Retired Lt. Col. Harry Stewart, Jr., credited with taking down three Nazi planes in one fight while flying with the Tuskegee Airmen, has died at age 100.
Born on July 4, 1924 in Virginia, Stewart developed his love for planes after moving to Queens, near what is now LaGuardia Airport.
Stewart’s legacy includes being among the first military pilots to win the Air Force “Top Gun” contest in 1949, when his Black 332nd Fighter Group defied the odds by defeating teams of white pilots in a competition near Las Vegas.
He spoke about his road to becoming a World War II hero during a 2024 Veterans Breakfast Club podcast. That included hanging around what was then called North Beach Airport and imagining himself in a cockpit.
“I used to walk over to the airport as a kid and hang out near the fence there and watch the planes take off and land and fantasize about my being the pilot of that aircraft flying people to different places,” he recalled.
He later enjoyed going to see the P-39 Airacobras stationed in Queens shortly before World War II began.
“I took a big interest in that and used to go down, hope I could see one of them take off or land or something like that because they were considerably faster than most of the transport planes that were flying out of LaGuardia at the time,” he said.
Stewart said he overcame polio and a heart problem before joining the Army Air Corps in 1943 and training to fly with about 900 other Black airmen in Tuskegee, Ala. He recalled being one of 355 Tuskegee pilots assigned to fly overseas and participate in combat during the war.
His shining moment came on Easter Day 1945 over Germany when his squadron was attacked by Nazi fighter planes while on an escort mission.
According to military site Task & Purpose, Stewart shot down two of those attackers and outmaneuvered a third plane, which got behind him, but crashed while trying to match his navigation skills during a dive maneuver. Three of the eight planes with his group were lost in that battle.
Stewart reportedly completed 43 missions with his “Red Tails” squadron and was decorated with a Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal. He joked with the Veterans Breakfast Club that while flying over Europe at age 19, he still didn’t know how to drive a car.
“That was because I was from New York City and, you know, we had the rapid transition system,” he said. “A car was almost prohibited because of the traffic and that type of thing.”
Stewart died at his home in Michigan on Sunday.
