- SURNAME
Harris
- FORENAME
Leslie Earl,Jr
- UNIT
4 Air Commando Squadron (14 A.C. Wing)
- RANK
Lieutenant Colonel
- NUMBER
18405
- DATE OF DEATH
5th May 1968
- AGE
44
- GRAVESITE
Fairmount Cemetery,San Angelo,Tom Green County,Texas
- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
from Chattanooga,Tennessee
born 20.3.1924
husband of May (nee Hemphill) Harris
20 years service
AAF in WW2 (enlisted man 1941)
graduated USMA 1949
awards Silver Star,Legion of Merit,D.F.C.,Bronze Star
pilot (AC-47D 43-16159)
KIA Pleiku Province,South Vietnam
Vietnam Veterans Memorial,Washington,D.C. Panel 55E Line 16
Tom Green Vietnam Veterans Memorial,San Angelo,Texas
Permian Basin Vietnam Veterans Memorial,Midland,Texas
Note from Billy M. Brown
LESLIE EARL HARRIS, JR. LIEUTENANT COLONEL, U. S. AIR FORCE, SAN ANGELO, TOM GREEN COUNTY, TEXAS
AWARDS AND DECORATIONS
Air Force Pilot Wings, Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Air Medal, Air Force Commendation's Medal, Air Force Longevity Medal with Three Arrow Heads, Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal with 2 stars, American Defense Service Medal, Korean Service Medal, United Nation's Service Medal (Korea), Vietnam Service Medal, Southeast Pacific Service Medal, World War II Victory Medal, Vietnam Campaign
BIOGRAPHY
Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Earl Harris was born in Gary, Indiana. He grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee and attended Baylor Preparatory School. He attended the University of Chattanooga, his freshman year and then Purdue University and enlisted in the U. S. Army during World War II. He served in the India, Burma Theatre of operations in the Army Engineers achieving the rank of Master Sergeant. Prior to the end of the war, he received a Congressional appointment to attend West Point by Representative Estis Kefauver of Tennessee. He entered the Academy in the fall of 1945 as a plebe following three months attendance at Cornell University taking preparatory classes. He graduated from the USMA in the summer of 1949 and due to his desire to fly, he elected to take a commission in the Air Force. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant and began flight training at Goodfellow Air Force Base. There he met his wife to be, May Hemphill, the granddaughter of the founders of Hemphill-Wells Deparment Stores. She was a divorcee with a five year old son. They married following his graduation from flight school in May, 1950. He adopted her son, William Paul "Scooter" Harris.
He became a bomber pilot and was one of the first pilots trained in the B-50. In 1951, he was involved in a crash of a B-50 in the U.K. and walked away. He served as a bomber pilot in the Korean War and spent the following years in the Air Force with the Strategic Air Command.
He completed the requirements for a MBA at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He was also selected to attend the Air Force Command and General Staff College. He served as an assistant to the Chief of Air Force Operation's Planning and Training at the Pentagon for four years. He then began a tour in Vietnam, and his wife re-located back to San Angelo while he was overseas. His tour began on May 21, 1967
DATE OF DEATH:
05-May-1968
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