Remembering 2025’s Losses: Harry Stewart Jr.

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It’s time to salute another great individual who passed away last year. This is another case of someone you don’t know the name of but you certainly know the reputation of in general. A salute to one of our great fighting men. Harry Stewart Jr. Harry Stewart was a Tuskegee Airman. If you remember when I went to the Tuskegee Airmen National Monument a few years ago, that was the first all-black Army Air Corps (later Air Force) squadron. They were deployed in the European theater during World War II, and they were good. Harry Stewart was one of four Tuskegee Airmen who shot down three enemy planes in a single day. He was also the very first “Top Gun” pilot, in 1949 (so that that, Tom Cruise! ). Now here’s a Loretta Lynn connection!!! (I didn’t go searching for it, it just popped up) On March 20, 1948, Stewart was on a training mission from South Carolina to his home base in Columbus, Ohio when he plane began having trouble. There was no ejection feature (this is 1948, so we aren’t talking F18s ), so he bailed out after aiming his crippled plane for a mountain. It turns out that his parachute glided him down…in Butcher Holler, Kentucky, home of Loretta Lynn! No, none of Lynn’s family rescued him; however, some of the family did report seeing the plane going down and the parachute coming down. How about THAT! Stewart retired from the Air Force in 1950, maintaining his Air Force Reserve status and retiring as a lieutenant colonel. With his passing, there are only three documented Tuskegee Airmen still living. Salute, Colonel Stewart. Harry Stewart Jr. Born Harry Thaddeus Stewart, Jr., July 4, 1924, Newport News, Virginia Died February 2, 2025, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (natural causes) (age 100) A Detroit news item about Stewart’s passing: