Polten, Austria. They were both members of the nd Fighter Group, the famed Tuskegee Airmen. While the legend that they never lost a single bomber isn't true, they were particularly good at their jobs; when the bombing mission ended, seven of the nd's escort fighters flew on to hit targets of opportunity as the Bs headed home.
As they flew along the Danube River, nearly a dozen fighters appeared. In the dogfight that followed, Stewart would rack up three kills, and 10 of 12 enemy ambushers went down in all. But the Tuskegee Airmen lost two of their own. Manning was one of them. When all was said and done, Stewart would receive the Distinguished Flying Cross. Manning would be captured and lynched by enemy civilians. Those were the stakes for America's first-ever Black combat pilots.
But Stewart would survive World War II as one of only four Tuskegee Airmen with three air-to-air victories in a single day, leading a storied Air Force career before leaving active duty in Stewart died on Feb.
He was years old. Harry T. Stewart Jr. His family moved to New York City two years later. That, he said, was the beginning of his fascination with flying. He would learn to fly planes before he could drive a car. Stewart was 16 years old, but wanted to volunteer for the U.
Army Air Corps. He was told the Air Corps did not accept "negroes" for pilot training. He was watching P fighters take off from that same airfield when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December He once again volunteered for service and took the exam for pilot training. By then, the Army had established an all-Black aviation training center at Tuskegee, Alabama, where segregation was the law of the land.
