Who is Temple?

  • Published
  • By Airman John Day
  • 14th Flying Training Wing Public Affairs
COLUMBUS AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. --  (Editor's note: This is the third article in a continuation of a 2014 series on the memorializations on Columbus Air Force Base.)

Air Force pride at Columbus Air Force Base is shown by honoring those who have come before us.
We do this honoring by naming our streets and structures after influential Airmen with ties to Columbus AFB.

During a 2008 Black History Month luncheon, Col. Dave Gerber, the then 14th Flying Training Wing Commander, renamed A Street to Alva Temple Road in recognition of Lt. Col. Alva Temple, a Tuskegee Airman.

Temple was born Sept. 5, 1917, in Carrollton, Alabama. As a child, he worked picking cotton during the depression. Years later, he studied agricultural education at Alabama A&M University.

After college, he applied for pilot training, but was rejected because the military did not have separate facilities for black pilots. The Tuskegee Institute at Tuskegee Army Air Field accepted him later on for the experimental training where he graduated from Class 43-G and commissioned as a second lieutenant, becoming one of the nearly 1,000 Tuskegee Airmen.

During his career, Temple flew more than 100 combat missions over Italy, Southern Europe, Southern France and the Balkan Nations, equaling more than 5,000 flight hours. He was assigned to the 332nd Fighter Group and flew the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk.

The Tuskegee Airmen were proud of the fact they were the first black aviators. They demonstrated this pride by painting the tails of their aircraft red, earning them the nickname Red Tails. As a whole, they never allowed a single bomber escorted by them to be shot down.

Although the Tuskegee program ended, Temple stayed in the Air Force, until retiring from his 20-year career in 1962 as a lieutenant colonel. Upon his retirement Temple became the owner and operator of Temple's BP Stations and Radiator Sales e in Columbus, Mississippi.

He remained an avid community member, speaking regularly at churches and events until his death in 2004.

This month, Columbus AFB celebrates many years of black history and honors not only Lt. Col. Temple, but all other Tuskegee Airmen who gave their lives for their county and the great strides they made toward racial equality.