Former Tuskegee Airmen and longtime Sunnyvale resident Stanley Harris recently died. He served on the distinguished Afrian-American unit of the U.S. Air Force, the 332nd Fighter Unit.




Photograph courtesey of Harris family







Tuskegee Airman takes final flight

Family and friends remember Lionel Harris for his kindness, intelligence

By Karen Kabiling

To some, Stanley Lionel Harris Sr. was a quiet master of many trades.

Harris was born April 11, 1919, in St. Paul, Minn., one of four sons and one daughter of Cloteil Noel and Joseph Tedford Harris, where he attended elementary and high school. A longtime resident of Sunnyvale, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in July and died Aug. 5 in Santa Clara.

Soon his life went off in the sky.

He flew fighter planes such as the AT6 and the P-51 while serving in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations during World War II as captain in the distinguished African American Unit, the 332nd Fighter Unit, Tuskegee Airmen.

With a total of 77 combat missions in support of the bombers assigned to the 15th U.S.Air Force, Captain Harris was awarded the Air Medal with one Silver and one Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster, the American Theater Ribbon, two overseas bars, a Victory Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross. The latter award was presented by Colonel Benjamin O. Davis Jr., the commander of the 332nd Fighter Group in March of 1945.

Later that year, he was discharged from the U.S. Army Air Corps and returned to St. Paul and continued to pursue a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota.

In 1950, Harris became the first African American electrical engineer at the Minneapolis Honeywell Corporation.

Harris relocated to Northern California in 1960 with his family to work for the Missile and Space Division of Lockheed Corporation. At 72, Harris retired in 1991 after 35 years at Lockheed.

Despite his father's long list of accomplishments, John Harris, one of Harris' eight children, said he remembered his father as a quiet, strong and determined man.

Growing up, John said his father didn't exude pomposity or arrogance like some war veterans.

"All that time, I thought he didn't know anything," John said. "He was more of a guiding figure."

Instead of stepping into the middle of the children's arguments, John remembered how his father would let them solve their own problems.

"He was not intimidating," John said. "He was a very reasonable father."

Juanita Harris, his wife of 56 years, said her late husband wasn't much of an outdoor person, but loved spending time with his family and grandchildren.


Photograph courtesey of Harris family

Stanley Harris is survived by his wife of 56 years, eight children and 17 grandchildren. As an electrical engineer, he worked for 35 years at Lockheed.




Harris was the kind of man who would go out of his way to lend a helping hand.

She remembered Harris climbing up their neighbor's roof after a storm to see whether a fallen tree had caused a hole in the rooftop.

The only reason she didn't stop him was because she wasn't home at the time. "He was always willing to do those kinds of things," she said.

Like many fathers, Harris also liked playing the role of a fix-it man.

"He'd fix things, but they didn't always work," Juanita said.

"I think he'd like to fix things; he wanted to take things apart and make them work," John added. "Then I'd call a repairman."

One thing the Harris family agreed on was that their father was extremely intelligent.

"He was great at high school math," his son Stanley Harris Jr. said. "He had better explanations than textbooks."

His daughter Noel Harris Paige said Harris was good at history and would sometimes recite excerpts from Chaucer on the spur of the moment.

"He was just brilliant," Paige said. "He had resolutions for things. And he gave the black perspective of history."

Harris also made history himself.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Library in downtown Washington, D.C., displays a collection of wartime memorabilia belonging to Captain Harris. The exhibit is on the third floor as part of the Tuskegee Airmen Exhibit in the Black Studies Department.

A unique community program that links the generations and cultures of the Silicon Valley through technology and oral history called the Digital Clubhouse has produced a CD of the experiences of WWII veterans. Captain Harris' wartime experiences are highlighted in the series.

Harris is survived by his wife Juanita Schuck Harris; his eight children, Stanley Lionel Harris Jr.; John Anthony Harris and Hugh Schuck Harris of Sunnyvale; Noel Harris Paige of Washington, D.C.; Allen Matthew Harris of San Jose; Robert Reginald Harris of West Hartford, Conn.; William Joseph Harris of Vancouver, Washington; and Juanita Marie Harris Jr., of Branford, Conn.; his sister Patricia Harris-Speece of New Haven, Conn.; 17 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

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