Tuskegee Airmen to Received Medals

GENESEO, N.Y. (AP) -- Two members of the celebrated Tuskegee Airmen will spend Veterans Day at the National Warplane Museum, where they will receive the Congressional Gold Medal.

Relatives of three other recipients will accept medals on their behalf during Friday's ceremony at the western New York museum.

The Tuskegee Airmen were recruited into an Army Air Corps program that trained blacks to fly and maintain combat aircraft during World War II. They trained as a segregated unit at an air base in Tuskegee, Alabama.

President George Bush presented the prestigious Congressional Gold Medal to the group in 2007, entitling individual members to receive bronze replicas.

Congressman Chris Collins will present the replicas to Airmen Wallace Higgins and Herbert Thorpe, who will also accept one on behalf of his late brother, Richard.

(KA)