Stewart, Gordon

Born March 15, 1896, in Millis, Massachusetts. Son of Edward J. and Helena Felt Stewart. Home, Brookline, Massachusetts. Educated Brookline High School, Chauncy Hall School, Boston, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Class of 1920. Joined American Field Service, April 14, 1917; attached Section Eighteen to October 15, 1917. Enlisted U.S. Aviation Service. Trained, Tours, France. Died January 9, 1918, of spinal meningitis. Buried Tours, Indre-et-Loire.

GORDON STEWART, during his school days, was well known through his athletic ability. Both at Brookline High School and Chauncy Hall School he was prominent in various branches of sport and was captain of the Brookline crew in 1915 when the crew won the interscholastic cup. He won two medals from the Harvard Interscholastic Gymnasium Association and held the Greater Boston diving championship for two years, At the time of his enlistment in the Field Service he was a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Referring to his well-deserved prominence during his school days, his pastor writes of him: "Gordon was one of the few young men of my town who, being popular, yet was never conscious of his popularity. That humility in conjunction with his courage and daring and wonderful wealth of humor made him the idol of all."

With his brother Theodore he sailed for France on the first boat to leave after war was declared by the United States, and saw much hard work during the summer around Verdun with Section Eighteen, which was honored by a citation for the Croix de Guerre from the 126th Division. He had the misfortune to break his arm shortly after joining the Section, and was laid up for over two months in a French hospital with a very bad fracture necessitating several operations and much suffering, as the bone was not set until three days after the accident, and did not knit properly. Writing from the hospital of an impending operation, he unconsciously gives us a clear idea of his courage and nerve: "Expect it will be a bit painful, but guess I can keep up my record of not having let out a 'peep' since it happened." What seems to have been harder to endure than the pain was his longing to get into the thick of things again. He remarks a little later: "I am trying to get over my desire to go back to the front, or at least I am trying to be contented, although the letters Theo writes me are like a full dish of cold water held in front of a man who is dying of thirst. I just itch to get back and can't."

Afterwards upon returning from ten days' convalescent leave in September, he writes: "While in Paris I took mental and physical examinations for a commission in the Army Flying Corps. I passed both with flying colors so that at the end of my training I will be a first lieutenant in the Flying Corps. It has been terribly hard to decide but I have made up my mind to serve my country to the last stitch."

He was sent in October to the Aviation Training School at Tours where he was taken sick Christmas night, and died on January 9, 1918, of spinal meningitis. As to his work as a cadet, one of his friends at the school exclaimed: "The French instructors here had already told me, before Gordon was taken sick at all, that he was the most promising pupil they had ever had. His own instructor wept when told of his death, not wholly for Gordon, as he said, but for the loss to the Allies."

Had Gordon Stewart lived to return to the front as an aviator, he would have proved of inestimable value to his country, as he possessed in every respect the qualities necessary for the branch of service which he had chosen. Yet dying as he did, he gave his life for his country's cause as truly and completely as though he had been shot down in battle by an enemy plane.

• Tribute from Memorial Volume of the American Field Service, 1921