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.

Stewart faced segregation and prejudice in the Jim Crow-era South as he earned his wings. After finishing training, the group of Black pilots were assigned to escort U.S. bombers in Europe. He flew 43 combat missions in Germany, according to The New York Times.

The decorated pilot went on to earn the Distinguished Flying Cross after downing three German aircraft during a dogfight on April 1, 1945.

He was also among four Tuskegee Airmen who won the 1949 U.S. Air Force Top Gun flying competition; they got first place in the propeller plane category. The accomplishment was acknowledged decades later.

Stewart had hopes of becoming a commercial airline pilot following his time in the military, but he was rejected due to his race. Instead, Stewart attended New York University, where he earned a mechanical engineering degree.

Stewart remained in the Air Force Reserve, where he served as an instructor and test pilot, and was recalled for duty during the Korean War. He retired in the 1960s as a Lieutenant Colonel.

He lived in Detroit and retired as vice president of a natural gas pipeline company.

The Air Force last month briefly removed training courses with videos of its storied Tuskegee Airmen and the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs in an effort to comply with the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

The materials were quickly restored following a bipartisan backlash.