Harry Stewart Jr.

Harry Thaddeus Stewart Jr. (July 4, 1924 – February 2, 2025) was an American fighter pilot. He was an officer in the United States Army Air Forces, and a Distinguished Flying Cross recipient who served in the 332nd Fighter Group, best known as the all–African American Tuskegee Airmen.

Stewart shot down three German aircraft in one day during World War II. He is one of only four Tuskegee Airmen, along with Joseph Elsberry, Clarence D. Lester and Lee Archer, to have earned three victories in a single day of aerial combat.

Stewart was also a member of the all-African American 332nd Fighter Group Weapons pilot team that won the United States Air Force's inaugural "Top Gun" team competition in 1949. Stewart, along with George Hardy and fellow 1949 Top Gun winner James H. Harvey, was among the last surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen. The Tuskegee Airmen were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 2006. In 2019, Stewart co-wrote Soaring to Glory: A Tuskegee Airman's Firsthand Account of World War II, co-written by Philip Handleman.

Early life and family Stewart was born in Newport News, Virginia, on July 4, 1924. After living near Langley Field, a United States Air Force base located between Hampton, Virginia, and Newport News, Virginia, Stewart and his family moved to Queens near LaGuardia Airport and the North Beach Airport when he was two years old.

Stewart was married to Delphine Alice Friend Stewart (October 14, 1926 – November 5, 2015) – the sister of fellow Tuskegee Airman Robert Friend – until her death at the age of 89. They had one daughter, Lori Collette Stewart.

Military career At 18 years old, 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, receiving his wings and graduating in the Tuskegee Airmen Class 44-F-SE. Stewart 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. For this feat, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. 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.

Joseph Elsberry – 332nd Fighter Group's 301st Fighter Squadron – 4 Confirmed Kills, 1 Possible Edward L. Toppins – 332nd Fighter Group's 99th Fighter Squadron – 4 Confirmed Kills, 1 Possible Lee Archer – 332nd Fighter Group's 302nd Fighter Squadron – 4 Confirmed Kills Charles B. Hall – 332nd Fighter Group's 99th Fighter Squadron – 3 confirmed kills Leonard M. Jackson – 332nd Fighter Group's 99th Fighter Squadron – 3 Confirmed Kills Clarence D. Lester – 332nd Fighter Group's 100th Fighter Squadron – 3 Confirmed Kills Wendell O. Pruitt – 332nd Fighter Group's 302nd Fighter Squadron – 3 Confirmed Kills Roger Romine – 332nd Fighter Group's 302nd Fighter Squadron – 3 Confirmed Kill, 1 Unconfirmed Harry Stewart Jr. – 332nd Fighter Group's 301st Fighter Squadron – 3 Confirmed Kills

1948 Butcher Hollow P-47 Thunderbolt crash On March 25, 1948, Stewart took part in a simulated armed reconnaissance with a formation of Tuskegee Airmen combat fighter pilots flying from Sumter, South Carolina's Shaw Air Force Base to their home base in Columbus, Ohio. Suddenly, Stewart's P-47 Thunderbolt began to experience severe engine failure, sputtering at 20,000 feet above the mountainous terrain of Eastern Kentucky during a bad thunderstorm. Fearful of fatally crashing his aircraft into the side of a mountain, Stewart descended to 10,000 feet before bailing out of the plane. Since the P-47 lacked an ejection seat, Stewart slid its canopy back, removed his seat belt, and directed the P-47's nose forward so that it would dip and safely eject Stewart forward when he released the control stick. However, the slipstream struck Stewart, forcefully propelling him to the aircraft's tail, fracturing his left leg between the calf and ankle.

Unbeknownst to him, Stewart had parachuted into the forested hills of Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, a coal-mining community in Johnson County, Kentucky and childhood home of married fifteen-year-old Loretta Webb (April 14, 1932 – October 4, 2022), best known as 18-time Grammy Award–nominated country music legend Loretta Lynn. Callie notified her father, Lafe Daniels (1910–1969), who mounted and rode one of his horses into the hills, finding an injured Stewart lying underneath a rock cliff. In 2005, Danny Keith Blevins, a Johnson County, Kentucky teacher and president of the Van Lear Historical Society, tracked down Stewart at his home in southern Michigan. who served as an alternate pilot, and Staff Sergeant Buford A. Johnson (August 30, 1927 – April 15, 2017) who served as the team's aircraft crew chief.

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.

Reserve service In 1950, Stewart received an honorable discharge from active duty. He continued his service as a member of the U.S. Air Force Reserves, later retiring with the rank of lieutenant colonel. As recompense, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines granted Stewart honorary Captain status in 2015 and 2018, respectively. and died in Bloomfield Hills on February 2, 2025.