Trained Pilots In Radio Code

The man who taught radio code to the Tuskegee Airmen passed away Thursday in San Diego. George Mitchell was 94 years old.

Mitchell trained the aviators in the all-black squadron in the use of radio code. UT San Diego reports that Mitchell said he often used a ruse to help the cadets relax when taking the test. He told them that they would be taking a practice test first, and they always did well. When they finished and asked when they would be taking the real test, Mitchell said "that was the test."

Mitchell had built and operated his first radio at about the age of 12 in his home town of Philadelphia. That love reportedly kept him from being shipped overseas as an infantryman. A few days before being deployed, an officer asked if he had any special skills. When he responded "radio code," the officer pulled him aside and he wound up at the Tuskegee Institute at the Army's aviation school. He taught there from 1943 to 1946.

After the war, he got a civilian engineering job with the Navy that sent him all over the world. He later worked at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography as a radio operator on research ships, as well as on Exxon vessels.

Mitchell reportedly continued in ham radio until he was in his 80s. He also was an avid photographer.

FMI: www.tuskegeeairmen.org