Hardy Grant Bennett
August 6, 1921 – May 10, 2006
Class: 45-F

Bennett G. Hardy was born 6 August 1921 in Kokomo, Indiana to the late Joseph and Eula Hardy.  He graduated from Kokomo High School in 1939 and upon graduation, worked in the Kokomo foundry.  He tested for the Tuskegee Airman program and was awaiting a reply when he was drafted into the United States Army during WWII.  Once he completed his Army training, he was about to leave for overseas duty when he was pulled from his unit to begin training in the Tuskegee Airman flight training program. He went to Tuskegee, Alabama, where he graduated as a Fighter Pilot in the Army Air Corps, graduating in 1945 from Class 45-F.  He married Betty Newsom in 1943. During his 29-year career in the Air Force, Lt Colonel Bennett was stationed in Japan, Turkey, Vietnam, Scott Air Force Base, Missouri, and McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey.  While traveling from base to base, he and his wife raised eight children.  In 1970, he retired from the Air Force and he and his family settled down in Willingboro, New Jersey.  For the next 20 years, Lt Colonel Bennett and his wife worked as Cottage Technicians at the ER Johnstone Training and Research Center in Bordentown, New Jersey, an institution for the developmentally disabled.

Lt Colonel Bennett’s military awards include:  The Bronze Star Medal

Sources:
Ankara High School Connections
HCHistory

Photo courtesy U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, Alabama