James Clayton Flowers (born December 25, 1915) is an American retired military pilot who served with the

Tuskegee Airmen The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of primarily African American military pilots (fighter and bomber) and airmen who fought in World War II. They formed the 332d Fighter Group and the 477th Fighter Group, 477th Bombardment Group (Medium) of the ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Early life

James Clayton Flowers was born on December 25, 1915 in

Las Cruces, New Mexico Las Cruces (; "the crosses") is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New Mexico and the seat of Doña Ana County. As of the 2020 census the population was 111,385. Las Cruces is the largest city in both Doña Ana County and southern New ...

Military service

He was a pilot with the

99th Fighter Squadron The 99th Infantry Division was formed in 1942 and deployed overseas in 1944. The "Checkerboard" or "Battle Babies" division landed at the French port of Le Havre and proceeded northeast to Belgium. During the heavy fighting in the Battle of the ...

332nd Fighter Group The 332d Expeditionary Operations Group is a provisional air expeditionary group of the United States Air Force's Air Combat Command, currently active. It was inactivated on 8 May 2012 and reactivated 16 November 2014. The group forms part of ...

for five years.

Later life

After the war, he and his wife Evelyn started a family. Flowers worked as a school teacher in the New York School System. After retirement he and his wife relocated to New Mexico. They had two children. New Mexico held a ceremony to honor the Tuskegee Airmen in March 2014. Flowers was present for the dedication at the New Mexico Veterans' Memorial. He turned 100 on December 25, 2015.

Awards

*Congressional Gold Medal awarded to the Tuskegee Airmen in 2006

References

Notes

External links

*
Tuskegee Airmen
at

Tuskegee University Tuskegee University (Tuskegee or TU), formerly known as the Tuskegee Institute, is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on Independence Day in 1881 by the state legislature. The campus was d ...

Tuskegee Airmen Archives
at the

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban distr ...

Libraries.
Tuskegee Airmen, Inc.

( U.S. National Park Service)
Tuskegee Airmen National Museum
*

Fly Flies are insects of the Order (biology), order Diptera, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwing ...

(2009 play about the 332d Fighter Group)
James Clayton Flowers Interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flowers, James Clayton 1915 births Living people United States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II African-American centenarians American men centenarians Tuskegee Airmen United States Army Air Forces officers