Tuskegee Airmen: 98-year-old WWII veteran remembers life in segregated group of fighter pilots

He was a member of the group of Black fighter pilots and mechanics who performed valiantly during WWII.

Harvey grew up wanting to fly. To fight.

"I lived in a rural area in northeastern Pennsylvania, and I heard this sound," he said.

The sound of fighter planes: Warhawks.

"I said I'd like to do that one day," he said. "And that was it."

James Harvey III pledged his allegiance to this flag – he dreamed of fighting for liberty and justice from a cockpit.

But in 1943, when Hitler and Hirohito were unleashing horrors on the world ... the American military didn't want Harvey.

Never mind that he was valedictorian in high school, or class president, or captain of the basketball team.

"They said they weren't taking enlistments at that time," Harvey recalls. "They didn't want me, period."

Harvey said it was believed that Black men didn't have the mentality required to fly aircraft or operate heavy machinery. "We were inferior to the white man," he said.

But the Army Air Corps had an answer for aspiring fighter pilots who were Black: Segregate them into their own fighter group -- the Tuskegee Airmen.

Harvey signed up.

Then, just as he was ready to ship off to Europe after combat training, the order came to stand down. It was 1945. The war was ending.

Harvey wanted the war to end as much as anybody – but still, he said it was disappointing.

"I wanted to go join the group, but Hitler knew I was coming, so he said, 'I'm going to throw in the towel here,'" joked Harvey, laughing.

He stayed on in what became the U.S. Air Force. In 1949, after the military integrated and the Tuskegee Airmen disbanded, he and his pilot team -- all African Americans -- won the Air Force's first-ever Top Gun competition, much to the ire of their white counterparts.

"Because of the color of our skin, we weren't supposed to do that. We weren't supposed to be that good," said Harvey.

He went on to fly and fight in Korea, where he earned the Distinguished Flying Cross.

He soared even higher, visiting the White House in 2007, where President Bush awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to all the Tuskegee Airmen.

"President Bush saluted us, for all the injustices and the salutes that were never returned," he said.

He's saluted now as Lieutenant Colonel James Harvey III.

All those years ago, he wanted to pledge his allegiance from a cockpit.

"We were the best," he recalls.

He wanted to fly.

He did. He soared.