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Decorated World War II pilot Harry Stewart Jr., a Tuskegee Airman who broke barriers in the military, has died, per the Associated Press. He was 100.
On Sunday (February 2), the Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum said Stewart, one of the last surviving combat pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group, passed away peacefully at his home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
“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 in a statement.
As a Tuskegee Airman, Stewart was among the nation's first Black military pilots.
Stewart had dreamed of flying since he was a child as 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.” At 18, Stewart joined an experiment launched in Alabama to train Black military pilots in the wake of Pearl Harbor.
Stewart faced segregation and prejudice in the Jim Crow-era South as he earned his wings. After finishing training, the group of Black pilots were assigned to escort U.S. bombers in Europe. The Tuskegee Airmen were said to have lost significantly fewer bombers than other fighter groups.
The decorated pilot went on to earn the Distinguished Flying Cross after downing three German aircraft during a dogfight on April 1, 1945. He was also among four Tuskegee Airmen who won the 1949 U.S. Air Force Top Gun flying competition. The accomplishment was acknowledged decades later.
Stewart had hopes of becoming a commercial airline pilot following his time in the military, but he was rejected due to his race. Instead, Stewart attended New York University, where he earned a mechanical engineering degree.
He then relocated to Detroit and retired as vice president of a natural gas pipeline company.
Rest in peace, Harry Stewart Jr.
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