WILLIAM L. HARRIS, JR., LT, USN
William Harris, Jr. '49
Lucky Bag
From the 1949 Lucky Bag:
Loss
William was lost on February 2, 1958, when the aircraft he was aboard crashed in northeastern Tennessee. The other officer aboard was also lost; it took several days for the wreckage to be located.
"He was attached to the Naval Air Technical Training Center at Memphis, Tennessee. His last duty station before this was at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California… He is survived by his wife, Mary Louise…" (Information from April 1958 issue of Shipmate.)
He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. His middle name was Luther.
(1949's class history says he died in an air crash in Alabama.)
Korean War Service
Lieutenant William L. Harris, Jr., on his first combat mission, made a dive-bombing run on a hydroelectric plant north of Hungnam. He didn’t realize he’d been hit until he returned to the ship. Maintenance personnel found fragments of concrete in the cowling and wings, verifying the accuracy of his bomb drops. Harris earned the nickname “Cement Mixer.”
Class of 1949
William is one of 40 members of the Class of 1949 on Virtual Memorial Hall.