Harry Stewart Jr.
*Harry Stewart Jr. was born on this date in 1924. He was a Black soldier and fighter pilot.
Harry Thaddeus Stewart Jr. was born in Newport News, Virginia. When he was two years old, after living near Langley Field Air Force Base between Hampton and Newport News, Virginia, Stewart and his family moved to Queens near LaGuardia Airport and the North Beach Airport. At 18, Stewart volunteered for the United States Army Air Forces, taking and passing the Pilot Cadet exam. On June 27, 1944, Stewart completed cadet pilot training, received his wings, and graduated in the Tuskegee Airmen Class 44-F-SE.
Stewart learned to fly before he learned how to drive an automobile. Stewart was married to Delphine Alice Friend, the sister of fellow Tuskegee Airman Robert Friend. They had one daughter, Lori Collette Stewart. After completing combat and fighter training in Walterboro, South Carolina, Stewart was assigned to the 15th Air Force in Italy with the 332nd Fighter Group's 302nd Fighter Squadron. Upon the disbandment of the 302nd Fighter Squadron on March 6, 1945, Stewart was transferred to the 301st Fighter Squadron for the remainder of the war.
After being shipped to France, he flew 43 bomber escort missions for the 15th Air Force to targets throughout Eastern Europe. On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945, he shot down three enemy German Focke-Wulf 190s during a B-24 bomber escort mission near Linz. During this mission, his friend and squadron mate, Walter Manning, was shot down. Captured by German civilians, Manning was lynched by the "Werewolves," a paramilitary group of partisan German and Austrian soldiers who broke into the jailhouse housing Manning after the SS incited the group to kill Manning. After an exhaustive investigation on Easter Sunday in 2018, the Austrian government hosted Stewart to attend a national parade honoring Manning's memory.
Stewart is one of only four Tuskegee Airmen to have achieved three aerial victories in a single day of combat. The other three are Joseph Elsberry, Clarence D. Lester, and Lee Archer. Moreover, Stewart is one of only nine 332nd Fighter Group pilots with at least three confirmed kills during World War II.
On March 25, 1948, during a simulated armed reconnaissance with a formation of Tuskegee Airmen combat fighter pilots flying from Sumter, South Carolina's Shaw Air Force Base to Columbus, Ohio, Stewart's P-47 Thunderbolt began to experience severe engine failure. Stewart descended to 10,000 feet before bailing out of the plane. Stewart had parachuted into the forested hills of Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, a coal-mining community and childhood home of Loretta Webb Lynn, country music legend. From there, Stewart was loaded into a pickup truck and transported to the local Paintsville Clinic in Paintsville, Kentucky. On March 26, 1948, a USAF representative picked up Stewart. In 2006, the Van Lear, Kentucky township encompassing Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, named Stewart its parade marshal for the annual Homecoming Day parade. During his Kentucky visit, Stewart met the families of Crystal Gayle, Loretta Lynn, and Herman Webb and enjoyed a tour of Loretta's birth home.
In January 1949, the US Air Force sent out a directive to each Air Force group to participate in an aerial weapons competition. Stewart competed at the Las Vegas Air Force Base (now Nellis Air Force Base). A grueling 10-day event, the competition comprised six events; Stewart and his team won against US Air Force fighter group teams in far more advanced aircraft. The results (including the three-foot-high winning silver trophy stashed in a Wright Patterson Air Force Base Museum storage area for 55 years) were absent from the Air Force archives until 1995. Stewart's team member, James H. Harvey, remarked: "They knew who won but did not want to recognize us." In 1950, Stewart received an honorable discharge from active duty. He continued serving as a US Air Force Reserve member, later retiring as a lieutenant colonel.
After returning from World War II, Stewart worked as a baggage man for a train depot. He also applied to become a pilot in the commercial airline industry; however, two separate airlines, including the defunct Trans World Airlines, denied Stewart because of racial segregation. As a backup plan, Stewart completed his high school diploma and enrolled at New York University (NYU), graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1963. While at NYU, Stewart served as President of NYU's student council and chair of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Stewart retired as Vice President of the ANR Pipeline Company (formerly the Michigan-Wisconsin Pipeline Company) in Detroit, Michigan, a large-scale interstate natural gas pipeline system operation.
As recompense, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines granted Stewart honorary Captain status in 2015 and 2018, respectively. In 2019, Stewart co-wrote Soaring to Glory: A Tuskegee Airman's Firsthand Account of World War II, co-written by Philip Handleman. A widower, Stewart lived in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, with his daughter, Lori Collette Stewart. Stewart turned 100 on July 4, 2024, and died in Bloomfield Hills on February 2, 2025.
