Capt. Andrew Maples Jr.

Pauline H. Cornelius of Cappahosic was a child when her big brother Andrew Maples Jr. went away to war, a celebrated member of the prestigious Tuskegee Airmen. She never knew him very well because she was so much younger than he was, and her parents had sent him away to school in Washington, D.C., when she was very small.

Sadly, Cornelius would never have the privilege of getting to know her brother better because his airplane developed mechanical problems and went down over the Adriatic Sea in 1944 as he was leading other “Thunderbolts” escorting a bombing mission in Hungary.

Earlier this month, Cornelius traveled to her hometown of Orange County, where a ceremony was held to pay tribute to Maples and to unveil a portrait of him that was hung inside the county’s historic circuit courtroom.

According to an order signed by Judge David B. Franzén, Maples attended Hampton Institute, where he learned to fly in the school’s Civilian Pilots Training Progr...