by Sig Christenson

SAN ANTONIO (Tribune News Service) — Former Sgt. Maj. Thomas Ellis, one of six surviving Tuskegee Airmen in San Antonio, died Jan. 2 of a stroke in a local hospital. He was 97.

A draftee, he served as a top administrator with the first all-black Army Air Forces unit and was proud of the unit’s record — 15,533 sorties, 112 aerial kills, three Presidential Unit Citations and 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses.