the White cadets, when they were getting new airplanes, they would send their used planes to us. And of course, I'm so thankful to God that we had some good tip top mechanics. They kept our planes in good conditions. And even after they left us, they went to the advanced flying school where they flew heavier planes. | 18:03 |
Ernest Henderson | They flew the BT6 and the AT6. That's the AT6 behind the two of us standing together. That plan, when you take off, you can retract the landing gears. I got my instrument rating in that plan. I got a instrument rating too. I forgot to tell you. | 18:40 |
Sally Graham | Oh, okay. | 18:57 |
Ernest Henderson | So what happened, it what went into the history books. I was the first Black person from South Carolina to get a commercial pilots license, a flight instructors rating, a ground instructors rating and commercial license. That's one thing, I'm the first from South Carolina to do that. And so we had to teach them to do those maneuvers. Now this lazy—When they went overseas, the first time they flew new airplanes was when they were overseas, got in to go up to fight the enemies. Then they had new airplanes, P40s. Yeah, P40s. | 18:58 |
Ernest Henderson | Now they flew the P40s for a while, but later they found out that they were a little bit sluggish. They weren't quite maneuverable. So they started applying the P51s, the Mustang, P51 made by the British. And that was a very maneuverable plane. Now, I tell you how this lazy eight saved a man's life. One of my men was flying in a P51. You see, they have sometimes what they call dog fights in the air. | 19:35 |
Ernest Henderson | Where one enemy plane would try to shoot one of our allies planes out of the air. You see, we were trying to get the plane out. My man was trying to shoot him out of the air. If you can get behind him, you have the advantage because the guns were mounted in the wings and you flying an airplane, you've got two pedals, your right foot on one pedal, left foot on the other pedal, your right hand on a stick that came up through the center, no steering wheel. | 20:14 |
Ernest Henderson | A stick came up through the center of the plane. We called it the control stick. And your left hand on the throttle. And the trigger to your guns was in the top of that stick. All you had to do was press the top with your thumb, your guns would fire. And the guns were in the wings. If you get behind an airplane, and get them in your sight, all you've got to do is press the trigger. | 20:43 |
Ernest Henderson | And the man who tried to get behind you, he knows that he has an advantage because he can shoot you out the air. So when you have dog fights, sometimes they just fly around trying to get behind each other. But once a Messerschmitt, a German plane came out and started attacking one of my men. See this P51 could fly about 250 miles an hour, the Messerschmitt could fly 500 miles an hour. | 21:04 |
Ernest Henderson | So he got behind my man, and my man knew he couldn't outrun it because he didn't have enough speed. He knew he couldn't out climb him because those jets could climb straight up. He knew he couldn't dive and get out of the way. So he start doing what we call lazy eight. He modified it like this, and the man behind couldn't get a sight on him. And the Messerschmitt was flying so fast it passed by him and he started to turn around to get behind him again. He had to make such a large—My man turned on the inside of him and shot him out of the air. | 21:30 |
Ernest Henderson | So this P51 outwitted a Messerschmitt, which was flying twice the speed. So this little maneuver here saved his life because the man could not get a sight on him. | 22:05 |
Sally Graham | And when do you remember hearing from your students? | 22:18 |
Ernest Henderson | People—What happened when the men would go, oh, sometimes they would be released to come back, at times. But reports came back from the headquarters. Now, I might say this, when they first went over, there was some organizations in this country who tried to put out the rumor that those Black pilots were afraid and didn't want to fight. They were afraid over there. But it was not the case. Because those men wanted to fly. They were anxious to fly. | 22:23 |
Ernest Henderson | And of course, these reports came. But this report came back, I don't know just what source this came through, but it came back and told us that this man had outwitted that Messerschmitt, and— | 22:54 |
Sally Graham | Was the source foreign? Was it not from an American source? From the enemies of World War Two? | 23:09 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, from the allied source. You see there were allies, French, the English and the Americans were fighting against the Germans. So they came from our American sources. Yes. | 23:20 |
Sally Graham | That said Blacks were afraid? | 23:30 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, they thought Blacks were afraid. But what happened, those Blacks had so much confidence in themselves, they painted the tail of the airplane red for identification. Anything went wrong, they said, the red tail plain did it, but they were so confident they painted the tails red. | 23:32 |
Ernest Henderson | And of course, some of the first missions that they were given when they went overseas was escorting bombers, escorting bombers to the targets, because the bombers had to carry a lot of bombs to the enemy target to drop. And when one bomber got up, they usually sent about three pursuit planes to protect it. One on the right, off the right wing, one off the left wing, and one and front, and possibly had one behind, we have four to protect that one bomber. | 23:50 |
Ernest Henderson | And if an enemy aircraft or pursuit plane tried to shoot the bomber out of the air, a couple of these pursuit plans would turn and chase them away, shoot them out of the air, chase them away, and then come back and escort the bombers to the place. And of course, one of the first missions though, they gave the men before they were escorting, was to do a strafing mission. A strafing mission is shooting something on the ground, at Pantelleria, that's on the southern coast of Italy, Pantelleria. | 24:24 |
Ernest Henderson | And so they, after 15 days of strafing it, the enemy post gave up, and our men had won, those Black pilots. And then one of the other missions, it seemed as though it might have been a test to see what these Black pilots could do. They sent 16 bombers out on one mission to go to bomb someplace, and used only six per pursuit planes. And that was off, you see, because you needed more pursuit planes, but only six pursuit planes escorting 16 bombers. But they would fly near the front, and they would come back and get near the back. | 25:01 |
Ernest Henderson | They would just be all around them. You see, they keep the enemy aircraft from bothering them. And they escorted bombers over Romania, Poland, Yugoslavia over Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary, all those German countries. They escorted bombs over all those places. And in all of their escort missions, they did not lose a bomber. During the whole mission over there, they did not lose bomber. And that was a record that was given to them by the commanding officer. At the end of the war, he commended them for the work that they had done. | 25:48 |
Sally Graham | Were there any Black bombers? | 26:38 |
Ernest Henderson | No, not at that time, but they were training Black bombers, B25s. B25— | 26:40 |
Sally Graham | B25 is the kind of plane? | 26:51 |
Ernest Henderson | That is the bombers that they were using. That was the name of the plane. And of course, they had trained the men. But just before they sent them into it, the war came to an end just before the Black bombers went in. Now this man over here, Chappie James, I don't know if you heard his name or not? Chappie James. His name was Daniel James. Daniel Chappie James. Now he was a bomber pilot, but he was not in the European theater. He went into the Pacific area. | 26:52 |
Sally Graham | I see. And— | 27:35 |
Ernest Henderson | He came to Tuskegee with us and got his training, but he went overseas. And he had 63,000 men under his command at one time. Chappie James, Black man, he retired later and went to work in the Pentagon, in the Washington DC. But he passed about five years ago. | 27:35 |
Sally Graham | And when they were over Pantelleria, what year was that? | 28:04 |
Ernest Henderson | They started in 1943. Must be early 1943. | 28:11 |
Sally Graham | So was it after 1943 when the—Or, would they have been cadets by then or were they lieutenants who were in the planes— | 28:20 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh, yeah, before they left Tuskegee, when they came to us, they were cadets. Advanced flying still at Tuskegee, and Cadets. But when they finished the flying at cadets, they became lieutenants. | 28:33 |
Sally Graham | Lieutenants? | 28:44 |
Ernest Henderson | Lieutenants, yeah, flying lieutenants. They had their officers. | 28:45 |
Sally Graham | Flying lieutenants. And they were in the pursuit planes? | 28:48 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, flying at pursuit planes. | 28:51 |
Sally Graham | Was that after? Was that in 1943? | 28:52 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah. Oh, yeah. In 1943 when they went over, they trained in 1942. And they decided to land, they went to Casablanca. That's where they landed in Casablanca. And of course, they flew from different bases over there. And their commanding officer was B. O. Davis. His name was Benjamin O. Davis. He came through Tuskegee as cadet. I was there when he was training as a cadet. And he went on overseas and became the commanding officer there. | 28:55 |
Sally Graham | Were you an instructor? | 29:36 |
Ernest Henderson | I was instructor. | 29:39 |
Sally Graham | At Tuskegee? | 29:39 |
Ernest Henderson | I was an instructor at Tuskegee when they were there. Now when they were there, yeah, I was instructor. That's right. I was instructor. I didn't instruct them. However, I think some of the other men instructed them. Now Chappie James came through the cadet too. But he went on Pacific to be a commanding officer. | 29:40 |
Ernest Henderson | And they kept several of the civilian pilots there at Tuskegee to train in case the men were lost over there and they needed replacements, they would come back, and we would have men ready to go over and take their places. I always tell them that they kept some of the best pilots there, the instructors. But I enjoyed it because I was teaching and learning myself at the same time. | 29:55 |
Sally Graham | Did most of the pilots come from Tuskegee? | 30:26 |
Ernest Henderson | No. | 30:32 |
Sally Graham | Or were they— | 30:32 |
Ernest Henderson | All the United States. | 30:33 |
Sally Graham | Like six different Black colleges that were being—The Black pilots? | 30:34 |
Ernest Henderson | Well, what happened, the six different Black colleges had an advantage of flying early in the civilian planes. And when they came into the Cadet Corps, they could fly already, you see. And it was not hard for them to get on into the Air Corps. But there were many others who did not get that. See, these Black colleges were just more or less in the south and east, Delaware, West Virginia, Howard, Hampton, A&T North Carolina, Tuskegee, because it was the south that was putting up the biggest fuss and trying to get into the Air Corps. | 30:41 |
Ernest Henderson | And of course, as I said, when they went into the Air Corps, they had some training already, but they had to fly the army way. The army always has a way of doing it. When we became flight instructors in the civilian area, we started teaching the cadets. We had to take an Army course. Instructors came to teach us how to fly. We already knew how to fly, but they just had to carry us through some procedures, the army way, what they call it. And so we got our training through the Army. And of course, while we were at Tuskegee, they had White commanding officers there. Commander Colonel Parrish was one of the main officers at Tuskegee. And he was very nice. Parrish, P-A-R-R-I-S-H. | 31:14 |
Sally Graham | Oh, so there were White instructors that instructed you, but— | 32:03 |
Ernest Henderson | Well, when I first went to Tuskegee, we had White instructors to teach us because we were students when we went to Tuskegee, we were advanced students taking a commercial course. And let me see, right here, this man right here is Italian. He was my instructor. He's an Italian. And the plane in the background is the plane that we learned to take the advanced course when we first went to Tuskegee— | 32:07 |
Sally Graham | Was that a 16? | 32:34 |
Ernest Henderson | No, it was a Waco. We went to Tuskegee, they had one plan to teach in the advanced course, same size as the PT13, but it was a little bit different. You could land it easier. That's a hard plane to land. It's stiff. In a ground loop, it's turning around on you quick. But this is a very smooth plane we were flying here, called Waco, UPF Sutton. That's what we threw there. | 32:36 |
Ernest Henderson | And of course, this is a picture they took after I gave an air show at Tuskegee. Some Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts and 4-H Club came to the airport, came to Tuskegee to visit campus. And they decided to come to the airport just to see us fly. So when I got out there, my instructor said, "Ernie, take that plane up and give these folks an air show." I went up and did a little bit of everything in the book that I knew. | 33:01 |
Sally Graham | And what kinds of things did you do? | 33:27 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh, what I did, first, I went up and I did a loop. Now a loop is something that looks spectacular, but it's very easy. Dive the airplane, bring it up and bring it over. That's a loop. Then I did a slow roll. I did a snap roll, flip it over. And then we did some other maneuvers, which we did not have to teach the cadets, but we had to—Yeah, we taught them too. So they would know what the airplane would do. We taught them vertical reverse. You turn the airplane steep, flip it over, turn that way, flip it over, turn that way. That's a vertical reverse. | 33:29 |
Ernest Henderson | We also had the falling leaf. They get up very high, and press one pedal to come down like this, even though a leaf doesn't fall flat. A leaf goes from one side to the other. We taught that, the flying leaf. We also had to teach them to spin too. We taught these to the cadets, a tail spin. They get up and pull the airplane into a spin, the nose comes down, airplane is coming down just like that. When you get low enough, you use your control to stop the turn, pick up speed and pull it back up. | 34:09 |
Ernest Henderson | Had to teach all that to them. So in case an airplane fell into a spin while they were fighting, they'll know how to get out of it. That's the main reason. And also, in that air show, I did two maneuvers that was not in the book. Something I made of my own. The slow roll is like this. | 34:40 |
Ernest Henderson | Now, I was the first one to do this at Tuskegee. I did a hesitation roll, roll it down, stop, stop, stop, stop. And keeping the airplane going straight. That's hard to do, because you're changing the rudder controls during the time. That's a hesitation roll, roll outside the piece and stop. | 35:03 |
Sally Graham | So did you kind of come up with that idea in your mind? | 35:28 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, I did in my mind. And the next one was a vertical eight. Now a vertical eight is like this. Oh, well let me first tell you. | 35:34 |
Sally Graham | Okay. | 35:41 |
Ernest Henderson | You saw what a loop was? | 35:42 |
Sally Graham | Yes. | 35:43 |
Ernest Henderson | Now Immelmann is another maneuver that we had to teach. It's very difficult. You dial the airplane, you pull it up, instead of going into a loop, you roll it over and stay up there. Now that's a very difficult maneuver. I forgot, we also taught them the Cuban eight. A Cuban eight is like this. You dive the airplane, you bring it over. And you get to here, you wrote it over you. You're going to die. We come over here, roll it over again, you're going to die, and roll it over like that. That's a Cuban eight. Now I did a vertical eight, which is not in the book. | 35:46 |
Ernest Henderson | I've never seen anybody do it since I did it. A vertical eight, I made a combination of the half roll, the split S—No, first a loop, a half roll, spit S and another one. I did the top part of the vertical eight first, an eight that stands up, you know like you write an eight on the wall? I did the top part first. I dove the airplane, pulled it up, and did an ordinary loop. As soon as I finished the loop, I rolled over on the back and did the split S as the bottom part of the loop came up and rolled out in the center. That was the fun with vertical eight. | 36:27 |
Sally Graham | How did you come up with these kinds of maneuvers? | 37:08 |
Ernest Henderson | Well, the loop is taught to you in the book. You know, how to do the loop, the spit S is taught how to do it. You turn over on your back, and pull out from the bottom. That's a spit S. That's something you could do, maybe in combat, if a man get after you, you could roll over on your back and pull off on the button. The only thing, you're at a low altitude and the man who has a higher altitude always has an advantage because he can dive on you. | 37:10 |
Ernest Henderson | So you wouldn't do that in combat very much. So we were taught how to do the loop, how to do the half roll split S. We Immelmann. And so I just put them together, put a combination together, did the loop first, half roll, split S and Immelmann, stuff at the center. | 37:35 |
Sally Graham | The first times that you tried these, were you successful? | 38:01 |
Ernest Henderson | Yes. I think this was the first time I tried it in that air show. It was successful, like I said— | 38:05 |
Sally Graham | How did you feel when you succeeded? | 38:12 |
Ernest Henderson | Confident. I had confidence in myself. In other words, the biggest thing, to make sure you have plenty of speed. If you don't have speed, when you get up here, the airplane will drop out on you. You've got to pick up speed. But if you have plenty of speed and have it under control, you can do most anything the airplane can do. | 38:13 |
Ernest Henderson | But there's one thing we were always taught not to try to do, an outside loop. You see a loop like this is normal. But outside loop, tried to do a loop like that. They called, they said that would pull your wings off. And so we were taught never to try an outside loop. | 38:30 |
Sally Graham | What did your superiors think when you succeeded in putting all these maneuvers together? | 38:49 |
Ernest Henderson | They called me Ace. They name me Ace, ACE Henderson, ACE Pilot. They always called me that around at the campus. When they see me, they said, "There's Ace." Yes sir. | 38:54 |
Sally Graham | So you earned that? | 39:08 |
Ernest Henderson | I earned that. Another thing I earned too, but it's in a book somewhere. It says, you see most of those pilots were from all walks of life. Some of them were doctors, some were lawyers, some were photographers. But they came to Tuskegee, we all were teaching, doing the same thing. We were all on one common level. And most of them drank, when they get their paycheck on a payday and they'd head for a dry county. | 39:11 |
Ernest Henderson | Tuskegee was in a—I mean a wet county. Tuskegee was in a dry county, and a little place called Notasulga about 30 miles up the road was in a wet county. You could go up there and get to the beers and things. And so I did not drink. There were three of us, they had 39 instructors. That's how many instructors they had. 39 instructors. Only three of us did not drink at all. One was James Wright, Claude Platt and Ernest Henderson. Neither one of us drank anything strong. So when they reached for a beer, I reached for a Pepsi Cola. So they named me Pepsi Cola Henderson. (both laugh) A nickname. Yes. | 39:42 |
Sally Graham | So to certain people you were Ace, and certain people you were Pepsi Cola Henderson? | 40:20 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, yeah, Pepsi Cola Henderson. | 40:24 |
Sally Graham | So what did the ladies think about your flying? | 40:27 |
Ernest Henderson | Well, one thing, at the beginning we went to Tuskegee. We had some ladies taking flying themselves. | 40:30 |
Sally Graham | Really? | 40:37 |
Ernest Henderson | Really did. | 40:38 |
Sally Graham | What, Black women that were— | 40:38 |
Ernest Henderson | Black. Black women take flying. Mildred Hanson and Mildred Hemson. I remember those names very well. They took flying. | 40:40 |
Sally Graham | And where were they from? | 40:50 |
Ernest Henderson | They were from Tuskegee. Both of them were from Tuskegee. Well, they didn't see me doing much flying, except when we do those air shows, you see, because these other things, we were in the Air Corps and they went out there at the airport. | 40:51 |
Sally Graham | Now the spectators for the air shows, would that be like Whites and Blacks together, the spectators? | 41:09 |
Ernest Henderson | Well, very similar. They had the Whites and Blacks, because at the air shows it was girl Scouts and boy Scouts and 4-H Club people who were visiting the campus. Tuskegee was a Black campus, and so they visit and come out there. They didn't have many Whites watching us fly. One thing happened there though at Tuskegee, I was really thrilled, at the same time, I was apprehensive. A White highway patrol came to the airport and wanted to take a flight. They sent him to me, Ace Anderson. | 41:16 |
Ernest Henderson | I took him up for a flight. God, I loved that. We were flying around. I thought to myself, now, I can do a turn if I want to. But I did. I gave him a nice fight and came on back in and landed. So we had a nice time. | 41:52 |
Sally Graham | What are those, like when you're flying and then there's a big drop? | 42:06 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, downdraft, we called it downdraft and updraft. We stayed clear of those thunderstorms. Thunderstorms will do it to you. You try to fly through a thunderstorm, one moment the airplane would be going down. Next moment it'd be going up like that. | 42:09 |
Sally Graham | And that's what happened to that airplane in Charlotte. | 42:24 |
Ernest Henderson | Charlotte. That was a—I think that the wind changed 90 degrees suddenly, you see. And I think that had something to do with it, because it was a storm, you see. So we tried to stay out of the storms. I remember once I was flying up around close to a thunderstorm, I decided to experiment to get close to it. | 42:28 |
Ernest Henderson | Man. When my wing got to that thing, I take away from it. You just don't play with those things. And we have, what they call fronts. Yeah, we had to take meteorology, we had to study that meteorology, study the weather. We had to take navigation, how to go to one place and come back. We had to take civil air regulations, knowing what to do. Because when you're flying in an airplane at night, if you see a red light, left wing, you know that this man has the right of way. | 42:46 |
Ernest Henderson | Come this way. You turn it go behind him. If it's a green light, you have the right of way. Green light is on the right wing. Well, nothing about night flying too. We had to do some night flying when we first went to Tuskegee. I may be getting a story come— | 43:26 |
Sally Graham | It's your story, however you want to say it. That's great. | 43:43 |
Ernest Henderson | At Tuskegee, we did not have runways. We just had an open field, and we had to do some night flying. And what we did, we had the runways made like this table here. We called it runway, imaginary. And so we had six kerosene lanterns. We didn't have any night lights at Montgomery at the Air Force, where the Whites, they had bright lights lined up on either side. So they put one lantern on this corner of the runaway, one on that corner, one halfway on the right side, one halfway on the left. One at the far end on the right, on the far end on the left. | 43:48 |
Sally Graham | And how long would that, or— | 44:28 |
Ernest Henderson | Well, about 2000 feet. About 2000 feet. Well about 1500 feet at our small airport. So we started at these first two lights and tried to be off the ground by the time we got to the middle, second lights. Flying up, we had in the air, you altimeter in the airplane shows how high you are, fly around the pattern, come on around. And you come into land, you just have to judge it from the three lights, you're above them, to try to get down as low as you can. Open your pass, the first two lights and make sure you're on the ground by the time you get to the second two lights. Because if you go past a second two lights, you might run off the end of the runway. So that was our night flying. | 44:31 |
Sally Graham | How often did you do that? | 45:17 |
Ernest Henderson | We had it rough. We were required to have 10 hours a night flying at the time. So we'd go out there at night after night and get in our night flying time. That was some rough flying, but we made it. | 45:19 |
Sally Graham | So were the hours that were necessary, I guess, to get your licensing? | 45:33 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh, yes. | 45:39 |
Sally Graham | Was that equal for Blacks and Whites? | 45:40 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, it was equal for Black and Whites. | 45:49 |
Sally Graham | But just in the kinds of— | 45:49 |
Ernest Henderson | Different conditions. | 45:49 |
Sally Graham | Conditions. | 45:49 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah. Yeah. We had to get 40 hours to get a private license, 200 hours to get a commercial license. And then beyond that, we just get whatever we need to get the kind of rating we want, instrument rating. I flew in an AT6, and my buddy over there was standing beside me. You see there's two seats in the AT6, one in the front and one in the back. The instructors in the front and the students in the back. | 45:50 |
Ernest Henderson | So when I'm up practicing my instrument, a hood is pulled over me where I can see nothing but the instruments. And he is actually flying, looking around to make sure the airplane is safe around other airplanes. So we practiced that way until I got ready for my instrument test. So the day of my instrument test, I was a little bit apprehensive, but I was confident. The inspector came out and said, "Okay, let's go out." So we got in the plane, he pulled a hood over me, I couldn't see out. He took off, and flew— | 46:18 |
Sally Graham | —take you back home? | 0:03 |
Ernest Henderson | Yes. | 0:03 |
Sally Graham | Okay. | 0:03 |
Ernest Henderson | Now, we had a range at our airport. I would just put it like this; they call it a range where they send a signal straight up. You had a north, south, east, and a west. It had the N signal going into the north and south. N is dit dah. We flew by code too. Dit dah, dit dah, and the east and west was dah dit, dah dit. You had to know the difference. When they came together, dah dit and dit day, it made a hum when you're on the beam, it made a hum. Get off on one side, you get the dit dah, other side, you get the dah dit. That's how you know when you're on the beam and when you get off the beam. And there were four beams leading out from the airport signal. | 0:05 |
Ernest Henderson | And so when he said, "Let's take me home," I turned on my radio and tuned to my station to Tuskegee and pick up the sound of the dit dah. Oh no, first off I got a dit dah, dit dah—I got a dah dit first course, and I knew that I was in a south quadrant or north quadrant. I didn't know which. North, you get a dah dit, and south of the airport, you get a dah dit. And so what I did, I turned to a southern course, straight south, and turned my radio as low as I could get it. And if it built up, I knew I was in the north coming to the airport. If it's faded away, I knew I was going away. If it's faded away, I turned it up again to make sure it's faded away again. Now I knew I was going away from the airport, so I turned around, I made 180 degrees and headed straight back the other way. I knew I was headed generally toward the airport. | 0:59 |
Ernest Henderson | It started getting louder and louder and I knew I was in the N quadrant, so I wanted to get over to a beam so I could follow it. I turned the airplane to the left and got over to the beam and got that hum and flew north. And the hum started getting louder and louder, I knew I was getting near the airport. I was up at 2,000 feet. 3,000—No, yeah, 3,000 feet. It's getting louder and louder then I knew I was getting near the airport and then when I crossed the cone of silence to get quiet. Right above the beam there's a cone of silence. Everything get quiet and then pick up after you pass it. I passed that and then I headed on north to get a beam coming from the north because the airport was located south of the radio station. I flew north and let down at 2,000 feet and flew in on a north beam on a 44 degree turn off the beam into the quadrant. | 1:59 |
Ernest Henderson | I came, made a 180 degree turn and came back to the beam and headed toward the station and let down to 1,000 feet. And when I figured I was getting closer than 1,000 feet, and I was listening to the radio all the time building up, getting louder and louder, I got down to 500 feet. Got to 500 feet, I hit the cone of silence. When I hit the cone of silence, I throttled back and I knew the direction the airport was from the station. As soon as I throttled back, I turned the airport about 10 degrees. He said, "Okay, come out. He put a hood." I was right at the airport. And so he gave me my commercial, my instrument rating, and with that instrument rating, you can fly in the clouds, you can fly in bad weather where you can see nothing but the instruments. | 2:55 |
Sally Graham | You could see nothing— | 3:43 |
Ernest Henderson | Nothing but the instruments. | 3:44 |
Sally Graham | You could just see the instruments? | 3:44 |
Ernest Henderson | That's all I could see. And then of course in 1946, I actually flew on some real instruments. I didn't intend to do it, but I actually got into it. What happened, my wife was expecting her first child at Tuskegee. Her home was in West Virginia, Beckley, West Virginia. She wanted to go home and spend some time with her mother. They asked if they would let me fly her up there in one of the airplanes. They agreed. I flew her there. | 3:45 |
Ernest Henderson | I don't have a picture of that thing in here. It was a Stinson Reliant. It carried five passengers. I took my wife and another lady who was our—We had a house at Tuskegee. We were living together. The other lady went with us in case my wife had some problems on her way up, she could take care of her. We left Tuskegee and flew straight, went by Knoxville, Tennessee, landed and got some gas and took off from Knoxville, went on to Beckley and landed. And then they met us at the airport and carried us to the house and came back to the airport. | 4:22 |
Ernest Henderson | And while I was there, I flew several people of my wife's family, took them up for a flight and brought them down. We had to land right down on the kind of a valley between the mountains. I was flying that big, heavy Stinson. It was all right. And then her father said, "When I fly, I'm going to be on my way to heaven." And so after I ended our stay, I left my wife there and this lady now took over for me in Beckley and headed back for Tuskegee. I got to Knoxville, Tennessee. I landed and refueled. After I refueled, I took off from Knoxville and headed straight for Tuskegee. Tuskegee was almost straight south from Knoxville. I had to pass Chattanooga would be on my right, Atlanta would be on my left, so I'd keep those places as a bracket so I flew straight. | 4:58 |
Ernest Henderson | After a while, clouds started building up under me so I decided to get a little higher. I got a little higher, I flew about 30 more minutes, the clouds started spilling over me. And all of a sudden I was in the soup. That's what you call in the soup, when you get in the clouds. I couldn't see anything but my instruments. You can't see the propeller turning because you—And I was sitting there and I said, "All right, well I'm on instruments now." I had my instruments ready but I had never actually flown on instruments. I flew a while, I said, "Well, I better make some computations." What I did, I had my map right there. I had a loop radio. I turned my loop toward the station and it becomes silence. If I turn it slightly to the left, I hear noise and then the other way I hear a signal. | 5:50 |
Ernest Henderson | When I get the silent, I know that that loop is facing the station. I turned that loop until I got it silenced and then I draw a line on my map from Chattanooga to where I thought I was, wasn't sure, and then I turned to Atlanta quickly and got the same thing in Atlanta and drew a line on my map and they crossed at an angle. I knew I was flying 165 miles an hour and it took me three minutes to compute that, I figured exactly where I was. And so I said, "I'm going to turn and go to Atlanta. I'm going to get out of this stuff. I turned and headed straight toward Atlanta with my loop. Every time it changed, when I got a silence, I knew I was in line. And just before I got to Atlanta, the clouds broke and I came down out of those clouds. | 6:41 |
Ernest Henderson | That was one time I actually flew on instruments. And also on that same flight, I didn't land at Atlanta, I called Atlanta and radioed to ask, "How is the weather at Tuskegee?" | 7:38 |
Ernest Henderson | They said, "It's okay at Tuskegee, but it's a strong wall of rains coming in from Montgomery, from opposite directions." That's the way weather comes in. I opened that plane up and headed toward Tuskegee to try to beat the storm there. I got to there and I landed. I turned and took it to the hangar. As soon as I got to the hangar, the storm came in. We got there just in time. That was one experience that I had, which I did not invite, but I actually knew that I could fly on instruments. But you have to believe the instruments. Because when you get in the clouds, when you can't see anything, sometimes you feel like you are turning to the left when you are actually turning to the right, 'cause it's like vertigo. You don't know. You just don't have a feeling. You might feel you're flying straight and you might be turning. | 7:48 |
Ernest Henderson | But you just have to watch those instruments. The needle, the ball, and air speed. The needle is in the center when the airplane is flying straight, the ball is in the center when the wings are level. If the wing go down, the ball will slide to the right side. Other wing go down, the ball will slide to the left. The ball was in something like this, you see. The ball was in something like a semicircle and the needle was straight. You keep that needle straight up and the ball in the center, you're flying straight. And keep your speed under control too. 'Cause if you put your nose down, the air speed's going to pick up. Pull the nose up, the air speed's going to slow down. You have to control the air speed, needle and ball and everything. Instrument is very important to have and to know. All airline pilots, they're very familiar with that. But now they have in these airliners instruments that'll fly the airplane sometime without doing anything to it. | 8:42 |
Sally Graham | Now, what was the relation of being a Black pilot and needing to have an emergency landing at certain airports? Was that ever a problem? | 9:38 |
Ernest Henderson | No, no problem when landing at all. That is one thing I must say. We wore our flight uniforms, which were quite similar to the Army uniforms. When they saw those uniforms, they respected us. I must give credit. We flew into Andalusia, Alabama, Notasulga—Montgomery, of course that was where the White school was. We didn't fly there too much. And Birmingham, we flew into Birmingham and many other places in Atlanta. | 9:50 |
Ernest Henderson | When they see us in those uniforms, they respect us like they did the Whites. But now when you get away from the airport, it was different. 'Cause if you'd go from Tuskegee to Montgomery by a bus, you had to stand up. If there are no seats at the back, you may have seats at the front, but you couldn't sit because that was reserved for the Whites. And when you go out to the stations in the bus, when you get off the bus, you go into the bus station, they have two water fountains. | 10:22 |
Ernest Henderson | One says White, other said Colored. We knew what it was all about and we went along with that. Now I might say this, the first class of cadets who came to Tuskegee to take their flight training, when they finished that training, they were ready for advanced flight training. And Tuskegee was just constructing an advanced airport. It wasn't ready, so they had to stay offline for about a month or so while they finished the airport. In the meantime, they sent these cadets to Montgomery, Alabama to stay in the barracks where the White cadets were staying that month. And while they were there, they couldn't fly. They were prepared to fly, but they couldn't fly because of their color, and on the weekends they'd give their cadets passes to go into the city to have fun. | 10:54 |
Ernest Henderson | When they asked for passes for our Black cadets, they wouldn't give them to them. Said they don't want to pollute the city. That was a knock in the face, but we couldn't do anything about it. We had two battles to fight, fight to fly and fighting against segregation. But now we didn't worry too much about segregation at the time. We didn't like it, but we didn't try to fight it because if we tried to fight that, they'll say you are troublemakers and put us out the Air Corps. We didn't want to do that. Our main thing was to fly. We let this other stuff slide. We didn't worry about that at all. In fact, I was used to that in that way because I was born in the South. But that was one of the things that we had to swallow but we kept going. | 11:51 |
Sally Graham | Were you one of the cadets that was sent to Montgomery? | 12:47 |
Ernest Henderson | One of the cadets? Oh, oh, no, no, no. I didn't go to Montgomery. | 12:47 |
Sally Graham | But by this time, were you an officer? | 12:49 |
Ernest Henderson | I was a flight instructor. I was a flight instructor back in Tuskegee. It was our students that they sent when they graduated, went down there. Now, while they were constructing the airport for the advanced flying, we had some more cross country to do as instructors. An airplane that we had had an accident. Our instructor came in. We out flying one day and the night caught us and we landed. We didn't have any lights on the airport, we just had a light on the airplane. When they landed the airplane ground looped, it turned and the wing struck the ground and did a little damage to the end of the wing and it was put out of commission for about three or four weeks. In the meantime, we couldn't fly at the time because that was the plane that we were supposed to fly. We were still in training. They were constructing the new airport so I went to get me a job. I remember I went to the secretary of the airport there and told her I needed some money to have [indistinct 00:13:56]. | 12:50 |
Ernest Henderson | She gave me $2 and a half to have a [indistinct 00:13:59]. I remember that. I won't forget her. And then I was working that day, I went to the airport to get a job. They first gave me a job of picking up bottles with a wheelbarrow. It was a wheelbarrow pick up, go around where they was working all over the bloody field, pick up bottles and bring it back to the canteen. That was my job. I was making some money, 'cause at the times we weren't flying, wasn't making any money, we didn't have any spending change. When I went to Tuskegee, Hampton supported us. They financed our trip to Tuskegee and told us when they graduate and get a job we could pay it back. They just left it at that. I was trying to make some money so I picked up bottles for a while and then finally they gave me a job inside the canteen. When the men come in from work, come in there to buy drinks and cold sodas and peanuts and things, I was selling that to them. | 13:56 |
Ernest Henderson | And so when the man who was in charge, he was a very mean fellow. He couldn't get along with anybody so one morning I went there to work. I worked all day and when night came for me to go home, he told me he didn't want me to go. He wanted me to keep working because he didn't have anybody to work that night. I worked all that night, I worked all day and I worked all that night. When the morning came, the other man still hadn't come. He wanted me to continue working. I told him, "No, I'm sorry I have to leave." I just left the job there and he raised all kind of Cain. And I went on home and about the next week, our airplane was completed and we started flying again. And then we started—In fact, we started teaching cadets and we started making money. And that sand man who gave me such a hard way to go came to me, wanted to borrow $25. | 14:51 |
Sally Graham | This is a White man? | 15:50 |
Ernest Henderson | No, he was Black. Yeah, he was Black in charge of that. And so he came and he said, "I'll let you have this here coat for $25." It was a very good coat. I bought the coat from him and gave him $25. I didn't hold it against him because he was trying to make money and that was just his disposition and I accepted it. Yes, sir. Now, as far as treating us when we flew into the airports, they gave would serve our planes and everything. Everything went nice. We didn't have any problems with the segregation there. Now, one thing they said that I don't know how true it was, but when we asked for the Cadet Corps to train cadets, they put us in the Deep South between Mississippi and Georgia. All segregated states. I always said that, "If we can make it down there, we should be able to make it." And we made it down there. It was sandwiched between those two states, but both ways, people were nice. | 15:51 |
Ernest Henderson | We went to Pensacola, Florida, flew down there and we flew other places. And one flight we made, the instructors could get in what we call proficiency flight. Just fly the airplane for our own benefit to keep our practice up. And so we made a flight to Florida. First we stopped at Waycross, Georgia, and we went to Lakeland, Florida, and then Acadia, I think it's a Acadia, Florida. We went there. Yeah, went all the way down there. And going down, the later of the group was about three airplanes, three or four airplanes, you saw how high we could fly. We flew way—Those planes would only fly so high. I got about 10,000 feet. When you get up there, the instruments started fogging up. You could hardly see the instruments. It was cold up there. The higher you get, the lower the temperature. For every thousand feet, the temperature dropped two degrees. Did you know that? | 17:08 |
Sally Graham | I didn't know it's like that, no. | 18:15 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, for every thousand feet you go, the temperature—Under normal conditions. Now you may have thunder storms and things brewing there, but normal conditions, every thousand feet you go up, the temperature dropped two degrees. And up there at 10,000 feet, it was cold. They flown into Lakeland and Acadia and landed at a nice town. On the way back, the leader decided to fly low. He flew right off the treetops over those Everglades where the Army don't allow a plane to fly because if you go around, it's just alligators. | 18:18 |
Ernest Henderson | There were some pilots who took chances, but we made it back all right. And of course we went to Florida again to visit one of our instructors who had left the Air Corps. Now, I might say that when we were in the Air Corps, our uniforms were quite similar to that of the regular Army, but our wings were different. You can't see them on my uniform too well, but the wings would curve up around. We were almost in a circle and our wings from our breasts were quite similar to the Air Corps wings, only they were something like bronze. | 18:54 |
Ernest Henderson | Those were the things that we worked with. Now, that group there in the bottom right-hand corner where they're all gathered around there together, that's the group that I was teaching when many of the cadets went overseas and the war came to an end in 1945. They came back, many came to Fort Benning, Georgia, which is not very far from Tuskegee. We organized the civilian flying school and I was the secretary of that organization. We would train GIs. We called them GIs; men who had been over service and came back and wanted to fly, we would train them to fly. And of course I think we had a few White students were there too, but that's the group of students that I was training. They had been overseas and came back and wanted to get flying. After the Army flying at Tuskegee, we flew some civilian flying also. | 19:46 |
Sally Graham | Now, did Black pilots, did most of them go into the European theater? | 20:52 |
Ernest Henderson | Most of the Black pilots went to the European theater now, except that one, Chappie James, he went to Pacific. But most of them went to the European theater. And of course— | 20:59 |
Sally Graham | Were certain areas trained to go to the Pacific theater? Or how did he get there? | 21:11 |
Ernest Henderson | He was too large to fly in these small airplanes. He had a large body, so he had to fly bombers so he flew in the bomber. And I think they needed bomber pilots in the Pacific more than there, because that's where Doolittle was, in the Pacific. With those bombers who went over there with not much expectation to return, you probably heard of that group that went over there, and Chappie James, he went—I don't know just how they selected him, but he was one who went over there and really kept that thing together. | 21:20 |
Sally Graham | How many Black pilots were in the war altogether, would you think? | 21:58 |
Ernest Henderson | How many? Oh, there were—At Tuskegee, we trained 960 pilots. We trained that many. 440 went into the Air Corps, went overseas, and 66 were lost in action, I believe it was. And of course I have a book in there showing the statistics and the awards that they received, the medals, the honors and the Purple Hearts. I have that in the book in there, but I can't recall exactly how many of each. But they received many awards. And of course their mission was not only fighting other Germans in the air, but they had to do a lot of strengthening on the ground. In addition to Pantelleria, I told you about that, that was the place, but when you see German moving there ammunition by freight trains, they would shoot up those freight trains and ammunition dumps and radar installation. Anything they saw that belonged to the Germans, they were out to do that. | 22:00 |
Ernest Henderson | And of course there's a difference between missions and sorties. Now, a mission is something that you are told to do, you're given instruction to do. When they were escorting those bombers, that was a mission. They were ordered to escort those bombers. In Pantelleria, when they strengthened that place, that was a commission. But now sorties is something you do on your own. If you see a need out there, you see an enemy airplane, go get it. Don't wait to be told. And they did—Let me see, 15,000 missions I think, and 1,700 missions and 15,000 sorters. In other words, they took so much on their own and went out and did a lot of things on their own. | 23:23 |
Sally Graham | And how long were you at Tuskegee as an instructor? | 24:16 |
Ernest Henderson | I went to Tuskegee in 1941 and became an instructor in 1942. I taught Army Aviation Cadets through 1945 at the time they integrated the Army Air Corps. Oh, I might mention this too; in 1943, they changed the name of Air Corps to the—What is it? Air Force. Air Force. United States Air Force. It used to be the Air Corps, the Army Air Corps. When we started training down there we were under the Army. Army had that training. But then later, the Air Force had their own training and its name was the Army Air Force now, instead of the Army Air Corps. And of course I was with them until the end of the war. | 24:17 |
Sally Graham | With the Air Corps, the White pilots that were being trained in Montgomery, were they being trained to go into the same kind of situations that the Black pilots were being trained in Tuskegee? | 25:17 |
Ernest Henderson | Overseas? To go overseas? | 25:32 |
Sally Graham | Yes. | 25:32 |
Ernest Henderson | They were going to the same type of thing. | 25:33 |
Sally Graham | Same type of thing? | 25:34 |
Ernest Henderson | Yes. | 25:35 |
Sally Graham | They weren't bomber—They weren't being bomber. They were being trained to be— | 25:35 |
Ernest Henderson | Pursuit planes. | 25:39 |
Sally Graham | —pursuit planes also? | 25:40 |
Ernest Henderson | Right, right. Now, some of them may have become bombers. I didn't keep up too much with them. Now, there was a Seventh and Ninth Air Corps, all Whites, over there. Of course they had two Black units over there. The 99 Pursuit Squadron. Did I mention of that? | 25:42 |
Sally Graham | No. | 25:58 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh, that's the main thing. The 99 Pursuit Squadron. That's what they trained for and became. The 99th. Everybody knows that all Black. | 25:58 |
Sally Graham | Where did the pilots come from that were at Tuskegee? | 26:11 |
Ernest Henderson | Some came from California, from Chicago, New York, all over the United States. One came from Trinidad. | 26:16 |
Sally Graham | Trinidad? | 26:23 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, I remember. Yeah. | 26:24 |
Sally Graham | Were there many Southerners? | 26:27 |
Ernest Henderson | Yes, I believe we had just about equal Southerners as Northerners. Yeah, most of them Southerners, yes. Because we had a group there and in the middle picture, left hand corner, seven, all those came from one school, Hampton. | 26:31 |
Sally Graham | Hampton? | 26:51 |
Ernest Henderson | All of us came from Hampton Institute. | 26:51 |
Sally Graham | And that's where you went? | 26:53 |
Ernest Henderson | That's where I went. | 26:53 |
Sally Graham | The first school that you went to? | 26:55 |
Ernest Henderson | First college I went to. | 26:56 |
Sally Graham | And what did you get us your degree? | 26:59 |
Ernest Henderson | I was getting a degree on business administration. Business administration was the course I was taking. | 27:01 |
Sally Graham | And you mentioned that it was quite a fight to be able to fly. Tell me about that. | 27:09 |
Ernest Henderson | That was when I meant we were struggling and had to sue the Air Corps to get in. We had to fight the Air Corps to let us in. That's what I meant there. Yeah, because we wanted to get in to fight in the war. That's why we wanted to get in, but we had to fight these people here. | 27:17 |
Sally Graham | And that's when Eleanor Roosevelt came in? Is that at the same time? | 27:40 |
Ernest Henderson | Time that what? | 27:45 |
Sally Graham | When Eleanor Roosevelt went to Tuskegee, or was that— | 27:47 |
Ernest Henderson | Yes, that same time. Yeah, she went to Tuskegee about that same time. Our filed lawsuit all came along about the same time. | 27:50 |
Sally Graham | Where was he from? Do you remember? | 27:58 |
Ernest Henderson | Name was Yancy Williams. I don't know where he was from. I remember his name so well, Yancy Williams. But he the one that helped open the door for us. | 28:00 |
Sally Graham | Was he at a different school from Tuskegee? | 28:11 |
Ernest Henderson | Yancy? I don't recall him—Yes, I'm pretty sure he came through. But the same thing about it, each of us instructors had five students each per class and we didn't come in contact with the—We came in contact with them all, but we didn't know them by name. And with that many instructors and with five students each, you see how many students there were and so many that we wouldn't see direct, with no direct. | 28:17 |
Sally Graham | How many instructors were there? | 28:44 |
Ernest Henderson | 39. | 28:45 |
Sally Graham | 39 at Tuskegee? | 28:47 |
Ernest Henderson | Right, 39 black instructors. | 28:48 |
Sally Graham | And was there a commanding officer of all of— | 28:50 |
Ernest Henderson | Yes, the commanding officer was—Well, I would say the chief person at Tuskegee who was coordinating the early part of flying was called Chief Anderson. Charles Anderson. He's Black, but he looks like he's White. Very rare person. Chief Anderson, he was at the beginning of the flying at Tuskegee. We might call him the Father of Black Flying, you might say. And of course he was there when we went down to train as commercial pilots and getting all our ratings. When we were learning, he was in charge of us altogether. | 28:53 |
Ernest Henderson | And then when the Army Air Corps came in, he was still somewhat in charge, but the Army person there was in charge of the Army part of the flying. That's when we had Colonel Parrish, I mentioned his name. And there were two other colonels there too. Colonel Magoon? No, he was a Major Magoon and Major Comonat. There was two other White men who came over there and were flying. They would give us some check rides from time-to-time to see if we are still proficient. Because while we were teaching cadets, they would come and check on us about twice a year. Well, about more than that, just to see if we are still flying proficiently. | 29:36 |
Sally Graham | And what about, in that situation, what was the relationship of White men who were making sure Black pilots were up to par? | 30:20 |
Ernest Henderson | Well, there was some of those White people who were very, very mean and very concerned. They didn't want us to fly, but we had learned to fly so efficiently that it wasn't too much they could say. When they'd take us up to fly, we would outfly them. In other words, we were so accurate in doing our maneuvers, we'd turn and had to keep the altitude, had the same altitude and rolled out at a certain point, we were doing things so accurate it wasn't too much they could criticize us on our flying. But just the idea that here's a Black man climbing up. | 30:32 |
Ernest Henderson | And so you could just feel it sometime, but they didn't punish us too bad physically. Obviously with it, but we could just tell that someone went to [indistinct 00:31:27]. Now, Colonel Parrish was open-minded. He was one person everybody liked. Now, Comonat was one that was kind of bigoty, we call it. And Magoon, he was kind of soft-hearted, so he was okay. But Comonat was the worst one we had over there. Colonel Parrish was the top. I think he's still living too. And so the relationship was pretty good between the White commanding officers at our field and the others. | 31:12 |
Sally Graham | And did you have much correspondence with the other schools that—In Delaware and was it one in West Virginia? | 32:00 |
Ernest Henderson | West Virginia, Howard. | 32:10 |
Sally Graham | Howard. | 32:10 |
Ernest Henderson | No, we never did have too much except from the individual people who came from the schools. Now of course, from Hampton Institute, there's one or two there that we keep in contact named Roscoe Draper. He and I were roommates at Tuskegee. He lives in Haverford, Pennsylvania. Gibbs was one of the instructors. He organized a flying club in Portsmouth, Virginia and he ran it for a while. Sam is another flight instructor who organized a school out at Muskogee County, Oklahoma. And then in California, there was a Woods who had a school out there, flying school. After they left, a lot of people organized their own flying schools. Of course, one of our instructors became a highway instructor teaching driver's lessons in California. But that was a Marette. I think he was from one of the islands. He went to California when he left Tuskegee. | 32:12 |
Ernest Henderson | Now, after the war was over, where we have now the Tuskegee Airmen Incorporated; we have two organizations, the Tuskegee Airmen Incorporated, I'm a member of that, and of course that is an organization that's consisted mainly of the men who went overseas and fought and came back. You see, those were the men who actually saw the rough side of the mountain, I would say, came back. And of course, many of them are getting old now and are passing on away. That organization has what they call scholarships that they give to young people who want to take aviation scholarships and that thing. Now, that's the Tuskegee Army Incorporated, TAI. Now, we also have another organization, which my wife and I used to go to every year. It's the NAI, the Negro Airmen Incorporated. They're trying to change the word Negro to National, but right now it's still Negro Airmen Incorporated. | 33:19 |
Sally Graham | And when was that begun? | 34:37 |
Ernest Henderson | When? Oh, they started that in 1975. Yeah, and we meet at Tuskegee every Memorial Day, every year. | 34:38 |
Sally Graham | And are those people from all the different schools are part of the Negro Airmen? | 34:54 |
Ernest Henderson | No. What happened, the Negro Airmen, many of the old instructors come back, Chief Anderson, about five or six of the old instructors who were there during the beginning of our training back in the '40s. We'd come there with them, and some of them, many of them fly their own airplanes. Some have their own airplanes. They fly there and we have three days of a convention, I would say. We come there on Friday and on Saturday we have different events. We have our eights, flying eights around the airport. | 35:03 |
Sally Graham | Do you still get up in a plane? | 35:44 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, I get up in there too. And they fly eights around the plane and we have cross country at the Tuskegee. During these one-day Memorial Day, they dispatch people to go on cross countries and get back in a certain time. They check them out, see if they got back in the right time. And then we have balloon bursting. That is you fly the airplane, get on one end of runaway, you're flying, and somebody in the middle of the airport will release a balloon and they try to burst the balloon to fly through it. It's interesting, sometimes they get up to try to hit the balloons. Many times they burst and sometimes they don't. If the propeller doesn't hit it, you won't burst it. You see most use a propeller— | 35:47 |
Sally Graham | A regular sized balloon? | 36:27 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, regular sized balloon. Well, about that size. Yeah, not extra large. | 36:30 |
Sally Graham | [indistinct 00:36:34]-and-a-half or something? | 36:33 |
Ernest Henderson | Ordinary size, not like that. Not too large. You can see it. You can see it very well. There were yellow balloons and we would fly and burst balloons. And then we would have spot landings. In other words, you take off and a certain place you're supposed to land. You cut the engine and try to land near that spot. And they give prizes to the different people. And then on Sunday do the same thing and then on Sunday night, they had the banquet. At the banquet, they would issue prizes to the person who made the best spot landing, the person who did the best cross country, the person who did the best eights around the field. | 36:35 |
Ernest Henderson | In other words, just a big affair we'd have of it. Now, my wife and I didn't go this year because the main officers were all replaced and it didn't seem to be very well organized so my wife and I didn't go this year. We used to drive down every year. And when I got there, they'd get at me, "Henderson, you driving down here? You a pilot. You supposed to fly down here." I never did it on an airplane but when I came to Columbia, I organized a flying club here in Columbia. | 37:12 |
Sally Graham | When was that? | 37:45 |
Ernest Henderson | It was in the 50s. Yeah, I came back from Tuskegee in 1949 and I went into the dry cleaning business and I worked in that. While I was at dry cleaning business, I took part-time and went back to Benedict and got my degree. | 37:49 |
Sally Graham | In what? | 38:02 |
Ernest Henderson | In commerce. Business administration, but it was commerce then. Commerce. | 38:06 |
Sally Graham | Did you own the dry cleaning store? | 38:08 |
Ernest Henderson | Owned it, yeah. I bought it from my uncle. Now, the bad part about it, my uncle told me if I quit flying, he'd give me the dry cleaning place. But I didn't believe he was going to give it to me. But then we would decide to come, he said he would sell it to me for $1,000. Well thank God I had $1,000. He didn't know I had $1,000. I had saved a whole lot of money, you see, and when I came and he saw I meant business, he said, "Let's go in partnership together." My parents lived in Lawrence County, not too far from Columbia. This was here in Columbia on Gervais Street. My dad said, "Uh-uh, don't go in partnership with my brother." That was my daddy's brother. He knew him. He said, "Uh-uh, you better stay on your own." | 38:12 |
Ernest Henderson | And so I told him I didn't want to go in partnership with him and that made him angry. What he did, he went up on the price of the place. I went down to Lower Main Street Bank, it's not in business now, and the man saw something in me. I was a Mason, and I think he recognized it, and he loaned me the money to—He jumped me $3,000, went to $3,000. He gave me the money, gave me the check, and I gave the check to my uncle, $3,000. He looked at it, he was surprised. "I'm not going to cash it." | 39:00 |
Ernest Henderson | And I had moved my wife and family all the way from Tuskegee here and he changed his mind like that. I was out on a limb then. I said, "What shall I do?" He waited around and played around a long time and finally he cashed that check and I was happy. In other words, he fell out with me. He told me he didn't want me to call him Uncle anymore. I had given him an airplane clock, a big clock with airplane wings on it. He handed it back to me to hit back. He was just cutting off all— | 39:43 |
Sally Graham | Why'd he do all this? | 40:16 |
Ernest Henderson | Because I wouldn't go in partnership with him. But then, right after that, he organized and set up a drop-in place right around the corner from me. And he had the modern equipment too. I had the fluid, had to dip hand in the fluid and change the filters and all that. He had the automatic. And then the secretary, whom he had had for years and years, he took her and she worked for him. That left me out without a—In other words, I was out on a limb. | 40:18 |
Ernest Henderson | But one thing I might say, the Masons in Columbia found out I was a Mason, they came to my rescue. All brought clothes to me from all over the place. To clean, you see, and that's what I wanted. And that pulled me out of the hole. I made it fine, but it wasn't too long after that before my uncle's health started breaking. | 40:45 |
Ernest Henderson | He got sick and he had a Cadillac. He didn't want nobody to touch that Cadillac. When he got sick, he asked me if I would drive his Cadillac to the hospital where he was or something. I went in just before he passed. He said, "If I've done anything wrong—" That's as far as he would get. "If I've mistreated you in any way," he wouldn't say no more, just stop right there. I realized then he was kind of confessing. I accepted it. I was very nice to him. I waited on him and did what I could for him. And then after he passed, everything, now he gave me an accordion, which I appreciate. | 41:06 |
Sally Graham | Did you know how to play? | 41:45 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah. | 41:47 |
Sally Graham | How'd you learn how to play an accordion? | 41:47 |
Ernest Henderson | From him. In 1936, before I went to Hampton, I went to Hampton in '37, in 36 I spent my last summer and high school days in Atlantic City with him. He was in Atlantic City. | 41:54 |
Sally Graham | What was he doing in Atlantic City? | 42:05 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, he was in Atlantic City. That was where he was living. He was a great fisherman. He'd go out and fish on every Sunday, come in and bring fish. He had dry cleaning place up there and that's where I learned to do dry cleaning, under him in Atlantic City in 1936. And then while he was there, he had an accordion and I sat down and he showed me how to play it. | 42:09 |
Ernest Henderson | And then when I came to Columbia—When I went to Tuskegee—No, before that. I paid him for that accordion. He said he would give it to me, but I paid him $50, which I appreciated. And then later, the accordion he sold me was a marble type. I still have it, I think, in the attic. And then later, he had a larger accordion, which he got to the place where he couldn't play it too well so he let me have that one too. And then there was a third accordion, which was for a lady, smaller kids. I got that one too. I gave that one to my daughter in Charlotte. She still has it. | 42:27 |
Sally Graham | Does she play? | 43:13 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, her husband play. They both play a little bit when they have time. They're working so hard. He's a professor at the University of North Carolina. Charlotte, my wife, teaches school. She had to take care of the children a long time before she could start working again. | 43:15 |
Ernest Henderson | But with this accordion I got from him, and he had given me a watch earlier, years ago. He asked me could he get that watch back? (laughs) I'll tell you— (laughs) | 43:29 |
Ernest Henderson | In other words, he was cutting off all communication. But after he had passed, I could understand. I accepted it. Because sometimes hard knocks help you be stronger. In other words, I became strong after being treated so rough by him, because I figured that if I could make it under those conditions, I could make it. My father told me don't take any chances with his brother. He knew his brother better than anybody else. He said, "When you're driving a nail, clench it." I don't know you know what that means. (laughs) | 43:41 |
Sally Graham | What's that mean? | 44:14 |
Ernest Henderson | When you drive a nail into a board, the head is still there. You can draw it out. You take a chisel and hit again, below the surface, well, you can't draw it out. That's what he meant by clenching it. When you're driving in a nail, clench it. I knew that from my childhood. You're driving boards, drive a nail in here. You can draw it out as long as the head's there, but if you knock the head below the surface, there's no way to get it out unless you tear the wood. | 44:16 |
Sally Graham | Was your father saying— | 44:46 |
Ernest Henderson | He was just saying don't take any chances. Anything I make with him, make sure that everything is above board. Don't let him pull anything wool over my eyes, he called it. Don't let him do anything and if you make a deal with him, make sure it's what you want and what you want to do. | 44:48 |
Sally Graham | And where is your father's family from? | 45:06 |
Ernest Henderson | My father's family?. They were from Lawrence County, all right there where I grew up. Yeah, and uncle, my father had another brother, George. He lived at Cross Hill, just down below Columbia. No, no, below Mountville, below Lawrence, and my Uncle John, the one that I got the dry cleaners from, he went off on his own. Went to Atlantic City and different places. He had a place here in Columbia for a long time. I can't think of it. He had something like a nightclub or something. Then he went to Atlantic City and that's where he stayed for a long time. | 45:09 |
Sally Graham | Did he play in a band? | 45:46 |
Ernest Henderson | Hey? | 45:48 |
Sally Graham | Did he play the accordion in a band? | 45:49 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh no, no, just for personal benefit. Just sit down and play. That's about the only thing I did for a long time. But when I went to Tuskegee, I started playing in the church. When the pastor first opened the service, there's a place where they have a place for soft music. I would play the accordion for soft music in the church. I used it in church quite a bit. And I played quite a bit around Columbia. My daughter sings. She's an opera singer. Yeah, she's singing opera. She was in Germany for—Singing in Germany for about eight years and she came back and she taught at St. Louis for about six years. Then she went to—Got a better job at Cincinnati. She's a professor of voice at the University of Cincinnati. We were up there all the week. We just came home yesterday. | 45:52 |
Sally Graham | Really? | 46:43 |
Ernest Henderson | It's just some of the men who fought overseas, they destroyed 111 air aircraft in the air, and 150 aircraft on the ground. They destroyed 16 barges and boats. 58 rolling box cars and a rolling stock. One destroyer, 15 horse-drawn vehicles, six motor transports, three power transformers, 58 locomotives and one radar installation. Now, the Tuskegee men who were flying, I mentioned, they told them the missions and the sorties of mission is what you're told to do. The exact was 1,578 missions, that they flew and 15,533 total sorties, S-O-R-T-I-E-S, sorties. And the number of pilots, I would say was 450. I didn't know if it had that right. 450 was sent overseas. | 0:02 |
Ernest Henderson | 992 graduated from Tuskegee and 66 killed in action. Now, I have the awards that they received. The men who went overseas. You want those? | 2:21 |
Sally Graham | What kinds of awards? | 2:46 |
Ernest Henderson | Well, one is a Legion of Merit. One Legion of Merit award, one Silver Star, two Soldier Medals, eight Purple Hearts, 95 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 14 Bronze Stars. And 744 Air Medals and Crosses. It says here, the final total of Distinguished Flying Crosses awarded to Negro Pilots estimated at 150. | 2:49 |
Speaker 1 | [indistinct 00:04:07]. | 3:59 |
Sally Graham | What is the top award? Is that a Purple Heart, or is that— | 4:07 |
Ernest Henderson | Well the Purple Heart, I think is you person killed. The Purple Heart, I think it's that, yeah. I guess that's the most greatest sacrificial one of all. | 4:12 |
Speaker 1 | [indistinct 00:04:25]. | 4:22 |
Sally Graham | So as far as flying, or flying ability, that was the flying cross? | 4:25 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, mm-hmm. Distinguished Flying Cross. That's for doing exceptional work in the air. | 4:36 |
Sally Graham | Where were the different areas besides the Italian area that they had a mission, (phone rings) where else were they? | 4:46 |
Ernest Henderson | [indistinct 00:05:02] will get that phone, or let it ring. Want me to get it? | 5:07 |
Speaker 1 | She's going to get it [indistinct 00:05:14] and bring it to me. | 5:07 |
Ernest Henderson | They landed at Casablanca over there, but they operated from another flying school. I was looking at that the other day. It was not too far from where we would land at. | 5:17 |
Speaker 1 | Yeah, I called yesterday. Yeah. [indistinct 00:05:42]. Yeah, and I really appreciate [indistinct 00:05:53]. | 5:37 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh, yeah. There it is. When they got the Casablanca, it took them some time to get to the other places, where they would operate from. And they operated with the 27th Fighter Bomber Group. And the little place where they operated from was Wheaton. Now, we pronounce. That's the way it spelt, but it's pronounced like that. | 6:30 |
Sally Graham | Weird, Weed—Near Fez? | 7:09 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, near Fez— | 7:14 |
Sally Graham | Weeden. | 7:18 |
Ernest Henderson | That's it Wheaton. | 7:23 |
Sally Graham | [indistinct 00:07:24] or something. | 7:23 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, it's Wheaton. And that's where they operated from when they were escorting bombers. | 7:24 |
Sally Graham | I see. | 7:26 |
Ernest Henderson | Now, later on when they occupied some parts of Italy, they had a base over on the land of Italy, where they operated from. At first you see, Italy was an enemy territory and when they occupied Italy, the pilots were based there. | 7:27 |
Sally Graham | Was that the base, like when you said they were going to Germany and— | 7:49 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah. And come back to the base— | 7:53 |
Sally Graham | [indistinct 00:07:56]. | 7:55 |
Ernest Henderson | —in Italy. Yeah. And here's one thing that I always say, when a bomber pilot took off, to carry bombers, he knew that those Black pursuit pilots had made a very good reputation for escorting bombers. And we took off in the bomber and look out on the right and saw a red-tailed plane, looked at the left and saw a red-tailed plane, look up and saw a red-tailed plane. He would get on the com and say, "All crew members have no fear, the 99th is here." | 7:57 |
Ernest Henderson | And then he would fly on to to the enemy target and drop those hot pancakes and turn and come back to the home base. Hot pancakes were the bombs. So the bomber pilots were really proud when they look out and see those pursuit planes escorting them, because they did not turn back. Sometimes ground fighting from the enemy was sent up flak, into the air to hurt the planes who were flying over. | 8:36 |
Ernest Henderson | But this flak didn't turn these pilots back. And we understand that some of the other pilots, when that flak start getting too thick, they would leave those bombers and go out where it's clear. And then when the bomber was trying to go back home, they would come back and get information with them, as if they have protected the bombers all the way. But our men didn't do that. They stayed with those bombers all the way out and all the way back, because they had a job to do and they did it. | 9:04 |
Sally Graham | Were there any Black bombers in the European theater? | 9:34 |
Ernest Henderson | Pilots? | 9:38 |
Sally Graham | Pilots. | 9:38 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh, no. Didn't get any Black ones in there. But they were training them, getting them ready for it, and the B25s and the war came to end, they did not get a chance to go in as bomber pilots, in the European Theater. | 9:39 |
Sally Graham | You mentioned that the Black pilot who was in—was it Chaffee or—No, it was— | 9:53 |
Ernest Henderson | In the Pacific? | 9:57 |
Sally Graham | In the Pacific? | 10:01 |
Ernest Henderson | Chappie James. | 10:03 |
Sally Graham | Chappie. You mentioned that his size was— | 10:04 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, he was very large. See those pursuit planes was a kind of small cockpit, because I think they had a limitation on your size when you first went Air Corps— | 10:08 |
Sally Graham | Oh, goodness. Height, weight— | 10:20 |
Ernest Henderson | Height, weight and size and everything. And if you too large, you see, in here, you might be you watch for the cockpit. The cockpit is where he sits, and of course he was very large and so he went to the bomber flying and he liked it. | 10:22 |
Sally Graham | Do you remember where you had to keep your weight or no? | 10:40 |
Ernest Henderson | Well they didn't say too much about your weight. Biggest thing they were concerned about your health. You had to have 20/20 eye vision. You had hearing and your depth perceptions had to be very good. Depth perceptions, in other words, they had two pegs a long as distance from you and a string tied to another peg, you could slide forward and backwards. And you'd do that. You'd slide until you get this peg directly opposite that one. That's how they test your depth perception. Sometimes- | 10:48 |
Sally Graham | How often did they do that? | 11:25 |
Ernest Henderson | We did when we first went into the Air Corps and I think they did it once or twice after we got into it, to see if our deception was still good. But I do remember very vividly, trying to get those things lined up. But if you had good eye vision, 20/20 you could do it pretty good, but because on the same level—Sometimes it starts on here, a dining room table where they—and going through kind of a dark area and then that's in the light and you just pull it. | 11:27 |
Ernest Henderson | You could put pull one forward or backward and you work until you get them side by side, with a string. You see? That's the depth perception that you had to have. Also and flying, I didn't mention this. So we had to do radius of action problems. Radius of action is to fly from one point, toward another point as far as you can go, and turn around and get back to your home base, with half hours of flying fuel. Not over a half hour flying fuel. You just go out there too far, you couldn't get there. If you come back too long, you'd have too much fuel when you get there. That's a radius of action. | 11:58 |
Ernest Henderson | Now, that's to the same base, coming back to the same base you started off from. Radius of action for the same base. Now we also had radius of action for the alternate base. Fly as far from the Tuskegee to Chattanooga, Tennessee as far as you can go. But turn at a point, you can go back and come back to Atlanta and land at Atlanta, with a half hour of fuel. We had to figure all that out before we'd go, because we had to figure the air conditions, the air directions and the wind velocity and everything. Because you see, when you're flying an airplane, if the wind is straight ahead—Yeah, when you're flying an airplane, when we plan our flight before we leave the ground, and if you are heading and say, supposed to be flying 350 degrees in no wind, you can fly 350 degrees. It'll take you there. | 12:49 |
Ernest Henderson | If you have a wind coming in from the left, you got to correct the airplane to the left, which it's about about 10 degrees, or it depends on the strength of the wind. And you were actually flying slightly sideways. If the wind is from your right, you have to correct your plane to the right and get your heading, and you're flying slightly sideways. Now, if your wind is in front, if you're flying there 200 miles an hour and the wind is facing you, and the wind is 20 miles an hour, you're not doing about 180 miles an hour, because 20 miles an hour wind is hard on your back. And if you have a wind behind you, 20 miles an hour and you're flying 200 miles an hour, you're actually going 220 miles an hour, because the wind behind you is carrying you 20 miles faster. | 13:53 |
Ernest Henderson | And all of that is to be figured in on your flight plan before you leave. And if you're going to be flying straight, or if you're going to be, having wind correction. Now sometimes, the wind change from what it was before you go, because you get what is called the winds, aloft. Winds aloft is the winds above you. And of course, if you're going to fly 3000 feet, you find out from the weather station, what is the wind at 3000 feet. They might say, "The wind is coming from 10 or about 15 degrees, at 10 miles an hour." Then on your chart, you would make a correction, 10 degrees maybe, to the right to face the wind. So when you take off, you're flying right. But if you get up there with that heading and find that you're not going straight on the path that you want, then you got to make a correction. | 14:46 |
Ernest Henderson | If you get up to the left, the wind is stronger, you got to make more of a correction. In other words, you just have to correct as you go. That is done during a contact flight. Now, that's what's called contact flight and instrument flight. Contact flight is when you can see the ground, you can see everything all the time, ground, railroads, telephone lines on the ground. You see the path of the telephone lines. You can't see it wire itself, but you can tell whether there's a telephone line because of the path through the trees. And of course, you wouldn't want to land anywhere across that. And of course now, that's contact flight. Now, instrument is flight is when you are in the clouds, you can't see anything but your instruments. | 15:40 |
Ernest Henderson | And of course, when you're doing contact flying, you're not supposed to fly when the clouds are lower than say, usually a thousand feet. Because if you get up the clouds to get to a thousand feet, if you get in the clouds, you're not high enough above the ground to fly safely, you see. So you shouldn't fly a contact flight, at well let's say 500 feet, but 500 feet very close to the ground, because it's an issue coming down to the ground at 500 feet. You don't have much space for turning, if you have to turn. So instrument flight, if any time the clouds are below that or 500 feet, instrument flight. | 16:23 |
Sally Graham | What about physics and geometry? Did you have to take all those courses too? | 17:10 |
Ernest Henderson | Yes, went to Tuskegee, we took physics and we had a math. I think it was a great deal of math in Tuskegee. I remember our math teacher. He was very short in stature. They called him Square Root. He was so short. But he was good. He was good, Square Root. And he gave us some calculus and some logarithms, and it's another course in there. What is that called, in math? I know, calculus. And we took calculus, a lot because it reminded me to think of the other one I got later. And in other words, we had that at Tuskegee and we also had to be taught instruments, engine and aircraft. We had to learn so much about the aircraft engine. In other words, we had to almost be able to almost build an engine, because we know as much about the engine and the aircraft itself. | 17:17 |
Ernest Henderson | Now the aircraft that we flew, were fabric fabricated. Other words, an airplane wing was little struts of wood, covered by a cloth. And on that cloth you would treat it with dope. Dope makes it tough. And then shellac on top of it, and when you touch it feels like tin almost, very strong. But it's just cloth, same kind of cloth covered with shellac. And then with all it's covering, it covers it up. | 18:43 |
Sally Graham | That's what the planes were that you were [indistinct 00:19:27]— | 19:26 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, when we first started, smaller planes. | 19:27 |
Sally Graham | —started off. | 19:29 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, the PT—Not the PT. Now the [indistinct 00:19:35] were that way. And the Stearmans too. Yeah, the PT 13, that's cloth, covered with dope. | 19:31 |
Sally Graham | And what is dope? | 19:44 |
Ernest Henderson | Dope is something like a very thick solution. It looks almost like a mud, but it's not thick enough to clog like mud. They call it dope. And they dope it up real good and that dope kind of stretches the cloth, make it tight. And then on top of that, they put shellac like you have on furniture. Shellac, make it slick. And that makes it so the wind will blow over it very smooth. Yeah, that plane was made that same way. Struts and things. Now the other planes were made out of metal. The larger planes, the P40s and all those, and the P51s, I'm sure. | 19:46 |
Sally Graham | What did Mildred Hemson and Mildred Hanson, do after they left being pilots? | 20:30 |
Ernest Henderson | They didn't go very far after being pilots. I think Mildred Hemson received her private license, I believe. And Mildred Hanson, I think she started a family. She couldn't continue. Yeah, we were proud of those two young ladies who were part of us out there. | 20:38 |
Sally Graham | What were their goals? Do you remember? | 20:56 |
Ernest Henderson | I think it more or less pleasure, because they may have had insights of becoming cadets. But you see at that time, no females were flying in the Air force. So I don't think they had that in mind at all. This flying, boy, that's for pleasure. And yeah, they did very well too. Mildred Hanson, I remember she was tall and slender and Hemson was a little short and a little bit stocky. I remember those two very well. | 20:59 |
Sally Graham | What was the reaction, when you came back as a pilot and an instructor, when you came back to your home community? | 21:29 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh, boy. They really were excited. Now the main excitement was when I went to Hampton Institute, see I was at Hampton Institute for three years before I went into the Air Corps. When I came home from Hampton, had on my Hampton uniform. Most of them thought it was an army uniform. I met some of those White people, White cadets, they had to salute me. And I was just a student. (laughs) Yeah, I was uniformed— (laughs) | 21:41 |
Sally Graham | Did you salute back? | 22:08 |
Ernest Henderson | Huh? | 22:08 |
Sally Graham | Did you salute back? | 22:08 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, I give back to them, just as straight as I could. Yes, sir. But I was actually an officer in the ROTC, in that see and that was very nice. That's when the people were back home was most excited just to see that uniform. You see, Black people didn't wear uniforms in those days. Very few were in the army. And here I was in the Air Corps, you see— | 22:11 |
Ernest Henderson | No, I was in Hampton, I was not in Air Corps, but I had on a uniform and our uniforms were olive drab-colored, and sometimes was kind of a light trousers, which was very dressy. And we had on our Sam Brown. Have you heard of the Sam Brown? | 22:36 |
Sally Graham | Shoe? | 22:50 |
Ernest Henderson | Huh? | 22:51 |
Sally Graham | What is that? | 22:52 |
Ernest Henderson | That's a belt. | 22:52 |
Sally Graham | A belt? | 22:52 |
Ernest Henderson | A belt come across your shoulder and around your waist. They'll come around your waist and a strap over your shoulder. That's the Sam Brown, we called it. And of course, on your left side was a place to carry a sword, because you see, we didn't have guns at Hampton. We were junior ROTC and swords on the left side. And— | 22:52 |
Sally Graham | And did you have your sword there when— | 23:17 |
Ernest Henderson | We didn't carry swords too much, except when we were drilling. Sometimes in drilling we would have the swords. But you see the Sam Brown, we were proud of that Sam Brown, tied around your waist and came over your shoulder and on your left side had the support for your holster, you might say. And of course, when we left that and we went to the regular army flying suits, then we were something like warrant officers, we did not—When I came back home then as a pilot, many of the young people my age, when we were out, I didn't see them very much. They were farmers, working sawmills. Some the very fellows I played—classmate with in elementary school, or wrestling and fighting, they fell by the wayside, just dropped out of school and everything. And I continued. | 23:19 |
Sally Graham | How did they see you? | 24:22 |
Ernest Henderson | Well, they kind of respected me. They didn't have too much resentment, but they could tell no, that they had lost something by dropping out and me going on. And of course, we were friendly. They were friendly, but I didn't come in contact with them too much, because when I came home, my biggest aim for coming home was to see my parents. I'd see my parents and see my cousins and those. But my playmates and classmates of old, they were kind of scattered. I didn't get a chance to see them too much. But my cousins and my uncles and my aunts, they were very proud. And my uncle John, the one that treated me so bad, he was proud of me at the time. So they saw me as someone who was kind of unusual, you see. | 24:23 |
Ernest Henderson | I didn't see myself as unusual. In fact, when I was doing these things, I had no idea, no thoughts or praise or honor or anything. I was given a job to do when I was in Air Corps and I did it. But Lord, since that time, many things have come out there. Articles in the papers come out about me. Oh, about three weeks ago, Greenville News had me in there. And you heard so much about D-Day here, about three or four weeks ago? They had me on the page with the rest of the D-Day. But they showed me as a pilot, you see. I was not in the D-Day, actually going at the Normandy. But I was a pilot with the fighting force at the same time. | 25:13 |
Sally Graham | Were you serving in the army on the state side, as an instructor or did you— | 26:02 |
Ernest Henderson | I was an instructor. Was an instructor, mm-hmm. | 26:08 |
Sally Graham | Who was Sam Brown? | 26:11 |
Ernest Henderson | That was a belt. | 26:13 |
Sally Graham | Do you know why it's called a Sam Brown? | 26:15 |
Ernest Henderson | I really think the first man that wore one of those, I believe his name was Sam Brown. And we thought was an honor to reach that stage to wear Sam Brown. Yes, sir. | 26:21 |
Sally Graham | When did you become part of the Masons? | 26:43 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh, I joined the Masons in 1946, in Tuskegee. And of course, first you had to become what they call a Blue Lodge member. The first degree—first three degrees. That's the main that's basic first three degrees. And then after I stayed there for about three or four years, I moved up to the Consistory, C-O-N-S-I-S-T-O-R-O-Y Consistory, which was the 32nd degree Masons. And then I moved up to the Shriners, which was, they said the playhouse of Masons, but I was in the Shriners for a while. | 26:46 |
Sally Graham | How long were you in that group? | 27:35 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh, during the whole time I was at Tuskegee. After '46, I joined. I think '47, I became a Consistory man and a Shriners. I was fully active in that, during that time when I came to Columbia, I made my last step. I got to 33rd degree. | 27:37 |
Sally Graham | And that's the rank? | 27:52 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, 33rd degree. It's really more than a rank, it's just a symbol of what we are. | 27:56 |
Sally Graham | That's epic. | 28:00 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah. And of course the 33rd degree Masons, we meet once a year. We meet in Washington every other year. I think we're going to Washington this year, whether it's St. Louis, Tennessee, back to Washington. | 28:01 |
Sally Graham | Is that the farthest you can go in the— | 28:17 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, 33rd. | 28:21 |
Sally Graham | —Masons, the 33rd? | 28:22 |
Ernest Henderson | As far as you can go. | 28:22 |
Sally Graham | That's top thing? | 28:22 |
Ernest Henderson | Right, mm-hmm. | 28:28 |
Sally Graham | And what do you do today in the Masons. I mean [indistinct 00:28:29]— | 28:28 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh, at the Masons? Yeah. Right now, I'm a pass commander and chief of the Consistory. Of course, I said before, I mentioned that. I said I'm a past master in the lodge. That's first past— | 28:30 |
Sally Graham | Were you a master in the lodge, here in Columbia? | 28:51 |
Ernest Henderson | In Columbia, Master of the lodge first. After I left the master, I became past master of the lodge. And the Consistory, I was commander in chief. And when I came out, as somebody else got elected, I became the past commander in chief. And then I also became the deputy for the state of South Carolina. The whole state of South Carolina deputy. In other words, I would overlook all the underlies [indistinct 00:29:39] from Anderson, Spartanburg, Charleston, all over, visiting. My wife would go with me. | 28:57 |
Sally Graham | Is she an Eastern Star? | 29:46 |
Ernest Henderson | Yes, Eastern Star. She's an Eastern Star. She's an Eastern star. And I was a Mason. | 29:46 |
Sally Graham | And when did she become member of the Eastern Star? | 29:52 |
Ernest Henderson | I think she became—Oh, boy must have been right back in the fifties. I don't think she became Eastern Star before we came to Columbia. Must be in 1950. I can find out from her specifically. | 29:56 |
Sally Graham | Was she a member back in Tuskegee? | 30:12 |
Ernest Henderson | I don't think she joined the Eastern Star in Tuskegee. But I do remember here, she became a member. When I became a Shriner, she became a Daughter of Isis. Those are wives of Shriners. See Eastern Star wives of Masons. And the Daughters of Isis, are the wives of Shriners. | 30:14 |
Sally Graham | When you were Mason, in '46, were there White Mason groups and Black Mason groups? | 30:50 |
Ernest Henderson | Right. They're not together yet. | 30:57 |
Sally Graham | Are they together now? | 30:58 |
Ernest Henderson | No. | 31:03 |
Sally Graham | Or they're still separate? | 31:03 |
Ernest Henderson | Still separate. Now sometimes, they have conversations with each other. They talk with each other, but they don't go into too much detail. I think all the secrets and things are the same, generally the same. Now what happened, the Blacks tried to get into the Masonic organization way back in time of the civil—Well no, after that, because Prince Hall was the first man to get us in. We tried to get in here, they wouldn't let us in. So a Black man, Prince Hall, I think, went to England. And the grand lodge of England granted a charter to the Black Masons. | 31:03 |
Sally Graham | Is that how they started [indistinct 00:31:50]? | 31:48 |
Ernest Henderson | That's started [indistinct 00:31:50], yeah. And he brought it back. And then he organized other Black Masons, the Masonic lodges. So we had to go there to more or less get organized. | 31:51 |
Sally Graham | When did the Black Masons start? | 32:02 |
Ernest Henderson | That must've been after the—let me see, Prince Hall. I believe that was after the Civil War. Either the Civil War or the war was—Country. And the Consistory, when I was a Consistory, well now, the wives of the Consistory men, the Golden Circle. But my wife didn't join the Golden Circle. She didn't join that organization. | 32:05 |
Sally Graham | What about the flying school or the flying group that you started when you moved to Columbia? | 33:06 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh, when I came to Columbia, I organized a flying group out at Owens Field. And we did not own an airplane. The name of the club was the Black Eagles, I called them, Black eagles. And we had about eight persons who were part of that flying group. I remember the names of many of them. Benny Frazier, Pendergrass, Dr. Jenkins. Dr—What are two more doctors? | 33:12 |
Sally Graham | What kind of doctors were they? | 33:52 |
Ernest Henderson | Dentists. | 33:54 |
Sally Graham | Dentists? | 33:54 |
Ernest Henderson | Mm-hmm. And we would go out. And James Langley, he was a construction man. He's still living. He lives over here, not far from me. | 33:56 |
Sally Graham | And how'd he become active in the group? | 34:09 |
Ernest Henderson | How what? | 34:12 |
Sally Graham | Was he flying or did he just— | 34:12 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh, flying. Flying, all over. Learned to fly. So what we did, we would go to the airport and I would rent the plane, you see. I was only one there, that had the authority to rent a plane, because I had my license. They would rent a plane to me and I would take them up and give them flight instructions and come back. And they would pay for the expense of the plane. I didn't charge anything for my teaching. I was just anxious to promote aviation. And I would fly them, and the Wrangler would fly and the Jenkins would fly. | 34:15 |
Ernest Henderson | And of course, we'd talked about buying an airplane. Had we bought an airplane, we could have continued that, you see, on and on. But not having an airplane, we would have to just go out and rent a plane, at the time they had one available. If they didn't have one available, we had to wait for it. And one man I ever taught to fly, he's still living. He lives right out here about a mile from me. He's very tall, very exact. He wanted to do everything just so. So I told the people he had to come—He retired some time ago. He was on the commission at the Metropolitan Airport. I'm on the commission at the Orangefield in Columbia. Out of Richmond County Airport, I'm an airport commissioner there. | 34:55 |
Sally Graham | And what do you do as the airport commissioner? | 35:44 |
Ernest Henderson | Well, we try to advise the county council, as to what best thing to do about the airport. In other words, if we need to add planes, we would discuss it with them. If the ground needed repairing, we would discuss it with them. If the hangers were leaking, we would let them know that, so it could be repaired. We were just a commission to work between the county council and the airport. And so that's where we worked with them. | 35:46 |
Sally Graham | Back to your neighbor, who's the tall man? | 36:24 |
Ernest Henderson | The what? | 36:26 |
Sally Graham | The man you taught how to fly, who was very exact. | 36:29 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah. I will tell you something, he retired from the commission about three or four weeks ago. And so each of us who knew him, got up and made a few remarks. So when I mentioned his name, Pendergrass, I said, "The only thing I was concerned when I was teaching Pendergrass, he was so exact, and I do think so strictly, that I thought when I got ready to take him off, he was going to drag one foot on the ground, while the airplane was flying. So he would keep in contact with the ground." That was just a joke on him. But he was all right. Oh, yes. In 1991 I was called and asked if I would be interested in applying—Well, they wanted to induct me into the Hall of Fame. So November 1991, I was inducted into the first South Carolina Aviation Hall of Fame. | 36:33 |
Sally Graham | That's fantastic. | 37:47 |
Ernest Henderson | It's the first Hall of Fame they had. And I was inducted into it, along with several others. But several of them had passed. They were dead. And only one other was living. One lady, Mrs. Francis, she's at the other airport, she's White. She was a flight instructor. And of course, most of the emphasis came on me, I guess because I was Black and I had done so much more. You see, I had taught men how to fly Tuskegee. And this other lady just taught people to fly around the airport here in Columbia. But see, I had gone further. See, I had served my country as well as my state. And so they really played me up. I have a lot of pictures of that, when they gave me the plaque and documented the South Carolina Aviation Hall of Fame. And they put it on the wall at the Columbia Municipal Airport. It's on the wall out there now. | 37:48 |
Ernest Henderson | And several others that come in since then. But mine is at the top, still at the top. And they made a replica of it. Another one. And put at the airport where I'm a commission, Owens Field. It's one on the wall out there. [indistinct 00:39:05] Aviation Hall of Fame. And then later on, they had what is called—They have Young Columbia, 100 Black men, who are outstanding. And I was named one of the 100 Black men. And I was given the Black Hall of Fame. I remember I was inducted into the Black Hall of Fame— | 38:50 |
Sally Graham | Now is that a national [indistinct 00:39:31]— | 39:29 |
Ernest Henderson | No, Black Hall of Fame. It might be national, but most of it is around the south. That's all the place I've heard it, Black Hall of Fame. I don't consider that they're as important as the Aviation Hall of Fame. | 39:30 |
Sally Graham | I see. | 39:44 |
Ernest Henderson | Because the Aviation Hall of Fame is national. Well of course, the South Carolina Aviation Hall of Fame. But it is something that's unusual in aviation. | 39:46 |
Sally Graham | Now, the 100 Black men, what kind of organization is that? | 39:57 |
Ernest Henderson | That's an organization here that it usually consists of a hundred Black men, who try to promote quality among our race and promote young people in getting a better education. And just promoting anything that they can, that will enhance our race to try to be better. And of course, I don't know why they call it 100. I'm sure they have more than that now, because they're adding men to it every year. But they call it 100 Black men. I believe it's a—I don't know if it's of Columbia or what, or the state or something, anyway. But it's just that. And they issue a Hall of Fame, Black Hall of Fame. Now, I think I saw one writing of that, before they made me—Charles Boland, who was the astronaut. They made him, I think a Hall of Fame. But anyway. Oh, yeah, Clyburn, our representative in Washington DC— | 40:01 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh, before I go to that, back in 1985, my senator. A senator from South Carolina. I can't think of him, I hate to call his name. The one whose child was killed though. | 41:20 |
Sally Graham | Whose what? | 41:51 |
Ernest Henderson | Whose daughter was run over by a car back here last year. Senator Strom Thurmond. | 41:52 |
Sally Graham | Strom Thurmond. | 42:02 |
Ernest Henderson | Thurmond. | 42:02 |
Sally Graham | Right. He's been in there forever. | 42:05 |
Ernest Henderson | He's been there forever and would be there as long as he can. I will say one thing. He interceded and got me into the congressional records in Washington DC. | 42:05 |
Sally Graham | How did he do that? | 42:18 |
Ernest Henderson | But what happened, a young lady from University of South Carolina named—I can't think of her name now. She heard about my flying. She asked me if she could interview me. It's like you are doing, she came by and interviewed me and she wrote an article, in the neighbor section of the state paper, and wrote just about my whole life in there and about my flying too. | 42:20 |
Ernest Henderson | And of course, also and the kid wrote that I drink strong drinks and everything. And I was called a pride of the primary at Tuskegee. In addition to being ace, they called me the pride of the primary. | 42:46 |
Sally Graham | Who called you that? | 43:03 |
Ernest Henderson | The people around Tuskegee. They just had that much respect for me. And when this came out in the paper there, I think a senator saw it, and saw what A great write up it was, about a Black man, fighting in the World War ii. He recommended, I think, that it go into the congressional records. And so it's any congressional records now. I have a copy of it in the attic. But my whole life history. And then since that, about this spring, Clyburn, who was our representative in South Carolina, he wrote an excerpt to go to the congressional record. And he said this that, long before George Bowling and Ronald McNair, long before they were born, Henderson was making a record in Tuskegee, Alabama. See, I was back in 1942. And they were born well since then. And Clyburn put that into the congressional records, long before Bowling and McNair were born, Henderson was serving his country in Tuskegee, Alabama. I'm going to write him a letter of thanks for that. | 43:05 |
Sally Graham | That's something to be thankful about. | 44:26 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, because he thought about me in that respect. And of course I have done that. | 44:28 |
Sally Graham | Well, when and where were you born? | 44:37 |
Ernest Henderson | Born? | 44:38 |
Sally Graham | Yes. | 44:38 |
Ernest Henderson | I was born in 1917. I'm 77 years old. Had a birthday this year. | 44:44 |
Sally Graham | And when's your birthday? | 44:47 |
Ernest Henderson | February 22nd, same as George Washington. George Washington was lucky to be born on my birthday. | 44:50 |
Sally Graham | I hear it. And was that in Lawrence? | 45:00 |
Ernest Henderson | Lawrence County on the farm right there. That's where I grew up. Used to put cotton on the wagons to take to the gin. | 45:01 |
Sally Graham | Do you have brothers and sisters? | 45:13 |
Ernest Henderson | Yes, there were 10 in the family, eight children. Five girls and three boys. | 45:15 |
Sally Graham | What names? | 45:24 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh, my oldest brother was named Earl. E-A-R-L, Earl Henderson. Next was Bertha Henderson. Next was Orla C. Henderson. Next was Louis Henderson. Then Ernest Henderson. | 45:28 |
Sally Graham | You were the fifth? | 46:13 |
Ernest Henderson | Fifth, mm-hmm. | 46:13 |
Sally Graham | And then? | 46:15 |
Ernest Henderson | And then Ethel Henderson. That's right. The girl And the baby is a boy, George Henderson. | 46:16 |
Sally Graham | George. | 46:25 |
Ernest Henderson | That's just seven, huh? | 46:36 |
Sally Graham | One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. That's just seven. | 46:40 |
Ernest Henderson | Earl, Bertha— | 46:40 |
Sally Graham | You got Earl, Bertha, Ola. C, Louis, Ethel, Ernest, George. | 46:40 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh, one. | 46:47 |
Sally Graham | So what did your parents think when you took them up in a plane? | 0:04 |
Ernest Henderson | Well, when I went to lunch, I told them that I was coming. So when I got near my hometown, it's a big tower down there, a forest tower. I flew pretty low over the tower, and I had to fly down low over my farm where my father lived. I had written on there, Ernest, come pick me up in Lawrence. See Lawrence is about, it's Lawrence County that we lived in. Lawrence is about 10 miles from there. | 0:12 |
Ernest Henderson | So I dropped a piece of paper. He picked it up and read it. He gave me a Masonic sign. And then he got in the car, they came to Lawrence. And he brought the children, the family with them. So while we were there, I took him up. I took my sister Ethel up for a flight. I think I took my brother George up for a flight and came down. I think I took Bertha up for a flight and came down. And then I got back to the ground. My daddy came out and went up with me, took a flight. I said, "I know my mama's not going." | 0:41 |
Ernest Henderson | I came back down and landed. And I got there, my mama came walking out to the plant to fly too. I said, "Look at here." I had to be careful not to get in the way of the propeller. See, that's a dangerous thing, propeller turning over. They brought behind and she got into the airplane behind me. So I fastened the seat belt, and closed the door, and took off. I said, "If I ever flew an airplane smooth, I got to do it today because I got mama in here." | 1:12 |
Ernest Henderson | So I took off and flew her up, and flew her out over the city just a little bit. I didn't keep her long. And I came on around, came in and hurry. Had to make my landing. I had to throttle back. She heard me throttling back, the engine getting low. Before I got to the ground she said, "Ernest, that was a good flight." I thought to myself, you better wait till I hit this ground. I hadn't landed. So I came on and made a very smooth landing. | 1:40 |
Sally Graham | Oh. | 2:04 |
Ernest Henderson | And I was really surprised that she went with me. But she did go. | 2:04 |
Sally Graham | And what year was that? | 2:09 |
Ernest Henderson | That must have been back in 1940—Let me see, 1946, I believe. Yeah, right after I got married. | 2:11 |
Sally Graham | What year did you get married? | 2:25 |
Ernest Henderson | 1945. Next year it'll be the 50th anniversary. | 2:27 |
Sally Graham | That's fantastic. 50 years. | 2:30 |
Ernest Henderson | Yep. | 2:34 |
Sally Graham | You don't hear about that anymore. Marriages dissolve. | 2:38 |
Ernest Henderson | How about that? Yeah. | 2:43 |
Sally Graham | What about the first church you were a member of? | 2:46 |
Ernest Henderson | The first church I was a member of was New Hope AME Church. New Hope AME Church. I remember that so well. | 2:51 |
Sally Graham | And what do you remember about church. | 3:01 |
Ernest Henderson | Well, I remember my superintendent there. His name was Rance Fowler, R-A-N-C-E, Rance Fowler. One of his children is still living today. | 3:05 |
Sally Graham | Gosh. | 3:19 |
Ernest Henderson | And my pastor was Reverend East, E-A-S-T, Anthony, the pastor's name. And I remember we had leaders then over the people. They didn't have deacons in the AME church. They had leaders. My leader was named Daniel Adams. | 3:19 |
Sally Graham | Daniel? | 3:42 |
Ernest Henderson | Daniel Adams. Yes, sir. I remember, every month I had to give him 25 cents to send to Allen University. The Methodist Church supports Allen University, you know, so we had to support. And my mother and father both were members of the choir there. He would lead. And my mother was alto. | 3:44 |
Sally Graham | And Allen University, that's here? | 4:14 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, that's in Columbia. | 4:17 |
Sally Graham | In Columbia? | 4:17 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, it's a Methodist school here. It's just barely surviving. It's very, very weak now. Benedict, you heard of Benedict? | 4:18 |
Sally Graham | I've heard of it. | 4:26 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, I graduated from Benedict. It's nice school. It's doing very fairly well, changed presidents this time. But they're doing—Allen is very poor. | 4:27 |
Sally Graham | And when did you go to Benedict? Before Hampton? | 4:41 |
Ernest Henderson | I went to Benedict after I came from Tuskegee. I came from Tuskegee in 1949 and went into dry cleaning business where I operated for about 10 years. And I went to Benedict, started going to Benedict in 1940—Let me see, 1946. | 4:41 |
Ernest Henderson | What happened, I took, my wife was teaching and she convinced me to take the NTE, the National Teacher Examination, just to see what I would do. I was not going to school. I took it and made an A, first time I took it. So that's when I decided to go back to Benedict. And so I go to Benedict in 1946. I would go only about one period a day, and '47, '48—I start, sorry, '50. I'm talking about the '40s, '50s, in the '50s. | 5:10 |
Sally Graham | 1956. | 5:39 |
Ernest Henderson | '56. | 5:39 |
Sally Graham | Okay. | 5:39 |
Ernest Henderson | '57, '58, and I graduated in 1959. | 5:40 |
Sally Graham | Okay. And what was the degree that you— | 5:42 |
Ernest Henderson | Commerce. | 5:46 |
Sally Graham | Commerce. And— | 5:47 |
Ernest Henderson | As soon as I got my degree—Excuse me, go ahead. | 5:51 |
Sally Graham | No, that's fine. | 5:54 |
Ernest Henderson | As soon as I got my degree, one of my friends who was a principal of a school, we started a new school that same year I graduated, called Feirwold Middle School. And that's where I started teaching, soon as I graduated. | 5:56 |
Sally Graham | And you started teaching what? | 6:10 |
Ernest Henderson | English and Social Studies. | 6:12 |
Sally Graham | Oh you did? Okay. | 6:18 |
Ernest Henderson | Not commerce. | 6:18 |
Sally Graham | So you were a teacher and of English and Social studies at what school? | 6:20 |
Ernest Henderson | Feirwold, F-E-I-R-W-O-L-D, Feirwold Middle School. | 6:31 |
Sally Graham | Middle school. That's in Columbia? | 6:36 |
Ernest Henderson | Columbia, yeah. I was also the book room manager the first year. And I became the business manager the second year, still teaching. And I became a counselor, third year, still teaching. | 6:42 |
Sally Graham | So you were there from 1959 to? | 7:06 |
Ernest Henderson | At where, that school? | 7:06 |
Sally Graham | At Feirwold? | 7:06 |
Ernest Henderson | Oh, 1964 when I stopped. | 7:12 |
Sally Graham | '64. | 7:15 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, but after that I became assistant principal. | 7:15 |
Sally Graham | Assistant principal? | 7:27 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah. In 1960, I think, I became assistant principal. And I was assistant principal there at Feirwold until 1978. And then they asked me if I wouldn't mind going to another school. Another school had a White principal and a Black—they had integrated then, White principal and a Black assistant principal, but this Black assistant was going to another school to be principal and they needed someone there as the assistant principal. | 7:28 |
Ernest Henderson | So asked me if I would consider the change. So I changed and went to another school called Crayton, C-R-A-Y-T-O-N, Crayton Middle School. I was assistant principal there from '78 to 1982. And that's when I retired. | 8:00 |
Sally Graham | So did you miss flying during all of this period? | 8:24 |
Ernest Henderson | Yeah, I stopped flying near the end of about the latter part of the 1960s. Because what happened when I became assistant principal, I was put in charge of discipline. And you know what that's like. I was in charge of discipline, which took most all of my time. And another thing, we had three children in college and I had to work at night. | 8:27 |
Ernest Henderson | I taught bookkeeping. That was a part in my line, you see, because I took commerce. I taught bookkeeping at night at one of the high schools for a while and went to another high school, Booker T Washington High School, and then CA Johnson High School. I taught typing and that took most of my time. | 8:52 |
Ernest Henderson | And when I was doing that night work and day work, that was when I had to give up. So early in your writing, I was the Deputy of the State of South Carolina. I had to give that up too because of my business, and because of do night work too. And I also had to kind of lay off of my flying, couldn't do much flying there. As soon as I retired, I started working with the council on the aging. And I'm doing that now. I deliver Meals on Wheels. | 9:22 |
Sally Graham | Oh, okay. You deliver Meals On Wheels? | 9:55 |
Ernest Henderson | Yes. Now back about three years ago, I had a heat problem with the sun. I was cutting grass and I passed out. And of course, they said it was a heat stroke. And I guess it was, because I didn't know what was happening. The last thing I remember, I was cutting grass out of—I have a business up on Jerry 8th Street, and behind is a large area. I was cutting the grass and I finished cutting the grass. | 10:01 |
Ernest Henderson | It's okay. | 10:31 |
Sally Graham | Oh, you fell? | 10:31 |
Ernest Henderson | It's okay. | 10:31 |
Sally Graham | Yeah, it's fine. Okay. | 10:31 |
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