Sgt. Joe Harris, who was believed to be the oldest surviving World War II paratrooper as well as a member of the U.S. Army’s first all-Black parachute infantry battalion, died on March 15 in a Los Angeles hospital, surrounded by his family. Harris was 108 at the time of his death.
As his grandson, Ashton Pittman, told The Associated Press, his grandfather was a very loving man and insisted that his family carry that love on.
“He was a very loving, loving, loving man,” Pittman told the news agency. “That was one of the things that he was very strict upon was loving one another.”
Harris, one of the last surviving members of the all-Black 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, nicknamed the Triple Nickels, was responsible for protecting the United States from Japanese balloon bombs during World War II.
According to Robert L. Bartlett, a retired Eastern Washington University professor specializing in the battalion’s history, the Japanese launched those balloon bombs into the jet stream, aiming for them to reach the U.S. mainland, detonate, and ignite fires.
During the period Harris and his squadmates served in the military, they often faced racism, expressed through their being barred from the base commissary or officer’s clubs unless they were set aside for Black servicemen.
While Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the American president during most of World War II, faced pressure to put segregated units in combat, this led to Harris’ unit being sent to the West Coast to fight fires until they were called into combat.
As Historian Matthew Delmont, the author of the book Half American, told NPR in 2022, there was no justifiable reason for the armed services to remain segregated during World War II, it was only done to maintain an unjust system of racial prejudice.
“There was no strategic or tactical reason to do it,” Delmont told the outlet. “The only reason the military maintained this racial segregation during the war was to appease white racial prejudice. Black veterans…fought for the country and many of them identified as being deeply, deeply patriotic. But for them, that meant that you also had to demand that America be a country worth fighting and dying for.”
As Bartlett indicated to the AP, the experience of the Triple Nickels, much like the experiences of Black people in the military during that period more broadly, illustrated the paradox of being a Black American. “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 told the AP.
Harris is survived by his son, Pirate Joe Harris Sr., two daughters, Michaun Harris and Latanya Pittman, and five grandchildren, and was preceded in death by his wife, Louise Harris, in 1981 as well as a sixth grandchild.
Pittman also remarked to the AP that his grandfather was brave enough to serve his country “during a time when the country didn’t love him, honestly, didn’t care about him.”
Pittman continued, “His life is to be celebrated. Obviously, people are going to mourn 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.”
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