Captain Joseph Nathaniel Peterson III, known as “Pete”, was born November 13, 1949, in Richland, South Carolina, to Joseph N. Peterson, Jr., and Jessie Mae Parker.  He attended Tuskegee Institute High School and Tuskegee Public High School in Tuskegee, Alabama, playing football as a senior when Tuskegee Public High School’s athletic program was integrated in the 1960s.  He also took flying lessons from C. Alfred Anderson, the chief flight instructor for the famous Tuskegee Airmen and known as the Father of Black Aviation, to gain his private pilot’s license.  The Tuskegee Airmen were African-American military pilots who trained at Tuskegee University during World War II.  After his 1967 high school graduation Pete attended Auburn University, earning a bachelor’s degree in marketing while a member of the United States Air Force (USAF) Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC).  Following his 1971 graduation from Auburn he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Air Force.  Pete completed Undergraduate Pilot Training and served as an Instructor Pilot at Reese Air Force Base in Texas and Williams Air Force Base in Arizona.  He then served as a McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom pilot with a fighter squadron based in South Korea.  In 1980 Pete was selected as a pilot with the Thunderbirds, the USAF Air Demonstration Squadron.  Based at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, the Thunderbirds are the Air Force’s elite flying aerobatic team.  At the time Pete was only the second African-American pilot to fly with the Thunderbirds.  Tragically, he was killed with three other Thunderbird pilots on January 18, 1982, during a pre-season training flight when their formation of Northrop T-38 Talon jets hit the ground while practicing a four-plane diamond loop. Survived by his wife Cecilia Jones Peterson and daughters Kristan and Kimberly, Pete was laid to rest in Section G of Culpeper National Cemetery.  His former Thunderbirds commander, Lieutenant Colonel David Lamar Smith, is buried near by in Section G.  Lieutenant Colonel Smith was killed in another T-38 accident in September 1981.  In 2017 a portion of State Highway 199 in Tuskegee and Macon Counties, Alabama, was renamed the Captain Joseph “Pete” Peterson Memorial Boulevard.  The ceremony was attended by members of Pete’s family, including his 95-year old father and widow Cecilia.   

This a picture of Thunderbirds T-38s in formation.

JOSEPH N PETERSON III

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