Charles Dryden

Charles Walter Dryden (September 16, 1920 – June 24, 2008) was a U.S. Army Air Force officer and one of the original combat fighter pilots with the 332nd Fighter Group's 99th Fighter Squadron, a component of the Tuskegee Airmen. Among the United States' first eight African American combat fighter pilots, Dryden is notable as a member of the Tuskegee Advance Flying School (TAFS)'s Class Number SE-42-C, the program's 2nd-ever aviation cadet program.

Dryden was one of the first African American U.S. military pilots to engage in aerial combat against an enemy combatant, sharing this honor with 99th Fighter Squadron pilots Sidney P. Brooks, Willie Ashley, Lee Rayford, Leon C. Roberts and Spann Watson.

He is the author of the autobiography, A-Train: Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman.

Early life and family Dryden was born on September 16, 1920, in New York City. He was the son of Violet Adina Buckley Dryden and Charles Levy Tucker Dryden, both educators and immigrants from Jamaica who taught college on the island. His father served as a sergeant in the Jamaican military during World War I.

During World War II, Dryden and his squadron flew numerous combat patrol and bomber escort missions in North Africa and the Mediterranean Theater including Italy and Sicily.

After World War II, he became a professor of Air Science at Howard University.

Death Dryden died of natural causes on June 24, 2008, in Atlanta, Georgia, at the age of 87. Former Atlanta mayor and U.S. ambassador Andrew Young delivered Dryden's eulogy. Dryden was interred at Arlington National Cemetery, Section 59, Site 3370, in Arlington, Virginia, Arlington County, Virginia.