Lee-Archer-Obituary

Lee Archer

Obituary

NEW YORK (AP) — Retired Air Force Lt. Colonel Lee A. Archer, a Tuskegee Airman considered to be the only black ace pilot who also broke racial barriers as an executive at a major U.S. company and founder of a venture capital firm, died Wednesday in New York City. He was 90.

His son, Roy Archer, said his father died at Cornell University Medical Center in Manhattan. A cause of death was not immediately determined.

The Tuskegee Airmen were America's first black fighter pilot group in World War II.

"It is generally conceded that Lee Archer was the first and only black ace pilot," credited with shooting down five enemy planes, Dr. Roscoe Brown Jr., a fellow Tuskegee Airman and friend, said in a telephone interview Thursday.

Archer was acknowledged to have shot down four planes, and he and another pilot both claimed victory for shooting down a fifth plane. An investigation revealed Archer had inflicted the damage that destroyed the plane, said Brown, and the Air Force eventually proclaimed him an ace pilot.

The Air Force Historical Research Agency says Archer officially shot down four enemy planes, and researchers have not confirmed a fifth to be designated an ace.

Archer, a resident of New Rochelle, N.Y., "lived a full life," said his son. "His last two or three years were amazing for him."

Archer was among the group of Tuskegee Airmen invited to attend President Barack Obama's inauguration in 2009. The airmen, who escorted bomber planes during the war fought with distinction, only to face bigotry and segregation when they returned home, were also awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for their service in 2007 by President George W. Bush.

Archer was "extremely competent, aggressive about asserting his position and sometimes stubborn," Brown said.

"He had a heart of gold and treated people with respect. He demanded respect by the way he carried himself."

Brown estimated that about 50 or 60 of the 994 Tuskegee Airmen pilots are still alive.

Born on Sept. 6, 1919, in Yonkers and raised in Harlem, Archer left New York University to enlist in the Army Air Corps in 1941 but was rejected for pilot training because the military didn't allow blacks to serve as pilots.

"A War Department study in 1925 expressly stated that Negroes didn't have the intelligence, or the character, or the leadership to be in combat units, and particularly, they didn't have the ability to be Air Force pilots," said Brown.

Archer instead joined a segregated Army Air Corps unit at the Tuskegee, Ala., air base, graduating from pilot training in July 1943.

After he retired from the military in 1970, Archer joined General Foods Corp., becoming one of the era's few black corporate vice presidents of a major American company.

He ran one of the company's small-business investment arms, North Street Capital Corp., which funded companies that included Essence Communications and Black Enterprise Magazine, according to his son and Brown.

Archer was an adviser to the late Reginald Lewis in the deal that created the conglomerate TLC Beatrice in 1987, then the largest black-owned and -managed business in the U.S.

After retiring from General Foods in 1987, Archer founded the venture capital firm Archer Asset Management.

Archer is survived by three sons and a daughter. His wife, Ina Archer, died in 1996. Services have yet to be announced.




Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press

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I had the honor of meeting Colonel Archer at a Tuskegee reunion years ago. Let me dispel any doubt regards his status as an ACE. Lee Archer shot down five enemy aircraft in combat during WW2. Any individual or entity that says otherwise is completely mistaken. Every fighter pilot in the Air Force knows this truth. That is all I will say about this matter. Rest in eternal peace and glory, Lt. Col. Lee Archer, Five Victory Ace

RIP Lee. Got a autographed photo I took of you at Riverside Ca. museum. Thank you.

Lt. Colonel Lee A. Archer, thank you for your service. Would have like to have met you in person to have heard your stories first hand. From what I have learned of you, You are Truly a Great American - Rest in Peace.

We met Mr. Archer along with William Wheeler, Roscoe Brown and Charles McGee in Reading, Pa at the Mid Atlantic Air Museum's WWII Weekend in 1997. We brought our red tailed hawk, Bruja, to the show as a way to honor, in our small way, these most extraordinary men. Each received a framed photo of our red tail as a memento. When we attempted to apologize to them for their treatment during the war by our government, fellow soldiers and airmen, our emotions won the day as tears began streaming...

Buddy, I miss our extraordinary, cross-country phone conversations and hearing you complain about me waking you up "too early." Lee sounding groggy: "What time is it?" Me: Buddy it's 9:00 a.m. your time. Lee: "But it's 6:00 a.m. for YOU!" Lol There's only one Buddy, and now I've got an empty space for a stiff-neck, charmingly addictive, and the most polished man I have ever met and you tolerated me anyway. I miss our mini debates -- me unsuccessfully persuading you over to my view. ...

I did not know Colonel Archer personally, however, I feel as though I've known him all my life. I read an article about him in the Journal news dated April 9, 2007 when he was awarded the congressional gold medal. I was taken by his story so much so that I kept it for the last eight years and came across it today buried with other interesting articles I saved over the years. I Googled his name and found out of his passing. I wish I could have had the pleasure of meeting him in person. ...

I met then Major Lee Archer when he was my ROTC instructor at NYU in 1952-3. His stories of flying bomber cover over the Ploesti oil fields in Roumania remain one of my great class memories from my college days. So glad to see now how successul he continued to be after our brief encounter.

To the family of Lee Archer, you should be very proud of him. Certainly, someone who made a difference.