Kentucky
Kentucky by Heart: Little-known story of Tuskeegee Airman who parachuted into Loretta Lynn’s town
By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist
Often, I discover an fascinating Kentucky story that I’m stunned I hadn’t already heard. I ran throughout one in every of them just a few days in the past. The story offers with a connection between a adorned Tuskegee Airman and the long-lasting nation music singer, Loretta Lynn. The occasion surrounding the story occurred on March 25, 1948, a time when probably these exterior the long run singing star’s group even knew her.
Stewart’s “Hovering to Glory” guide cowl
Captain Harry Stewart, Jr., a adorned fighter pilot member of the famed African American Air Drive unit, the Tuskegee Airmen, was flying his P-47 Thunderbolt fighter over the japanese Kentucky mountains. Stewart was a part of a simulated armed reconnaissance formation flying from Greenville, South Carolina, to their house base at Columbus, Ohio. Flying at 20,000 ft altitude in a thunderstorm, he encountered severe engine hassle. Fearful he would crash right into a mountain to his dying, he diminished his altitude to 10,000 ft and bailed out of the aircraft. Within the technique of ejecting from the aircraft, he fractured his leg however was in a position to parachute safely, touchdown in a lifeless pine tree.
Bleeding and hanging two ft from the bottom with the parachute holding regular within the prime of the tree, he lower himself free to the bottom. He eliminated his official white scarf and used it as a tourniquet to cease bleeding from his wounds. It was nonetheless raining, and Stewart positioned himself beneath a rock overhang.
That is the place it will get much more fascinating. Stewart had parachuted into the woods of Butcher Hole, close to Van Lear, in Johnson County — which occurred to be the childhood house of 15-year-old Loretta Webb. Webb would sometime be often called nation music star, Loretta Lynn, aka “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”
Based on studies, Loretta’s youthful brother, Herman, heard an unusually loud explosion (stated to be louder than the everyday coal mining blasts within the space) on that early spring day. It’s unclear the place Loretta was at that exact second.
Stewart’s deserted aircraft had flown above the Webb household cemetery and crashed into the hilltop overlooking their house, making a ten to fifteen deep crater. Particles from the aircraft was scattered throughout the crash web site. Because the story goes, the following few days noticed folks locally make use of the P-47 Thunderbolt and its elements and items. One report stated that one in every of Loretta’s uncles took the aircraft’s stainless-steel nuts and transformed into finger rings.
About 5 miles by means of the air away, a nine-year-old neighbor of the Webb’s noticed the parachute with Stewart dropping out of the sky and thought it was a white eagle. She advised her father, Lafe Daniels, and he rode a horse to the location, discovering the injured Stewart. Daniels secured Stewart on a second horse and introduced him to his house, the place Lafe’s spouse, Mary, administered help.
Lafe then took the pilot to a close-by retailer, the place a pickup truck transferred Stewart to the Paintsville Clinic. There, he was positioned in a mattress and given a ache reliever — although not the ache reliever Lafe Daniels had given him earlier, particularly a shot of moonshine that Stewart mistook for water. Stewart reportedly talked about later that the moonshine brought on him to really feel “delirious.”
Information of the crash unfold shortly in Loretta Webb’s group, and that introduced many guests — probably curiosity seekers — to the clinic to see the pilot who landed unceremoniously on this southeastern Kentucky county. On March 26, an Air Drive consultant arrived from Columbus, Ohio, to quietly take Stewart away. There was no fanfare on the time of his departure, however some 57 years later, on August 6, 2005, Stewart was given a hero’s welcome on the annual Van Lear’s City celebration.
Loretta Lynn’s album cowl
“He was the Grand Marshall of the parade, articulate and a very cool man… spry and fast,” recalled Lee Mueller, who reported for the Lexington-Herald about Stewart’s return go to to Van Lear. A bunch from Cincinnati, veteran “Crimson Tails,” a chosen title referring to the Tuskegee Airmen due to the colour of their planes, got here to the occasion in assist. “There was an enormous crowd. I purchased some T-shirts for me and kin who got here with me. I nonetheless have mine.”
Who knew {that a} movie star aside from Loretta Lynn could possibly be so celebrated in such a small group?
Stewart remains to be residing and is 97, residing in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, together with his daughter. He’s widowed. Loretta Lynn, at 90, launched a brand new album in 2021. She can also be widowed. You would possibly say Stewart and Lynn have completed fairly effectively in life, they usually have actually walked on the identical floor.
Sources: African American Information and Geneology; en.everybodywiki.com; Navy Wiki; Encyclopedia of Appalachia (The College of Tennessee Press, 2006); Lexington Herald-Chief, July 8, 2005; historynet.co; dialog with Lee Mueller, former Lex.-Herald reporter, Jap Kentucky Bureau