Charles O. Southern; Tuskegee Airman

Charles O. Southern, 78, a veteran of the Tuskegee Airmen program that trained black aviators for service in World War II. Southern, a former communications officer with the Tuskegee, Ala.-based unit, joined the Army in September 1942, underwent aviation cadet training at Yale University and was commissioned a second lieutenant. He was assigned to Tuskegee, where a training program for black pilots had been established. The all-black unit, the 332nd Fighter Group, graduated 926 pilots by the war’s end. After the war, Southern received a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Cincinnati in 1948. He worked as an engineer at General Electric Co. for 26 years until he retired in 1981. In Cincinnati on Saturday.