Joe Harris, 108, Dies; Thought to Be the Oldest World War II Paratrooper

New York Times

30-03-2025

Joe Harris, who as a sergeant with an all-Black infantry unit during World War II parachuted into forest fires across the Pacific Northwest set off by bomb-laden Japanese balloons, and who was believed to be the oldest surviving U.S. paratrooper, died on March 15 in Los Angeles. He was 108.
His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by a representative of his family.
Mr. Harris was a member of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, nicknamed the Triple Nickles (the word was deliberately misspelled) after their unit designation and the three buffalo nickels that formed their insignia.
He had enlisted in the Army in 1941, and he volunteered to join the 555th soon after it was formed in 1943. The Army was still rigidly segregated, and most Black service members served in support roles; the battalion was designed as an early step toward the military's eventual desegregation.
It never served overseas. Instead, in 1945 it was transferred from its base in North Carolina to rural Oregon as part of a confidential program known as Operation Firefly.
In late 1944, Japanese forces had begun launching hundreds of so-called balloon bombs into the jet stream, carried across the Pacific to the U.S. mainland. After three days, they dropped their explosive payloads.
Though some 300 bombs reached the United States, only six people were killed, in a single incident in May 1945. But the devices set off countless forest fires, often in rural parts of the West Coast.
The U.S. government kept Operation Firefly, and the existence of the balloon bombs, a secret, to avoid stoking fear among the civilian population.
Mr. Harris and his unit became the front line in fighting the blazes. Jumping from C-47 cargo planes, they wore leather football helmets with wire-mesh face masks and carried a brace of firefighting tools, including the Pulaski, a specialized tool that combines an ax and an adze.
They were trained to aim for trees, to avoid landing in dangerously rugged territory. Among their gear was a 50-foot rope that they would use to drop to the ground after getting snared in branches.
Mr. Harris performed 72 jumps, fighting fires started by the bombs as well as by lightning and other natural causes. He was honorably discharged in late 1945. The Army was desegregated in 1947, and the 555th was incorporated into the 82nd Airborne Division.
Joe Harris was born on June 19, 1916, in Westdale, a small town in northwest Louisiana. Before joining the Army he was a truck driver.
After leaving the Army, Mr. Harris moved to Compton, Calif., where he worked for the Border Patrol.
He is survived by his son, Pirate Joe Harris; his daughters, Michaun Harris and Latanya Pittman; and five grandchildren. His wife, Louise Harris, died in 1981.
Unlike another all-Black unit during World War II, the famed Tuskegee Airmen, the Triple Nickles long remained obscure, though in recent decades veterans groups have begun to celebrate them.
In January a group of Marine Corps veterans and wildland firefighters visited Mr. Harris at his home in Compton. They presented him with a paratrooper patch and a Pulaski.