THE EDITOR, Sir:
REBECCA TORTELLO'S article on aviation in Jamaica is most interesting and informative. To her storehouse of recollections I'd like to add the name of Dr. Albert Forsythe, a pioneer of black aviation, who grew up in Portland and attended Titchfield School. In 1985 he was inducted in the Aviation Hall of Fame in New Jersey, and before that he and his co-pilot, Alfred Charles Anderson, were given awards at the Smithsonian Institution as acclaimed pioneers in the field of aviation in America.
One of Albert Forsythe's daring pioneering flights was in 1934 when he and Anderson landed near King's House as there was no airport in Kingston in those days. They were greeted by the Governor and a host of friends and admirers, including Forsythe's former headmaster at Titchfield.
I once had the pleasure of talking with Dr. Forsythe and learnt that after leaving Jamaica he attended the famous Tuskegee Institute and later got his medical degree at McGill in Montreal. The plane he bought and flew to Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean was named 'The Booker T. Washington', for the founder of Tuskegee where America's first black pilots got their training.
Dr. Forsythe's Jamaican connection is little known here, although he is celebrated in America as a noted African-American aviation pioneer.
I am, etc.,
KEN JONES
alllerdyce@hotmail.com
Via Go-Jamaica
