Sgt. Joe Harris, believed to be the oldest surviving World War II paratrooper and a member of the U.S. Army’s first all-Black parachute infantry battalion, has died. He was 108.
Harris died March 15 in a hospital in Los Angeles surrounded by family, grandson Ashton Pittman told The Associated Press. He will be honored with a full military funeral on April 5.
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“He was a very loving, loving, loving man,” said Pittman. “That was one of the things that he was very strict upon was loving one another.”
Harris was among the last surviving members of the historic 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, nicknamed the Triple Nickles. The battalion helped protect the U.S. from deadly Japanese balloon bombs, according to Robert L. Bartlett, a retired Eastern Washington University professor who specializes in the 555th. In 1944 and 1945, the Japanese launched thousands of the balloons to be carried by the Pacific jet stream to the U.S. mainland to explode and start fires.
During World War II, Black Americans were often relegated to more support-level jobs in the racially segregated military and President Franklin Roosevelt faced pressure to put them in combat units. As a result, the military recruited Harris and hundreds of other Black men, trained them and sent them into blazes on the West Coast, where they fought fires, Bartlett said.
Throughout their time in the military, they faced overt racism, including being barred from going to the base commissary and officer’s clubs unless they were specifically for Black people.
“This unit had to fight to be recognized as human beings while training to fight an enemy overseas, fight in their own country for respect even within the military,” Bartlett said.
That was not lost on Pittman, who said his grandfather was brave enough to serve the U.S. “during a time when the country didn’t love him, honestly, didn’t care about him.”
Harris was born on June 19, 1916, in West Dale, Louisiana, according to Tracie Hunter, spokesperson for WWII Beyond The Call, a nonprofit organization that works to document veterans’ accounts. After filling out his draft registration card, he began his military service in 1941 when he was 24.
By the time he was honorably discharged in November 1945, he had completed 72 parachute jumps, according to Hunter.
After the war, he worked for the U.S. Border Patrol. He also spent more than 60 years in Compton, California, where Pittman said he was the neighborhood patriarch, a man everyone on the block knew and gravitated to.
“His life is to be celebrated,” Pittman said. “Obviously people are going to morn because he’s not here anymore. But ultimately what I know from conversations that I’ve had with my grandfather is that he wants to be celebrated. He deserves to be celebrated.”
He is survived by his son, Pirate Joe Harris Sr., and two daughters, Michaun Harris and Latanya Pittman, along with five grandchildren, according to Hunter. His wife, Louise Harris, died in 1981, and a sixth grandchild has also died.
Pittman said that his grandfather would sometimes ask him if he would ever jump out of a plane. In October, Pittman had the opportunity to follow in his grandfather’s airborne footsteps.
For a week, he did paratrooper jump training in Corsicana, Texas, through the Liberty Jump Team, an organization that works to preserve the memory of veterans.
“When I got my wings, I actually broke down and started crying because everything in that moment just resonated with me,” he said. “It was like, dang I’m literally doing what my grandfather did.”
Shortly before Harris’ death, he got a landing zone, in Tuskegee, Alabama, dedicated in his name. Pittman said he plans to be the very first person to jump in the Sgt. Joe Harris Dropzone.