PFC John O. Harris was born on August 24th 1919 in Hanover, Virginia. To his parents Eugene Manning born in 1897 to his death in 1958 and Gertrude E. Mallory born in 1901 to her death in 1992. John grew up with three sister and one brother, he attended Grammar School. After school John become a carpenter, he married on August 11th 1942 to Elenora Hall, they had one child John Jr.

PFC John O. Harris enlisted in the US Army on May 1st 1941 in Richmond, Virginia, with service number 33042139. He joined with the 29th Infantry Division, 116th Infantry Regiment Company A.

On 6 June 1944, the elite troops of Company A, 116th Infantry, stormed the sands of Omaha Beach as part of the first wave of the D-Day landings. Within minutes, most were dead, including 19 men from one small town in rural Virginia.

In preparation for the Invasion of Normandy, the regiment participated in invasion rehearsal exercises, using landing craft, vehicle, personnel (LCVP) and Landing Craft Assault (LCA). For the invasion, the regiment was part of Force O, the initial assault force. The regiment was to lead the assault on Omaha Beach to the west of 1st Division's 16th Infantry, and would be temporarily attached to 1st Division. H-Hour, the beginning of the invasion, was scheduled for dawn on.

5 June (D-Day, the first day of the assault). Companies A, E, F, and G were to be in the first wave of the assault on Omaha Beach. The beach was divided into sectors: Company A, the westernmost, was to land at Dog Green, Company G at Dog White, Company F at Dog Red, and Company E at Easy Green on the right of 16th Infantry. It was planned that by 09:30 on D-Day, the beach exits would be open and vehicles able to leave the beach. 1st Battalion was to take Vierville, link up with the Ranger assault group advancing east along the coastal highway, and advance on Vire. Meanwhile, 2nd Battalion would capture Saint-Laurent and the heights southwest of it. 3rd Battalion constituted the reserve, and was tasked with advancing to Longueville.

At 03:10 on 6 June (the invasion had been postponed for 24 hours due to inclement weather), Companies F and G began climbing into their LCVPs. All first wave landing craft had left the ships by 04:30. At 05:00, a naval and aerial bombardment commenced pounding the German defenses, but the aerial bombardment was ineffective and the naval bombardment failed to destroy most of the German gun emplacements, manned by the 352nd Infantry Division. The landing craft approached Vierville at 06:00, and at 06:36 the ramps of Company A's five surviving boats out of seven were dropped after reaching the assigned sector. There were no shell holes for cover at Dog Green, and ++within seven minutes Company A was virtually wiped out by either the heavy German fire or from drowning in the surf – by the end of the day, only 18 of 230 members of the company had avoided becoming casualties.

The second wave began at 07:00, landing in a period of forty minutes. Company B waded ashore around 07:26 and suffered heavy casualties, although one of its boat teams took Vierville. By the end of the day Company B had been reduced to 28 men. The regimental command group landed around 07:30 with assistant division commander Brigadier General Norman Cota and Canham. They rallied the men for the attack and around 08:30 Cota discovered an exit off the beach, through which men began advancing. Company D landed off course, running into heavy German fire. Company H suffered heavy losses to German machine gun firing from Les Moulins. Company K landed around 07:50 and elements of the unit ended up pinned down until midday near the Vierville draw. Company L also landed around this time.

Around 9:00 Company K began advancing inland, breaching the seawall but losing fifteen men in a minefield before reaching the crest around 12:30. 111th Field Artillery's guns were lost in the surf and its artillerymen ended up pinned down in front of Les Moulins like 2nd Battalion after landing between 07:30 and 08:30. Company G advanced up the beach between 08:00 and 09:00, meeting the wounded Canham, who was organizing an attack on Vierville. Around 08:30 he and 50 to 60 men moved up a hill to the right of Hamel; this group later joined up with an element of Company B led by Lieutenant Walter Taylor in the attack on the fortified Chateau at Vierville.

On 6 June, the regiment suffered 341 casualties, including soldiers from Bedford-based Company A, a community which proportionally had the highest D-Day losses in America. The National D-Day Memorial was located in Bedford to honor their loss.

PFC John O. Harris was killed in action on June 6th 1944, for his actions was awarded the Purple Heart. John O. is buried at Woodland Cemetery in Ashland, Hanover County, Virginia.

Resources:

John Otis Harris (1919-1944) - Find A Grave Memorial

John Otis Harris : Private First Class from Virginia, World War II Casualty (honorstates.org)

National Archives at Washington DC; Washington DC, USA; Applications for Headstones for U.S. Military Veterans, 1925-1941; NAID: A1, 2110-C; Record Group Number: 92; Record Group Title: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General

Ancestry.com. Virginia, U.S., Marriage Records, 1936-2014 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.

National Archives at College Park; College Park, Maryland, USA; Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, 1938-1946; NAID: 1263923; Record Group Title: Records of the National Archives and Records Administration, 1789-ca. 2007; Record Group: 64; Box Number: 06022; Reel: 266

Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

Ancestry.com. U.S., Rosters of World War II Dead, 1939-1945 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007.

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John O Harris