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The Hideaway Times: Article Monday, December 2, 2002 Airman´s story immortalizedBy LYNN BULMAHN | News-Journal Staff Writer DELAND — He flew 133 missions in World War II with the fabled Tuskegee Airmen of the 99th Squadron. Their heroics are legendary, yet, when the war ended, Lt. Charles W. Bailey came home to DeLand in relative obscurity, and quietly went about his business, speaking little of war. Soon, however, his likeness and story will become memorialized for generations to come, as DeLand honors Bailey by putting his bust and an interactive display in a gazebo at Bill Dreggors Park on Stone Street. It´s an honor many say is overdue. For decades, people knew little of the African-American educator and funeral home operator. “He never said much about his time in the service,” said Bill Dreggors, executive director of the West Volusia Historical Society. “In the days of segregation, no one (in the white community) thought much about it or cared about it.” Bailey´s memorial will be in the park on the grounds surrounding the old Stone Street hospital, now the DeLand Memorial Museum. The city recently was awarded a $29,550 grant from the Florida Department of State´s historic resources division to support a veterans gallery there. An exhibit will depict the area´s participation and influence during conflicts from the Civil War through World War II. The bust will be in the same style as one at the Henry DeLand House that honors citrus grower Lu Gim Gong. Local artist Ralph Batten, the sculptor of both works, said he knew Bailey and had seen some of his war memorabilia. He´s working from a war photo of Bailey to chisel the bust out of marble. It will be sent to a foundry soon. “I use the same method they used in ancient Rome,” Batten said. “It´s an old, old art. (Bailey´s statue) will outlast all of us.” “It´s going to be an elaborate thing,” Dreggors said of the $15,000 bust and gazebo, paid for by donations. “We´ve got an electric thing where people can walk up and hear him talking.” Bailey´s voice, recorded for an oral history tape, is heard telling about the Tuskegee Airmen. Bailey was the first Floridian to join the squadron, 1,000 black men who were trained to fly at Tuskegee Institute. About 450 served as combat pilots from 1940 to 1946 in the Army Air Corps, forerunner of the U.S. Air Force. Dick Russell of the Commemorative Air Force Florida Wing said he has tremendous admiration for the Tuskegee Airmen. “They were an elite unit,” he said. “There was quite a record behind them. It was thought back then that blacks didn´t have the capability to be pilots, much less fighter pilots -- and they proved them wrong in a big way.” Tuskegee Airmen typically had a punishing workload, flying far more than the 50-mission average for white American pilots. “They never lost an airplane in combat,” adds Ken Torbet, a staff member of the DeLand Naval Air Station, “but they fought some heavy air wars and got shot up pretty bad.” He said the black aviators flew P-51Bs, “the latest and best fighters we had at the time.” Later in life, Bailey´s war exploits became well known, and he was grand marshal for the DeLand Naval Air Station Museum´s Veterans Day Parade. He died in April 2001 at age 82. Selatha Floyd of the African-American Museum of Art in DeLand said Bailey´s story still inspires black children. “He was a good man,” she said. “This is a very nice thing to do.” The Commemorative Air Force´s Florida Wing is sponsoring a bench in Bailey´s memory at the African-American Museum´s amphitheater. And a scholarship has been established in Bailey´s honor at his alma mater, Bethune-Cookman College. “The whole community feels something should be done to honor a man who served his country like he did,” Dreggors said. While all World War II veterans deserve honors, he added, Bailey “was special because of his race and the fact he overcame such adversity.” Batten said Bailey´s memorial is evidence of more progressive race relations in the South. “I´m proud to do it,” he said.
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