Robert Ashby was a U.S. Air Force veteran who served as a Tuskegee Airman during World War II before becoming the first Black pilot hired by Frontier Airlines.Ashby became interested in flight as a boy delivering newspapers in his neighborhood.
He read stories of Black aviators and was determined he’d fly one day. So when he was 17 in 1944, rather than waiting to be drafted, he enlisted in the U.S.
Army Air Forces, where he tested well and was placed at the Tuskegee Institute for flight training. He was assigned to bases in Japan, where all-white squadrons refused to accept him, and the Black company that finally did took him off flying status.
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