Aletha Wrenn has a wispy childhood memory of her father's World War II leather bomber jacket hanging in a basement room of their Butler-Tarkington home. Louis G. Hill Jr. never spoke of it, and she never asked.

Only much later did she learn he was one of the 992 pilots who became known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Trained from 1941 to 1946 at Georgia's Tuskegee Army Air Field, they were the nation's first black military pilots.

"My father was an extremely dramatic person," his daughter said, "but what he did in the war never created any conversation between us."

The topic probably won't be overlooked at a memorial service for Mr. Hill at 11 a.m. Friday at Witherspoon Presbyterian Church, 5136 N. Michigan Road. Retired Brig. Gen. John Huff will give the eulogy.

Mr. Hill died April 25 in his home in Sarasota, Fla., of complications from a stroke. He was 90. His cremated remains will be interred in Arlington National Cemetery.

Many topics might be touched upon at the memorial service: Mr. Hill's love of bridge games, his contributions to the Tuskegee Airmen exhibit at Atterbury-Bakalar Air Museum in Columbus and his refusal, with 11 other black officers, to sit at blacks-only, assigned tables in the dining hall at officer training school at Camp Lee, Va.

Mr. Hill faced racial prejudice after the war. When he applied to be an Indianapolis teacher, he wore his first-lieutenant uniform to his interview. The principal asked why he was impersonating an officer.

Ray Satterfield was a teenager when he met Mr. Hill, who at the time was the dean of boys at Crispus Attucks High School. "He was one of the fabled 'old school' male teachers at Attucks who were disciplinarians," he said. "You did not mess with them. Attucks was a quiet school in the 1950s."

Satterfield said Mr. Hill "had a big, bellowing, baritone voice, a very intimidating voice. But he was humble, too. We never knew he was a Tuskegee Airman pilot or that he even flew."

Mr. Hill's mother died when he was 7. He and his two brothers were raised by Clara Kirk, a teacher at Indianapolis Public School 42 who became his stepmother. After graduating with high honors from Attucks at age 15, Mr. Hill attended the University of California-Los Angeles and Fresno State College. He eventually earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Butler University.

Mr. Hill, who earned his pilot's wings in 1944, was an instructor in California when the war ended. His unit was never deployed.

The Tuskegee Airmen pilots and ground support troops were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in March for their World War II efforts.