BIDDEFORD — There’s a photo of James Sheppard, taken Saturday, that says it all. He’s sitting in the second seat of a Red Tail P-51C Mustang at Biddeford Municipal Airport, getting ready for a flight, and his face is wreathed in a broad, engaging smile.

The event was the first time Sheppard, 87, had been aboard a P-51C Mustang since 1945, when World War II drew to a close.

He had plenty of experience with the Mustang and other aircraft during the war, both stateside and overseas in Africa and Italy, as a crew chief mechanic with the 301st squadron of the 332nd Fighter Group ”“ known world-wide as the Tuskegee Airmen.

Sheppard’s group had four squadrons. Some mornings, his group would launch 64 aircraft, 32 facing each other at each end of the runway.

The German Luftwaffe were formidable, he said, but still, America and the Allies prevailed.

The crew chief was solely responsible for the air worthiness of the aircraft, and no pilot would fly until the crew chief signed off.

“The last human being a pilot sees before flying off on a mission is a crew chief,” said Sheppard. “And he’s the first person the pilot sees when he lands.”

So how was Saturday’s flight?

“Really great,” he said upon his return to Biddeford after the flight around his South Portland neighborhood before landing at Portland Jetport. “It was pretty nice. You don’t forget the feeling.”

And, he observed, the radio equipment was of a much higher quality than was available 66 years ago.

Sheppard, now retired from his job as a supervisory inspector with the Federal Aviation Administration, was born in New York and got the aviation bug early, he said Saturday. He got to know a couple of black pilots and took a few flying lessons. He enrolled in a four-year high school program and had earned his certification as an aircraft mechanic by the time he graduated. Sheppard’s goal was to work for the airlines.

But the war had begun in Europe, and when he was still in high school, he and his classmates knew they were destined to serve in the military.

Shortly after he turned 18 years old, Sheppard said he received his draft letter and decided to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps.

He arrived at the relatively new Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama in October 1942, built amid the push to train black aviators.

“It was pretty tough,” said Sheppard of the infantry training portion of his tenure at Tuskegee before his unit went off to Africa. “I was a squadron leader and three of us were already mechanics.”

In those days, America was segregated and it was the same in the military. Units were typically all white or all black and that would not change until after the war ended.

“There was very little integration,” said Sheppard. He recalls the pilots on training flights would have to fly home in the dark, because they weren’t allowed to stay at other bases along the way, which were typically all white.

Sheppard talks about the segregation in a matter-of-fact fashion.

“We didn’t complain about it. We figured that was the way life was,” he said.

After the war, Sheppard took a job with the U.S. Postal Service, but kept applying to the airlines, looking for a job in his field as a civilian aircraft mechanic. In the meantime, he joined the U.S Air Force Reserves.

Discrimination lingered. Sheppard recalls being told passengers “wouldn’t buy a ticket,” if they saw a black man working for the airline, but eventually, that changed. Sheppard landed a job with Lockheed Aircraft at what is now JFK Airport in New York, was promoted to inspector and then went to work for the FAA, coming to Maine in 1972.

He remains active in aviation-related events and regularly attends Tuskegee Airmen conventions and air shows like Wings Over Houston, where he and others, under the auspices of the Houston Police Department, speak with young people, encouraging them to stay in school and do well.

Five years ago, Sheppard was among those invited to go to Iraq to talk to the troops as part of a mission to boost morale.

“I went, I met the new 332nd Fighter Group. They’re almost all white now,”  he said.

That group will stand down next weekend, and Sheppard will be a part of the ceremony.

He also intends to attend Wings Over Houston again next month, and in the meantime is ready to head to Wiscasset Oct. 1 when the Texas Flying Legends will display World War II aircraft including the P-51C Mustang, owned by the Commemorative Air Force, and take in the Tuskegee Airmen Red Tail Traveling Exhibit.

It was in Biddeford, at an airport open house, that Sheppard met Chris Griffith, president of the Texas Flying Legends Museum.

Griffith approached the Friends of Biddeford Airport and the Experimental Airport Association chapter and asked if they could persuade Sheppard to drop by the airport on Saturday.

Jerry Bernier, who also knew Sheppard from the open house, made the call. But he didn’t tell Sheppard why he needed to be at the airport ”“ it was a surprise.

As Sheppard chatted with reporters, a radio crackled ”“ a signal a pilot was readying to fly in.

“If we got a P51 here, would you go for a ride?” asked Griffith.

There was no hesitation.

“Oh, yes,” said Sheppard.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 or twells@journaltribune.com.