Decorated pilot Harry Stewart, Jr., one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen, dies
Advertisement
'Harry Stewart was a kind man of profound character and accomplishment with a distinguished career of service he continued long after fighting for our country in World War II,' Brian Smith, president and CEO of the Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum, said.
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
Born on July 4, 1924, in Virginia, his family moved to New York when he was young. Stewart had dreamed of flying since he was a child when he would watch planes at LaGuardia airport, according to a book about his life titled 'Soaring to Glory: A Tuskegee Airmen's Firsthand Account of World War II.' In the wake of Pearl Harbor, an 18-year-old Stewart joined what was then considered an experiment to train Black military pilots. The unit sometimes known as the Tuskegee Airmen for where they trained in Alabama or the Red Tails because of the red tips of their P-51 Mustangs.
'I did not recognize at the time the gravity of what we are facing. I just felt as though it was a duty of mine at the time. I just stood up to my duty,' Stewart said of World War II in a 2024 interview with CNN about the war.
Having grown up in a multicultural neighborhood, the segregation and prejudice of the Jim Crow-era South came as a shock to Stewart, but he was determined to finish and earn his wings according to the book about his life. After finishing training, the pilots were assigned to escort U.S. bombers in Europe. The Tuskegee Airmen are credited with losing significantly fewer escorted bombers than other fighter groups.
Advertisement
'I got to really enjoy the idea of the panorama, I would say, of the scene I would see before me with the hundreds of bombers and the hundreds of fighter planes up there and all of them pulling the condensation trails, and it was just the ballet in the sky and a feeling of belonging to something that was really big,' Stewart said in a 2020 interview with WAMC.
Stewart would sometimes say in a self-effacing way that he was too busy enjoying flying to realize he was making history, according to his book.
Stewart had hoped to become a commercial airline pilot after he left the military, but was rejected because of his race. He went on to earn a mechanical engineering degree New York University. He relocated to Detroit and retired as vice president of a natural gas pipeline company.
Stewart told Michigan Public Radio in 2019 that he was moved to tears on a recent commercial flight when he saw who was piloting the aircraft.
'When I entered the plane, I looked into the cockpit there and there were two African American pilots. One was the co-pilot, and one was the pilot. But not only that, the thing that started bringing the tears to my eyes is that they were both female,' Stewart said.
The Air Force last month briefly removed training course s with videos of its storied Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs in an effort to comply with the Trump administration's crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The materials were quickly restored following a bipartisan backlash.
Advertisement
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time Magazine
13 hours ago
- Time Magazine
The True Story Behind PBS' 'Atomic People'
Eighty years since the first and only time the atomic bomb was used for warfare on Aug 6. and Aug. 9, 1945, survivors of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki open up about what it was like on the ground in Atomic People, airing on PBS Aug. 4. The U.S. had been developing the bombs since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. When the U.S. dropped them four years later, they instantly killed about 78,000 of Hiroshima's 350,000 residents and about 40,000 of Nagasaki's 240,000 residents. About a week after the bombings, on Aug. 15, it was announced that Japan would surrender, officially signing the documents on Sep. 2 and ending World War II. Most of the survivors were children when the bombs were dropped, yet they can recall those fateful days vividly. Dripping flesh Survivors recall initially seeing bright lights. In Nagasaki, Kikuyo Nakamura, who was 21 back then, said the mountains looked like they were on fire. Students in Hiroshima recall an intense light, a blinding light speeding towards them in their classroom. The effects of the bombing could be seen immediately in Hiroshima, survivors say. One man describes the roof tiles on his home shattering and a hole opening up in the ceiling. Hiromu said the sky looked like it was 'raining fire.' Michiko Kodama was in school at the time and recalls hiding under a desk as the ceiling came crashing down. Windows shattered and splintered across the classroom desks and chairs. Hiromu describes seeing someone with 'skin hanging off his face like an old cloth,' the 'flesh dripping like candle wax.' Kodama's father collected the 7-year-old from school, and while he was carrying her on his back, she saw people with melting flesh—which she calls 'a scene from hell.' Chieko Kiriake was 15 when she saw victims with skin from their legs peeling off. As victims started to die, students had to dig holes for them in their playgrounds. 'I cremated them,' Kiriake says. Underneath Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park are the remains of tens of thousands of victims. The aftermath Survivors who lost their homes had to build barrack huts. Food was scarce. Survivors describe going to the mountains to look for trees with edible fruits. They even ate bees eggs from bees nests. As Seiichiro Mise puts it, 'We really lived like cavemen.' One survivor said her father died after his stomach turned black and blue, and he vomited blood. By the end of 1945, about 90,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had died. Kiyomi Iguro, who was 19 in 1945, did not have any immediate injuries from the bombing, but believes that the miscarriage she had later in life was caused by radiation exposure from the bomb. 'I thought about taking my life,' she says in the doc, tempted to overdose on sleeping pills. A couple, Hiroshi and Keiko Shimizu, describe being too afraid to have children because of what abnormalities they might pass on. Nakamura said her son developed leukemia as an adult, and the doctor told her it was likely because she was breastfeeding. Survivors received some medical care and some form of compensation, but campaigns for more compensation and the abolition of nuclear weapons are ongoing. The doc ends with survivor Sueichi Kido at the United Nations in 2023, speaking about how scenes of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza make him afraid that another nuclear war could be on the horizon. Survivors hope that testimonies like Atomic People, on the devastating effects of the bomb, will prevent history from repeating itself. Atomic People premieres Aug. 4 at 10 p.m. ET.
21 hours ago
WWII veterans visit Omaha Beach to mark 80th anniversary of D-Day
American Airlines flew 68 World War II veterans to France to remember the fateful day. June 5, 2024
UPI
a day ago
- UPI
Events held nationwide as Hiroshima bombing anniversary approaches
1 of 4 | The "Enola Gay" returning from its mission on August 6,1945 where it dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. (UPI/File) | License Photo Aug. 3 (UPI) -- Groups around the world will gather this week to commemorate the Aug. 6th bombing of Hiroshima, a nuclear attack that killed 200,000 Japanese people 80 years ago. Events, prayer gatherings and services memorializing the bombings of Hiroshima and, three days later, Nagasaki, range from an event at a small library in Kansas and a gathering at a church in Spokane, Wash. to a series of reflection ceremonies in the Northeast and a ceremony in a park in a North Carolina park. Japan exited World War II within days of the Hiroshima bombing, an event that changed the rules of war and elicited shock and disbelief on the global stage. The Hiroshima bombing marked the first occasion that a nuclear weapon had been used on a large scale, and raised questions about human rights and what constituted fair rules of engagement. The bombongs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki started a nuclear arms race that accelerated over the decades and remains a constant today. Recent data from the Pew Research Center shows a third of Americans feel that dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified while nearly the same number said it was not. Another third said they are unsure if the drastic measures were warranted. Many of the deaths were instantaneous. Other people died years later as a result of exposure to nuclear radiation, researchers have said.
