Tuskegee Airman Harry Stewart by Todd DePastino
After the German surrender, Harry and the other Tuskegee Airmen prepared to ship to the Pacific to support the final invasion of Japan. Japan’s capitulation in August spared Harry from that fate. Harry remained on active duty for five more eventful years.
On March 25, 1948, while flying in a severe thunderstorm over rural Kentucky, Harry’s P-47 Thunderbolt sputtered to a stop at 20,000 feet. Harry slid open the fighter’s canopy, unbuckled his seat belt, and angled the plane so he could fall out the cockpit without being struck by the aircraft. But the plane’s slipstream slammed him into the tail section. Harry snapped his left leg in two above the ankle. He managed to unfurl his parachute in the driving rain and land safely in a pine tree, his body dangling just above the ground. His left leg was bleeding profusely where the bone had broken. Harry cut himself out of his harness, crawled to rock shelter, and fashioned a tourniquet from his pilot’s scarf.
He had landed in Butcher Hollow, KY, a coal patch later made famous by its native daughter, country music legend Loretta Lynn. Loretta’s family and neighbors found harry on the mountain and carried him back to their house on a horse. They gave him a shot of moonshine, cooked his clothes in an outdoor cauldron, and nursed his beg as best they could. Then, they took him to a general store, from where he was driven in a pickup truck to the nearest town. The next day, Air Force representatives shoed up to retrieve Harry, leaving local residents with the mystery of this Black airman who had fallen from the sky. The legend would later build that harry had stolen a B-52 (which didn’t exist in 1948) and been shot down by US fighters in pursuit.
Harry became the stuff of genuine legend the following year, when the Air Force held the Fighter Gunnery Meet outside Las Vegas-the first “top Gun” competition. Fighter groups from around the country sent pilots to compete. Harry was of three Black pilots representing the 332nd Fighter Group in the piston fighter class, shooting, strafing and bombing targets at altitudes up to 20,000 feet. Harry’s Tuskegee Airmen group won the competition. It was the last triumph of the red Tails, which were soon disbanded to comply with the new executive Order desegregating the Armed Forces.
Racial discrimination in the civilian world, however, was still legal and common. When Harry left active duty in 1950 and applied for pilot jobs at Pan Am and TWA, the airlines turned him down because of his race. So, Harry returned to New York, took night classes at NY University’s College of Engineering, and went on to become VP of ANR Pipeline Company in Detroit.
Today, only a handful of the 16,000 air crew members, air traffic controllers, meteorologists, radio technicians, and others trained at the Tuskegee Institute remain alive. We’re honored and grateful to have spent time with one of them.
[AVM ED comment] In my military career I met 8 Tuskegee Airmen at Defense Supply Center, Philadelphia in 1997 and it was an amazing experience. They were an inspiration to many airmen’s careers.