Shelby Jackson Harris
born:  December  27, 1919 in Haskell, Texas
died:  August 17, 2006 in San Antonio, Texas
Services in San Antonio at Porter Loring Mortuary
and at Randolph AFB Chapel - with interment at
Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery
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Colonel Shelby Jackson "Jack" Harris, son of Shelby Harris and Vera (Melton) Harris, died Thursday, August 17, 2006, in San Antonio.

He graduated from Texas Tech in 1942 as an agronomy major, and served his country for thirty years as an officer in the Air Force.   He had joined in the early days after the United States declared war on Germany and Japan.    As a P-51 Mustang pilot, he was assigned to the 374th Fighter Squadron, 361st Fighter Group, 8th Air Force in England.   He flew 71 missions including three sorties over Normandy on D-Day, before his plane was hit by flak on July 6, 1944, over France.

He bailed out but when his parachute became tangled on a tree, he was captured after Germans spotted him.  He spent 10 months in Stalag
Luft 1 in Barth, Germany, near the Baltic Sea.   In 1945 the camp was liberated by the Russians and he was set free.  His daughter, Penny Hicks, said he was at the prison camp during the coldest winter in Europe in 50 years.

After WW II, Captain Harris attended the Army Command and Staff College and became an operations staff officer at the Pentagon.   He also received assignments to bases in Alabama, Alaska, New Mexico, Missouri and Iowa.   In 1967 he went to Saudi Arabia as deputy commander of the U.S. Mission.   Nearly 30 years after he earned his wings at Randolph Field in San Antonio, he returned there as base commander.   (Now it is called Randolph AFB - renamed in 1948).   

When he retired from the military in 1971, Jack became a Vice-president of the Cibilo State Bank and was an active Rotary member.   His wife, Clothille, died in 2003.   He was also preceded in death by his brother, Billy, and his sister, Christine Harris Griffin.

Survivors are his daughters, Jan Ford Mustin and her husband, Al, of Austin; Penny Hicks and her husband, Philip, of San Rafael, CA; Jacqueline Sanner of Austin; and Dr. Susan Buckner and her husband, Mark, of Indonesia.

Services were held Monday, August 28, at the Randolph AFB Chapel with interment at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio.

from an article in the August 27th San Antonio Express-News
and the obituary posted on the Porter Loring Mortuary webpage.