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A3C Michael Bell (Unit Historian)
to remember
Haynsworth, Stuart Getz, Maj Gen.
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Contact Info
Home Town Columbia
Last Address Houston, TX
Date of Passing Jun 06, 2011
Location of Interment Forest Park Cemetery - Houston, Texas
Major General Stuart Haynsworth, United States Air Force (Retired) was born in Columbia, South Carolina and "flew his last great mission" prophetically on the 66th Anniversary of D Day, Monday, the 6th of June 2011, locked arm in arm with his daughter at his Houston home.
As he often stated, "age is just a number, and mine is unlisted." For many wonderful and exciting years, he was married to architectural designer, Elizabeth Drane Bartell Haynsworth, notably the designer of the beautiful mosaic floor in the main entrance of Hobby Airport.
General Haynsworth earned his BBA from Fenn College - currently Cleveland State University, and his Doctor of Juris Prudence from the University Of Houston Bates College Of Law. He was a member of the American, Texas and Houston Bar Associations. He was captain of his high school basketball team and he was on the varsity tennis team in college. He was a fabulous golfer and totally devoted to the sport. In general he was a very gifted athlete and dancer.
General Haynsworth was a practicing Certified Public Accountant when he enlisted in the Army Air Corp in January of 1942. During World War II, serving in England, he was an instructor in the Advanced Flying School and in Central Instructor's School, flying virtually all of the U. S. fighter aircraft, including the P-38, P-39, P-40, P-47, P-51, P-63, F-4, F-7, F-80, and F-111 for a total of over 5,000 flying hours. In addition to being an instructor, General Haynsworth was a fighter pilot flying 50 assigned combat missions and an additional 25 volunteer missions with the famed 56th Fighter Group of the 8th Air Force flying P-47 Thunderbolts in Europe. He had three confirmed aerial victories and shared another with his wingman. He destroyed five German Heinkel 111K aircraft on the ground in one mission. He had a "very educational experience" in a dogfight with a German ME 262 jet (one of the first jet engines produced) in September of 1944.
The General served thirty-three years in the Air Force Reserve, and was Vice-commander of the 446th Airlift Wing at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston, and Assistant to the commander of Tactical Air Command, western U. S. when he retired from the Air Force Reserves in 1977 at a ceremony at Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin. He performed the reserve officer duties, all while maintaining a full time career as an attorney and CPA in Houston.
His last assignment at Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin provided the opportunity to drive to Austin one weekend per month. He was known to have a heavy foot on the gas pedal, and could make the trip in 1 hour and 45 minutes from his central Houston home. He was once brought to the judge for his speeding, where he expressed that he could have made the trip much faster, had he not been stopped by the police!
General Haynsworth was a long-time member of the Houston Chamber of Commerce Military Affairs Committee of Houston and the Reserve Officers Association. He also served in Washington D. C. on the Air Reserve Policy council and on the staff of the War College at Ft. Leslie McNair. He conceived and helped initiate the program rotating reserve crews and their own aircraft providing fighters and airlift forces abroad integrated with our regular forces during the cold war and thereafter.
General Haynsworth was the first of just two Houston area Air Force Reserve officers to attain the rank of Major General and the only holder of the Distinguished Service Medal, in addition to the Distinguished Flying Cross, Eight Air Medals, and other decorations.
General Haynsworth was a member of Christ Church Cathedral, the Houston Grand Opera Guild, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Houston Symphony Society. He served as president of the Edgemont Civil Club. He also served also as President of the English Speaking Union and he was a huge supporter of the University of Houston Cougars, having four seats on the fifty-yard line for close to fifty years.
The General wrote the renewal deed restrictions for Edgemont and West Edgemont, preserving indefinitely the residential character of two of Houston's most historic and beautiful streets. He received recognition from the Bar Association and the Texas Board of Public Account Association for his over fifty years of practice in each. He maintained an office in the Esperson building downtown for over fifty years. With his wife Elizabeth, he traveled the world, experiencing many of the world's most fabulous and interesting cultures.
The General had the most wonderful sense of humor and always had a funny story to go with whatever subject he was discussing.
His quick wit and charm will be sorely missed by his family, his friends and his neighbors. He was predeceased by his first wife, Bette Worth Sloan; second wife, Elizabeth; step-daughter, Jacqueline Bartel Tapp; mother, Louise Getz; sister, Shirley Whiteman; and brother, Gerry Getz.
He is survived by his daughter, Kristen Haynsworth of Houston; his granddaughter, Sloan Haynsworth Leger and her husband, Kevin Leger; and his great grandson, Hunter Haynsworth Leger, all of Austin. He is also survived by his sister and brother-in-law, Joanne and Art Schupska of Geneva, Ohio. Additionally, he is survived by Frances and Felix Tapp, Meg and Filson Tapp, Bartell Tapp, Lee and Glenn Seureau, Becky and Cliff Chatham, Claudia and John Polsgrove, Donette and Joe Drane, Janet Drane, Kay and Russel Drane, Georgia and Harvey Dyer, Mark Schupska, Gary Schupska, Janet Musante, and Jon Whiteman; as well as many other great nieces and great nephews.
"Our family extends thanks and appreciation to his wonderful neighbors and friends who always expressed so much concern and devotion to him. We also wish to thank the lovely and caring group of ladies that took such great care of him and made certain all his needs were met, no matter what time of the day or night. Thank you, Billie Witter, Thelma Thomas, Linda Noel and Beverly Pearson. You not only provided love and support to the General, you showed outstanding support and love to those closest to him."
Friends are cordially invited to a visitation with the family from half-past five o'clock in the afternoon until eight o'clock in the evening on Thursday, the 9th of June, in the Library and Grand Foyer of Geo. H. Lewis & Sons, 1010 Bering Drive in Houston.
The funeral service is to be conducted at ten o'clock in the morning on Friday, the 10th of June, at Christ Church Cathedral, 1117 Texas Avenue in Houston, where the Very Rev. Joe D. Reynolds, Dean, the Rev. James C. McGill, Canon Missioner, and the Rev. Lucrecia "Luchy" Littlejohn, Canon Pastor, are to officiate.
A military interment service is to immediately follow, via an escorted cortege, at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery in Houston, where United States Air Force Honors are to be rendered by an honor guard from Randolph AFB.
For those desiring, in lieu of customary remembrances, contributions in memory of General Haynsworth may be directed to Christ Church Cathedral, 1117 Texas Ave., Houston, TX, 77002; Christus Visiting Nurses Association (VNA) Hospice, 601 Sawyer St., Suite 750, Houston, TX, 77007; or to the University of Houston, Athletics Dept., 3100 Cullen Blvd, Suite 2004, Houston, TX, 77204-6002.
"Off we go into the wild blue yonder,
Climbing high into the sun;
Here they come zooming to meet our thunder,
At 'em boys, Give 'er the gun!
Down we dive, spouting our flame from under
Off with one helluva roar!
We live in fame or go down in Flame - Hey!
Nothing will stop the U. S. Air Force."
World War II killed more people, involved more nations, and cost more money than any other war in history. Altogether, 70 million people served in the armed forces during the war, and 17 million combatants died. Civilian deaths were ever greater. At least 19 million Soviet civilians, 10 million Chinese, and 6 million European Jews lost their lives during the war.
World War II was truly a global war. Some 70 nations took part in the conflict, and fighting took place on the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as on the high seas. Entire societies participated as soldiers or as war workers, while others were persecuted as victims of occupation and mass murder.
World War II cost the United States a million causalities and nearly 400,000 deaths. In both domestic and foreign affairs, its consequences were far-reaching. It ended the Depression, brought millions of married women into the workforce, initiated sweeping changes in the lives of the nation's minority groups, and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life.
The War at Home & Abroad
On September 1, 1939, World War II started when Germany invaded Poland. By November 1942, the Axis powers controlled territory from Norway to North Africa and from France to the Soviet Union. After defeating the Axis in North Africa in May 1941, the United States and its Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943 and forced Italy to surrender in September. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies landed in Northern France. In December, a German counteroffensive (the Battle of the Bulge) failed. Germany surrendered in May 1945.
The United States entered the war following a surprise attack by Japan on the U.S. Pacific fleet in Hawaii. The United States and its Allies halted Japanese expansion at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 and in other campaigns in the South Pacific. From 1943 to August 1945, the Allies hopped from island to island across the Central Pacific and also battled the Japanese in China, Burma, and India. Japan agreed to surrender on August 14, 1945 after the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Consequences:
1. The war ended Depression unemployment and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life. It led the federal government to create a War Production Board to oversee conversion to a wartime economy and the Office of Price Administration to set prices on many items and to supervise a rationing system.
2. During the war, African Americans, women, and Mexican Americans founded new opportunities in industry. But Japanese Americans living on the Pacific coast were relocated from their homes and placed in internment camps.
The Dawn of the Atomic Age
In 1939, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt, warning him that the Nazis might be able to build an atomic bomb. On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi, an Italian refugee, produced the first self-sustained, controlled nuclear chain reaction in Chicago.
To ensure that the United States developed a bomb before Nazi Germany did, the federal government started the secret $2 billion Manhattan Project. On July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert near Alamogordo, the Manhattan Project's scientists exploded the first atomic bomb.
It was during the Potsdam negotiations that President Harry Truman learned that American scientists had tested the first atomic bomb. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress, released an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. Between 80,000 and 140,000 people were killed or fatally wounded. Three days later, a second bomb fell on Nagasaki. About 35,000 people were killed. The following day Japan sued for peace.
President Truman's defenders argued that the bombs ended the war quickly, avoiding the necessity of a costly invasion and the probable loss of tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. His critics argued that the war might have ended even without the atomic bombings. They maintained that the Japanese economy would have been strangled by a continued naval blockade, and that Japan could have been forced to surrender by conventional firebombing or by a demonstration of the atomic bomb's power.
The unleashing of nuclear power during World War II generated hope of a cheap and abundant source of energy, but it also produced anxiety among large numbers of people in the United States and around the world.