Harry Stewart Jr., a 100-year-old Tuskegee Airman and decorated World War II veteran who broke barriers in the military, has died.
The Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Museum said Feb. 2 that Stewart, one of the last surviving combat pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group, died peacefully at his home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
As a Tuskegee Airman, Stewart was among the nation’s first Black military pilots.
“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.
Stewart was born July 4, 1924, in Virginia.
He had dreamed of flying since he was a child as he would watch planes at LaGuardia airport, according to an autobiography, “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.
“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 at the time. I just stood up to my duty,” he said of World War II in a 2024 interview with CNN.
