HARMAN CHARLES AGNEW was born in New Orleans, LA, the older of two children of LTC Harman P. and Camille O'Connor Agnew. Younger sister Camille completed the family. The Agnews are a prominent New Orleans family with roots in the area going back more than 100 years. Chuck attended New Orleans parochial schools throughout high school and Tulane University for three semesters before entering Beast Barracks in 1945.

Chuck was an excellent scholar in the physical sciences, a fact that benefited his less gifted roommates. He was an ardent "son of the south," a charming teller of Cajun stories, and a serious student of the Civil War. A very good athlete, he was a strong swimmer and loved to perform comic diving at Camp Buckner and Delafield Pond. He also took to skiing, learning on the USMA slopes, and anointed himself "the best skier from the rebel states."

Chuck also was well known for his lady friends - for the ones he dated, and those with whom he arranged dates for classmates. He must have known every "southern belle" from New Orleans attending school in the New York-to-Boston corridor. As a true southern gentleman, he shared the wealth with his classmates.

After graduation, Chuck attended pilot training, flying the T-6 primary and basic trainer at Perrin AFB, TX, and then the F-80 advanced jet trainer at Williams AFB, AZ. On 21 Jul 1950, while flying in a four-ship formation at 10,000 feet, his and another aircraft collided and spun out of control. Since Chuck's F-80 did not have an ejection seat, egress from the spinning, uncontrollable aircraft was extremely difficult. When he finally got out of the aircraft at about 500 feet, it was in an inverted spin, but Chuck landed safely, becoming an instant member of the exclusive Caterpillar Club. He received his pilot wings on 6 Aug 1950.

In the fall of 1950, Chuck joined the 22d Fighter-Bomber Squadron of the 36th Fighter-Bomber Group at Furstenfeldbruck, Germany. He soon proved himself as a skilled gunner and fighter pilot in every sense of the word. During pilot training, Chuck had acquired the nickname "Ace," which stuck with him during and after his Furstenfeldbruck days. In 1951, Chuck returned to the States to marry Cleon Ferguson, before they both went to Germany.

In late 1952, Chuck volunteered for two months of temporary duty in Korea and flew with the 9th Fighter-Bomber Squadron. Not content with being shot at in the squadron's F-84 jets, Chuck contacted his classmate Tom Crawford at K-47 Chun Chon. Chuck accomplished two memorable, low-level missions when they flew together in the T6 Mosquito, putting in three F-51 and F-80 close support airstrikes. His enthusiasm and aptitude as a fighter pilot earned him not only the Air Medal for his 20 combat missions, but also one real fighter pilot's mission, the official details of which must be as lost as the two Chinese trains that blew up the same day.

In 1953, Chuck and Cleon rotated to Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, NV, where Chuck was assigned as an instructor pilot, teaching advanced aviation cadets to be fighter pilots. The Agnew's only child, Jeanne, was born in Las Vegas in 1954.

After his time at Nellis, he earned a master's degree in chemistry at the University of Texas Austin and, during 1958-61, was a very popular USAFA chemistry instructor. In 1961, Chuck resigned from the Air Force and returned to New Orleans with his family. Chuck and Cleon divorced in 1963.

A new career beckoned to Chuck in the building construction business, but the academic challenge and his love for teaching returned him to the New Orleans school system. He married Paulette Maignaud, the same year, in 1970. Chuck, who was fluent in German, accepted a teaching assignment in the German public school system in Bremen. While on that assignment, he and Paulette traveled extensively throughout Europe.

When his contract was up in Bremen, Chuck accepted a position in the Australian public school system, teaching chemistry and physics to students preparing for college. Sailing and fishing became regular weekend occasions in Australia. Returning to the U.S. in 1975, Chuck and Paulette lived in the Houston area, where he taught high school sciences until his death in 1980.
Harman Middleton, a nephew, fondly remembers his uncle Chuck as a stoic realist and pragmatist, like his father and sister Camille. "Let's not beat around the bush," "Call a spade a spade," and "Take the bull by the horns," were Chucks credo.
A real outdoorsman, Chuck relished his time fishing. He didn't really need to catch fish, as an outing in a boat with a nephew at the tiller was, to him, a perfect afternoon. He felt a sense of duty to teach his nephews to shoot well and safely, and they are thankful for that time with him.

Samuel Hurt '48, a close friend who flew with Chuck in Germany, sums up the Harman Charles Agnew he knew: "Chuck was an extraordinarily fine man in all respects, a vital human being, a man with larger-than-life ideals and charisma. He was a gentleman of the old school with the air of the consummate southern gentleman and the immaculate manners that go along with it. His courtly manner did not in any way detract from his talents as a military man - the warrior fighter pilot who fed on the excitement of his profession and would `take it to the limit' not one time, but every time, as a matter of routine. He was a man to whom honesty and integrity were instinctive, not learned, and a man of high principles unwilling to compromise any of them. These character traits revealed themselves clearly in his feelings toward West Point. Chuck loved his alma mater and was fiercely proud to be a West Pointer, but was very old fashioned in his vision of West Point. As a man of absolute integrity, Chuck had no patience for any change he believed would compromise or adulterate the meaning of the words, `Duty, Honor, Country' that he learned as a plebe."

His family, wingmen, classmates, and friends sorely miss Harman Charles Agnew.

Personal Eulogy