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As Prendeville Races this Fourth of July
Weekend at the Glen,
He Remembers the Contributions of
America's Military Heroes
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07/03/2008
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By Linda Mansfield, Restart
Communications
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 WATKINS
GLEN, N.Y., July 3 - Firestone Indy Lights
driver Andrew Prendeville knows it's a small
world. He also realizes it's a better one thanks
to the courage of American military heroes like
Spann Watson and his own late grandfather,
Edward Prendeville.
Andrew Prendeville will drive RLR/Andersen
Racing's Best Friends Animal Society No. 5 in
two Firestone Indy Lights races at Watkins Glen
International in Watkins Glen, N.Y. on Saturday
as part of that track's Fourth of July
festivities. His events, the Corning Duels, are
part of the Camping World Grand Prix IndyCar
Series weekend.
On another patriotic holiday, Memorial Day, he
was honored to have retired Lt. Col. Spann
Watson and his son, Weyman Watson, as his guests
when he competed in the Firestone Freedom 100 at
the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on May 23 prior
to the Indianapolis 500 two days later.
Spann Watson, now 91, was one of the original
Tuskegee Airmen who helped America win World War
II and also end racial segregation in the U.S.
military.
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first all-black
aviation unit in the United States military.
Formed in July 1941, its members trained at the
Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Ala., from where
they got their name.
The military had just begun to be integrated at
that time. A prevailing idea of that day's
society was that blacks were not capable of
being pilots, a notion the Tuskegee Airmen were
determined to prove false.
America was not doing well in the war at the
time. It was losing white pilots and their
navigators at an alarming pace. When the
Tuskegee Airmen were finally given a chance in
1942, they were assigned to escort bombers flown
by white Americans in order to protect them. The
332nd Fighter Group, which the Tuskegee Airmen's
99th Fighter Squadron later fell under, ended up
flying 1,578 combat missions without the lost of
a single bomber, changing history both
politically and socially.
Watson was one of the Tuskegee Airmen's
approximately 450 pilots who went overseas, and
one of only eight that successfully fought the
German elite Luftwaffe over the Mediterranean
Sea on July 8, 1943, marking the first time
American black pilots fought in air combat. He
completed more than 30 combat missions,
including flights over North Africa, Italy and
Southern Europe. In all the Tuskegee Airmen were
credited with damaging or destroying 409 enemy
aircraft, garnering 744 medals, including 150
Distinguished Flying Crosses.
Prendeville has a love of history, but the
Tuskegee Airmen's story is even more personal
for him. His paternal grandfather, Edward Joseph
Prendeville, was one of the white airmen that
the Tuskegee Airmen protected.
"He was a navigator on a B-24 bomber in World
War II," Prendeville explained of his
grandfather, who was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. and
raised his family in New Providence, N.J. "He
was credited with 49 missions flown, including
Ploesti twice.
"He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross
on his deathbed in 2004 when I was racing at
Sebring," Prendeville continued. "The reason why
he was awarded this was for his last mission. He
was the lead navigator when, at the time, bomber
groups were making the final turn, then dumping
tinfoil out of the planes to deflect the German
radar. Then they'd proceed to the target,
straight ahead.
"The Germans had caught onto this, and made
adjustments. My grandfather made the call to
dump the foil first and then make the final
turn, which would make sense today, but on that
mission every plane came back because of it.
"After the war he went on to raise nine kids,
worked for a construction company, and helped
build a number of the buildings in New York
City," Prendeville added.
Watson was inspired to try to learn to fly on
July 4, 1927 when he witnessed Charles Lindbergh
landing his famous Spirit of St. Louis at New
Jersey's Teterboro Airport, just 19 miles from
where Andrew Prendeville would be born 54 years
later in Summit, N.J. Lindbergh had become a
national hero about six weeks earlier when he
became the first person ever to fly solo nonstop
between New York and Paris.
The U.S. military rejected Watson 15-20 times
before he was finally accepted. When he finally
got to fly he not only distinguished himself in
World War II, but he went on to teach others to
fly. He worked for the Federal Aviation
Authority for 27 years as an equal opportunity
specialist and an air traffic specialist,
commuting to Washington, D.C. from his home in
Westbury, Long Island, N.Y. He is also credited
with helping hundreds of minorities gain
employment in commercial aviation. With the rest
of the Tuskegee Airmen, he was awarded the
Congressional Gold Medal in April 2007, a little
more than a year before he met Prendeville at
IMS.
(Incidentally, Andrew Prendeville's maternal
great-grandfather, Eric Dixon, aka "Gramps," was
also a military man. Born in Hanover, N.J., he
was in the Army in World War I and the Navy in
World War II. After that he worked in the
Summit, N.J. area for years, although he also
spent some time out West.
"My great-grandfather was an air photographer in
World War I," Prendeville noted. "Basically he
hung out of bi-planes and took photos of the
enemy lines, so he was one of the first spy
planes.")
With all this in common, Prendeville jumped at
the chance to be Watson's host at IMS in May
when that idea was presented by Junious
Matthews, the PetStop manager of Prendeville's
Racing Laps for Best Friends program (see
racinglapsforbestfriends.com)
and a friend of Watson's son, Weyman.
(Prendeville encourages race fans to make
donations to the not-for-profit Best Friends
Animal Society through that website.)
"After I got to know Junious and Weyman, I
talked to them about what my grandfather had
done," Prendeville said. "My uncle told me that
the Tuskegee Airmen escorted my grandfather's
bomber unit multiple times.
"When Junious and Weyman told me that Spann had
always wanted to go to the Indy 500, I said I'd
love to meet him, and I jumped at the chance to
have him as my guest at the track," Prendeville
continued. "He said he'd wanted to go to the
Indy 500 since 1937. He's 91 years old now, and
that was his first time at the Speedway. Having
him at our garage was a big deal for me. He was
like a kid in a candy store. And if the Tuskegee
Airmen hadn't existed, I probably wouldn't have
had the opportunity to race."
Prendeville said he enjoyed his conversations
with Watson, and he'll never forget one thing
Watson said.
"He told me that driving race cars looks like
it's more difficult than flying fighter planes,"
Prendeville said. "I responded, 'Well, Spann,
getting shot at is a whole different ballgame.'"
Watson was very impressed with his first trip to
the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
"I've visited many flying shows, and I thought
we had the best show with the Blue Angels and
the Thunderbirds, until I had a chance to go to
Indy," he said by telephone on Tuesday. "The
greatest show now for me is the Indianapolis
500. I sure hope to go back someday, and to take
somebody else who has never seen it before. I
read about it, but until you see it, you don't
realize how amazing it is."
Watson was most impressed with the drivers and
cars; the layout of the city and the track; and
the crowd.
"The layout of the city was most attractive," he
said. "The layout of the track was too. I was
impressed with how the city, the county, the
state, the businesses and the organizers of the
race all work together. All roads lead to the
track on Race Day morning. Any organization that
can make that many people move in one direction
in such an orderly fashion is impressive."
He was particularly complimentary to the police
officers involved. "When we went to the track in
the morning, there were one, two, three or even
four officers at every intersection," he noted.
"Three days I was out there, and I didn't see
one policeman with a bad attitude. Everyone was
polite, courteous and helpful."
Watson said he's followed the Indy 500 since he
was a teenager, but the speeds of today's cars
still impressed him.
"In 1934 or 1935 when I was young, the speeds
were just over 100 miles per hour," he noted.
"Now they're out of sight.
"And they tell me all the cars in the Indy 500
had Honda engines," he continued. "None blew up
or caught on fire. I've always been an airplane
engine man, so I was impressed with them. I
listened to the sounds of the cars, and I liked
the way they were screaming. It seemed to me
that there was still some more [power] to go, so
that was quite something."
Being someone who stands for equal opportunity
for all, he was also impressed that three women
competed in this year's race. "I thought that
was a grand thing," he said.
Watson is always happy to meet people like
Prendeville who appreciate his contributions to
our nation. In honor of both his guest and his
grandfather's memory, Prendeville wore his
grandfather's wings on his driving uniform
during the Firestone Freedom 100 over the
Memorial Day weekend.
"Now and then we run into people like Andrew who
say that they might not be here today if it
wasn't for what we did to help their relatives,"
Watson said. "I just tell them I'm glad to see
them; I'm glad they're here too; and how
wonderful it is the progress our country has
made.
"When we finally got a chance, we did the job,
and we're glad about it," he continued.
"Everybody has an opportunity to get an
education and find employment and make a good
life for themselves here," he added. "We can all
seek prosperity and happiness. The law is on
everybody's side. I'm glad to have helped make
that a reality.
"This is our home, and I'm proud of it," he
said.
Tickets for a raffle featuring prizes of
sessions at the Bertil Roos Racing School may
also be obtained through the
racinglapsforbestfriends.com
website.
Additional information is available at
bestfriends.org,
indycar.com/indylights and
andersenracingteam.com.
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