BLACK AIRMEN RECALL BITTER PAST : WWII FLIERS TELL CASTAIC MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS ABOUT DISCRIMINATION, HOPING THEIR ORDEALS WON'T BE REPEATED.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

Students crowded around three visitors Friday in the Castaic Middle School gymnasium, most holding out scraps of notebook paper for the men to autograph and others just to smile and shake their hands.

Roger ``Bill'' Terry, Edward Brantley and Louis Young aren't famous athletes or movie stars, the kind of larger-than-life people who usually impress kids. These septuagenarians participated in an important chapter of American history, as members of the Tuskegee Airmen.

The trio spoke at assemblies of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders, recalling the prejudice and racial discrimination they faced as African-American soldiers during World War II and repeatedly reminding their young audience that they can accomplish any goal with desire and effort.

All three belonged to a unit of African-American aviators trained in Alabama, serving in what was then called the U.S. Army Air Corps.

``Thank you for coming. It's living history for these kids,'' Ro Osano, an eighth-grade teacher, told the visitors after taking some snapshots.

During each assembly, students greeted the fliers with enthusiastic cheers and applause, many clambering down the wooden bleachers afterward to ask for autographs.

``I want to be a pilot when I grow up,'' Nathan Canterbury, 13, told Young, who was an aerial navigator during World War II who became an aeronautical engineer, working 38 years for Lockheed. `` `Top Gun' was my favorite movie,'' Nathan noted.

``It must have been real hard for them to be put down like that,'' the eighth-grader said after getting Young's autograph.

While the Tuskegee Airmen are known for flying the planes that escorted Allied bombers during battles in Italy and North Africa, many of them - like Terry, Young and Brantley - were stationed in the United States for the duration of World War II as members of the 477th Bombardment Group.

Terry, 75, was a pilot; Young, 74, was a navigator; Brantley, 71, was a crew chief whose duties were as an aircraft mechanic.

Castaic Middle School Principal Beverly Silsbee told the assemblies that the three former airmen overcame the adversity they encountered in the United States' segregated military - and society at large - in the pre-Civil Rights era.

``The reason we have Black History Month is because, for the most part, America brags that it's the country of opportunity,'' she said. The airmen asked to be judged on their abilities rather than the color of their skin, Silsbee told the youths.

Terry, who grew up in Compton and now lives in Inglewood, was a student at UCLA when World War II broke out. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps, only to be denied pilots' wings because he was African-American.

``If you come to Tuskegee,'' he eventually was told, ``we'll teach you how to fly and we'll make you an instructor.''

Young, a Detroit native who now resides in South Pasadena, recalled that his early interest in aviation was widely discouraged. People advised him to become an airplane mechanic, he told the students, because ``there was no way that anyone would ever let me fly. For some reason, I wanted to be a pilot more than anything else,'' he recalled.

Brantley recalled several brushes with racism while he was one of only four African-American students at Lincoln High School in Los Angeles.

The atmosphere of discrimination continued in the military, he said, citing an instance that got him court-martialed: he ripped down signs over toilets, urinals and drinking fountains on his Army base. Some of the signs said ``colored''; others used more derogatory terms, Brantley said.

His act of defiance got him a nine-month military jail sentence, Brantley told the audience.

``You kids won't have to go through those indignities,'' Brantley added. ``Don't make what we had to go through in vain.''

Ayla Dew and several of her eighth-grade friends hung around after the assembly to collect signatures from all the retired aviators. ``I thought it was very interesting, because my grandfather was a pilot and he flew in World War II,'' she said.

Jessica Lien, 13, surveyed the autographs on a lined sheet of school paper. ``I'm going to frame it,'' she said, noting that her grandfather was a Korean War aviator and her dad flew in the Vietnam War.

After the assemblies, Young wondered aloud what, if anything, the youths had gained from their collective message to persist despite obstacles they might encounter. ``If one person gets into college because of this, I'll be happy,'' he said.

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2 Photos

Photo: (1--color) Tuskegee Airmen, from left, Roger Terry, pilot, crew chief Ed Brantley, and navigator Louis Young hear the applause from students.

(2--color) Students and faculty at Castaic Middle School listen to Roger Terry as he tells of serving in the Tuskegee Airmen's unit during World War II.

John Lazar/Special to the Daily News