MEMORIAL ARTICLE Published Assembly Apr '52 Donald Warner Stewart, Jr.  No. 15477 Class of 1946  Died September 4, 1951 at Newburyport, MA, aged 27 years.

He kept that honor bright. Lieutenant Don Stewart kept his fighter plane in the air for thirty minutes after it collided with another to avoid its crashing in the heavily populated area along the Massachusetts coastline. Not until it was out over the Atlantic Ocean did he bail out. He was struck by the disabled plane as he fell from it and was unconscious when he reached the water. Coast Guardsmen in a helicopter rescued him a few minutes after he hit the water, but he failed to respond to artificial respiration and died without regaining consciousness. 

Donald Warner Stewart, Jr., was born December 22, 1923, in Lincoln, Nebraska, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Don W. Stewart, Sr. He attended the public schools in Lincoln, graduated from Lincoln High School in 1941, and entered the University of Nebraska College of Engineering in the fall of the same year. He pledged and was initiated into Beta Theta Pi, took an active part in chapter affairs during his two years at Nebraska and was named in the national magazine as one of the "Undergraduate Betas of Achievement". He received an appointment to the United States Military Academy in 1943 and left for West Point in June of that year. He graduated from the Military Academy in 1946 and, having successfully completed his pilot training, was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Army Air Corps.

Even as a little boy he loved to swim, and by the time he reached high school age he had already entered and won a number of local meets. He was a member of the high school, University of Nebraska and West Point swimming teams, and lettered in swimming. He loved a good time, too and shared with the many friends of his school years his enthusiasm, sense of humor, and love of fun.

Following his graduation from "the Point", he married his high school sweetheart, Jean Guenzel, and together they went to Enid, Oklahoma, where Don was assigned to the 2518th Air Base Unit as a B-25 pilot. He was transferred in a few months to Smoky Hill Air Base, Salina, Kansas for B-29 pilot training, and after a short tour of duty there, was selected to attend the Special Weapons School at Sandia Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico. He completed the course and was kept on as an instructor, receiving at Sandia his promotion to First Lieutenant.

After two years at Albuquerque, he decided to resign his commission and return to civilian life. His resignation was accepted, and in January 1950 he came back to Lincoln. He joined the sales staff of one of the city's leading business concerns, built and moved his wife and two children into a new house, and began to take an active part in local affairs. He found, though, that he could not escape the sense of duty to serve his country, and when the Nebraska Air National Guard's 173rd Fighter Squadron at Lincoln needed an Adjutant, he volunteered. In March 1951 he went with the squadron to Dow Air Force Base at Bangor, Maine.

For his work as Adjutant he drew praise from his fellow officers in the squadron and commendation from his superiors. As Adjutant he could have done less flying and spent more time with his family, who had followed him to Bangor. He felt, however, that his usefulness to his squadron would be greater with more training and experience as a fighter pilot; that this, coupled with his training and experience as a bomber pilot while in the regular Air Force and his administrative experience as Adjutant with the National Guard Squadron, was what he needed to make more complete his ability to serve. He volunteered for such additional training, completed much of it, and as participating in one of the final phases of that training at the time of his death on September 4, 1951. 

 Don's enthusiasm and love of life continued from his school years on into the years that followed. His cheerful disposition, warm and friendly nature, and marvelous sense of humor enriched the lives of the many friends with whom he shared them, and were a source of endless joy to his family.

Yet he was more than just a good time boy.  His love of fun was tempered with a keenness of mind, an understanding of and respect for the feeling of others, a knowledge of right and wrong, a devotion to his ideals, and a deep and abiding faith. His years at West Point made a profound impression on him.  He was proud of the Academy and of its tradition and ideals. He believed in its strict code of honor.  The West Point Cadet Prayer, which he knew so well, was both a creed and a challenge and he strove to make his life measure up to it. 

This was the boy, the man, who climbed into the cockpit of his plane on September 4th, 1951 for a routine training flight. Flying in close formation with his supervisor, near Boston, the two planes collided. The other, damaged slightly, landed safely. Don, in radio contact with his own base and others, reported that he was using all his-strength to keep his plane airborne, and that he would have to abandon it.  His final message was: "I'm going to go now". The plane careening out of control as he left it struck the right side of his body.  His chute opened, the waiting Coast Guardsmen took him unconscious from the water a few minutes after he reached it and artificial respiration was applied. Don died soon after at Newburyport, Massachusetts, without regaining consciousness. He is survived by Jean and their two little children, by his parents, and by his two brothers.

    What were his thoughts in those last minutes of his life? We do not know. One thing we do know: he remembered his fellow men below; he kept a crippled, almost uncontrollable plane in flight, perhaps at the cost of his own life, so that it would not crash on land where others might be hurt. Why? "…that we may better maintain the honor of' the Corps untarnished and unsullied, and acquit ourselves like men in our effort to realize the ideals of West Point in doing our duty to Thee and to our country. All of which we ask in the name of the Great Friend and Master of men.”

 In the funeral service at Lincoln the Rector said, “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. Don gave all he had--his life.  I wonder if that was in his thoughts, for his plane crashed not on land endangering other lives, but in the sea, alone, away from other people."
The ways of the Great Friend and Master in whom he believed are strange and beyond our comprehension. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Why this young life, so needed, so full of promise, should end, we do not know. Why this noble soul, this joyous spirit, should be taken from us, we cannot understand. We can only be, and we are, thankful for the richness of the years he was with us on earth, for the joy and happiness he brought into our lives for his unselfish devotion to duty and honor, for the knowledge that we will someday meet again.

                           --His brother, John W. Stewart.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Personal Eulogy