John L. Harrison Jr
December 14, 1920 – March 22, 2017
Class: 43-K-TE
Graduation date: 12/5/1943
Rank at time of graduation: 2nd Lt.
Service # 0817600
From: Omaha, NE
“We were Americans, we were young, and we wanted to defend our country, just like everyone else.”
A retired U.S. Air Force major, Harrison served in three wars and was one of the 992 original pilots trained in the nation’s first combat aircraft program for African Americans established at the Tuskegee and Maxwell Fields in Alabama.
“We had a camaraderie, brotherhood feeling because we all experienced segregation because of the color of our skin and that bonded us together,“ Harrison said in a recording taken during the 2009 Greenwood Lake Air Show in West Milford, N.J.
Harrison did not fly combat overseas in WWII and went on to serve in the U.S. armed forces for 24 years. He flew all types of planes, including prop fighters, jet fighters, twin-engines, four engines and sea planes. His family said Harrison crossed the Pacific Ocean more than 50 times, and the Atlantic Ocean 35 times as a pilot for the Military Air Transport Service. Harrison was stationed and traveled in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Arctic.
He also served as an officer and a director for the Peace Corps, based in East Africa. He worked in the administrations of President Richard Nixon and Pennsylvania Gov. Dick Thornburgh, and as director of affirmative action for the Boeing Aircraft Company.
His military service carried him as far as the Arctic, and he eventually settled in Philadelphia’s Society Hill section, where he resided for the last 30 years.
Sources:
Craig Huntly, Tuskegee Airman Subject Matter Expert
Greater Philadelphia Chapter Tuskegee Airmen, Inc.
