Harris, Harold R. (Harold Ross) (1895-1988)
Dates
- Existence: 1895-12-20 - 1988-07-28
Biographical Note
From the foreword of "The First 80 Years" (in the collection):
"The Wings Club is most fortunate and privileged to have persuaded General Harold R. Harris to present the 2lst Sight Lecture, our annual lecture which henceforth will be known as the General Harold R. Harris Sight Lecture. General Harris was president of the Wings club in 1958/59 and it was he who conceived this annual lecture which he felt would help to fulfill one of the main objectives of the Club, namely the advancement and development of aeronautics.
Harold Harris, who was an 8 year old schoolboy when Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first powered and controlled flight on December 17, 1903, is perhaps the only man living today who has devoted his entire career from those early days both to military and civil aviation and has literally seen it all happen from the time when at the age of 14 he attended the first aviation meeting in America in January 1910 held at Dominguez Field, Los Angeles, California. In 1916, Harris became Engineer Officer of an Army unit called the "First Provisional Aero Squadron". When the United States declared war on Germany in April, 1917, Harris enlisted in the Aviation Section of the Signal Reserve Corps. Shipped out to Foggia, Italy, where he was given three hours of flight training, he quickly graduated to flying instructor and then to a test pilot of some Caproni bombers being constructed at Milan for the U.S. Navy.
The first world war over, Harris was put in charge of the flight test section at McCook Field (predecessor of Wright-Patter-son Air Force Base) until he resigned in 1925 to begin a career in civil aviation. Organizing the first U.S. flag airline in Peru, this led to his becoming vice president and chief operations officer of Panagra, the airline established in 1929 by Pan American Airways and the then Grace Steamship Company and which successfully pioneered air service over much of South America.
World War II saw Harris promoted to Brigadier General in the U.S. Air Force and Chief of Staff of the Air Transport Command. Post war, he was successively Vice President and General Manager of American Overseas Airlines, Vice President of the Atlantic Division of Pan American Airways, President and Chief Executive Officer of Northwest Airlines and finally President of Aviation Financial Services until his retirement in 1965 at age 70.
This published version of General Harris's lecture will, I believe, serve as a fascinating and most informative biographical history of one who played an important and significant role in the advancement and development of aviation in America."
Occupations
Places
- Chicago, Ill. (Place of Birth)
- Falmouth, Mass. (Place of Death)
Languages Used
- Language: English. Script: Latin