Tuskegee Airman Harry Stewart Jr., WWII Hero, Dies at 100
Retired Lt. Col. Harry Stewart Jr., one of the last surviving combat pilots of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen, has passed away at the age of 100.
Stewart, a highly decorated World War II pilot who shattered racial barriers in the military, died peacefully at his home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, on Sunday, (Feb 3) according to the Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum. Stewart was part of the 332nd Fighter Group, famously known as the Tuskegee Airmen, the first Black military pilots in U.S. history.
Born on July 4, 1924, in Virginia, Stewart's family relocated to New York, where his fascination with aviation was sparked by watching planes at LaGuardia Airport. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he joined an experimental program training Black military pilots—an endeavor that defied the entrenched racial segregation of the time.
A true aviation trailblazer, he earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for his heroics in the skies, particularly for downing three German aircraft in a single dogfight on April 1, 1945.
He also made history in 1949 as part of a team of Tuskegee Airmen that won the U.S. Air Force’s Top Gun flying competition—an achievement that went unrecognized for decades due to systemic racism in the military.
“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,” Stewart recalled in a 2024 interview with CNN.
Despite his distinguished service, Stewart faced racial barriers after the war, with commercial airlines rejecting his applications due to his race. Undeterred, he earned a mechanical engineering degree from NYU and later became vice president of a natural gas pipeline company in Detroit.
