EP226: A Tuskegee Airman's Story of Heroism and Service and A Sister's Love and Loss of Three Brothers
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 21 March 2022
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, Lt. Col. Harry Stewart fought for his country in WW2, and faced discrimination and worse along the way. But he said he'd do it all over again for the country he loves. Edie Hand tells us the story of her brothers, the Blackburn boys, and the tragedy that struck not once, but three times.
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Time Codes:
00:00 - A Tuskegee Airman's Story of Heroism
35:00 - A Sister's Love and Loss of Three Brothers
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is our American stories and we tell stories about everything here on this show, |
| 0:15.0 | from the arts to sports and business to history. |
| 0:18.0 | And today we bring you the story of Colonel Harry Stewart. |
| 0:21.6 | Harry is one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen and fought in the skies over Europe to bring |
| 0:27.3 | an end to the war and a victory to the United States. Harry, I'd like to start out by asking you |
| 0:33.6 | about your early life. Okay, I was born in Newport News, Virginia, on July 4th of 1924. I was born to |
| 0:45.0 | Florence Bright, who was a native of Gloucester County, Virginia, and Harry T. Stewart, Sr., which was a |
| 0:53.0 | native of Newport News, Virginia. |
| 0:57.1 | We moved after I was two years old to New York City, |
| 1:02.6 | but before that, let me mention about living in Virginia. |
| 1:08.1 | We lived not too far from Langley Field, which was a big military airfield |
| 1:15.3 | at the time there. And my parents would put me out in my crib, and the plane is flying over, |
| 1:22.2 | evidently they attracted me very much because my parents would tell me how I would coo at the aeroplanes. But anyway, that was followed up by a move to the borough of Queens in New York City. We lived about a mile or a mile and a half from airport by the name of North Beach Airport. |
| 1:54.1 | In 1939, they changed the name of that airport to LaGuardia Airport, which everyone knows pretty well. |
| 1:56.6 | That's about where I started. |
| 2:04.9 | I guess my yen for aviation was those two fields there being near Langley Field, Virginia, |
| 2:08.9 | and in LaGuardia Airport in New York. |
| 2:12.1 | So it was almost in your blood and in your bones. |
| 2:20.2 | Yeah, in my blood and bones, and I guess you would use the word, the 25 cent word incultated, you know, |
| 2:21.0 | in me, you know. |
| 2:23.1 | Yep, and I love that 25 cent word. |
| 2:28.5 | Let's talk about your childhood and your high school library experience in New York City because it turns out it's in your bones, but something happens in New York City that puts |
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