Saga of `Utah Man'

Last October 21, Walter Stewart BA'47 JD'49 stood at ramrod attention during a ceremony conducted especially for him in front of the University's Park Building. A senator, a general, and the president of the U spoke raptly and glowingly about the long-ago exploits that had finally brought Stewart across a stretch of time to this hour of honor. The Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second highest decoration, was pinned on his chest.

Fifty-two years had passed since fate placed Stewart, a gangly 25-year-old Army Air Corps pilot, at the controls of the lead plane, dubbed "Utah Man," in the famous low-level bombing raid on Romania's Ploesti oil refineries in World War II. (Continuum published a gripping account of the incident in the Summer 1993 issue.) After the American commander's aircraft was shot down, Stewart took the lead, piloting "Utah Man" into the face of the Germans' bristling defenses.

"Utah Man" bored through the vicious antiaircraft fire and dropped the first bombs of the raid. Then Stewart nursed his four-engine B-24, bullet-riddled and perilously low on fuel, back across Yugoslavia and over the Mediterranean to its home base in Libya, landing safely after 1,200 miles and 14 hours in the air.

The mission's cost had been high. There were 178 bombers carrying 1,700 airmen in the attack. Fifty-four planes were lost; 310 crewmen were killed and 185 were taken prisoner. The Ploesti raiders earned the most decorations in any single wartime assault. But the medal that was rightfully Stewart's after the heroic episode was mistakenly given to another pilot. Years later, the error was rectified in a simple but moving ceremony at the Utahn's alma mater. Stewart, now a 77-year-old farmer from Benjamin, Utah, was also honored at midfield in Rice Stadium prior to the Utah-Air Force game, when he was applauded by the crowd and given an appropriate salute: a low-level flyover by four Air Force jet fighters.

The saga of "Utah Man," which began in August 1943 with a flight into hellfire, came to a close on a placid Saturday morning five decades later. "Mission accomplished, Lieutenant Stewart," said President Arthur Smith after reading the medal's citation, a profile in courage. "Well done!"

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