Funeral for former Tuskegee airman

William M. Wheeler, a longtime Hempstead resident who as one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen helped break the military's prohibition against black pilots, was buried with military honors Friday.

Wheeler was among the last of 994 pilot cadets who graduated from an experimental Army Air Corps program that began at Tuskegee, Ala., during World War II. They became the first black pilots to fly for the U.S. military, which before the program began in 1941 refused to allow blacks to apply for aviation training.

In a eulogy at Union Baptist Church in Hempstead, fellow airman Roscoe Brown said the cadets -- many of whom were college-educated in an era when few Americans attended -- were a confident, competitive group. Brown said the cadets pushed one another to excel, in part because they did not want to give credence to racist notions that blacks would not make good pilots.

"We were the cockiest, brashest, best-looking men in the United States of America," said Brown, a Sag Harbor and Riverdale resident who trained with Wheeler at Tuskegee and remained a close friend. "We always believed we were as good or better than anyone else."

Wheeler, 87, a Detroit native who married and settled in Hempstead after returning from air combat in Europe, died July 19 at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre after a brief illness.

During the funeral, Wheeler was praised for having worked to keep the legacy of the Tuskegee fliers -- who were nearly overlooked by history before a 1995 film told their story -- in the public eye.

"Bill Wheeler was a tough guy with an important story to tell," said Marcia Keizs, president of York College of the City University of New York.

Hempstead school board president Charles Renfroe announced that the board is considering a measure that would rename a school near where Wheeler lived -- Marshall elementary -- in honor of Wheeler and his wife, Minnie. Minnie Wheeler, who died in 1994, had been a teacher's assistant and union president in Hempstead schools.

John Addison, 49, a Southwest Airlines co-pilot who attended the funeral, said black pilots today owe their careers to the Tuskegee Airmen.

"These guys were pioneers of the civil rights movement," Addison said. "Without them, there would be no me."