Decades after WWII, two American fighter pilots, one, Herb Heilbrun, a white B-17 pilot, and the other, John Leahr, a black Red-Tail Tuskegee Airman, found one another 50 years post war. Heilbrun and Leahr discovered that not only did Leahr serve as a Tuskegee escort pilot for Heilbrun during WWII, the two men had attended grade school together as children. Leahr’s Tuskegee unit was one that was hailed for returning their Bombers home safely.
After further research, John Leahr was identified as the only black child in Heilbrun’s 3rd grade elementary class in Avondale, Ohio. They would later, unknowingly, reunite in the air as dual fighter pilots against Nazi Germany.
