Oran Harris was born in Hartford, Tennessee in September 1924. His childhood home was near the Smoky Mountains, about three miles from the Appalachian Trail. He enjoyed growing up hunting and fishing in the mountains. Harris' father was a schoolteacher and a saddlebag doctor, and the Harris family owned a sawmill, a gristmill and a dynamo that produced electricity. They also farmed their own food, so the Great Depression did not greatly affect them. When Harris was about 14 years old, he knew war clouds were gathering. His dad read the paper every day, and talked about Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler]. At 17, Harris was off to Camp Wolters, Texas for basic training. After a brief in-route furlough, he was sent to San Francisco, California, and shipped overseas. He spent 32 days on a ship zig-zagging [Annotator's Note: a tactic used by ships as an anti-submarine measure] through the Pacific Ocean, stopping for a short time in New Guinea then continuing to Leyte where he was issued a rifle. Although there was combat going on there, he traveled past until his unit [Annotator's Note: Company E, 2nd Battalion, 186th Infantry Regiment, 41st Infantry Division] boarded an LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] loaded and ready for invasion. He was bound for Palawan Island, in the South China Sea, a landmass of no military value to either the United States or Japan. But, there was a Japanese-controlled prison on the island [Annotator's Note: Iwahig Prison in Puerto Princesca City, Palawan, Philippines], and Harris' unit was tasked with taking the island and freeing the prisoners held there.

Oran Harris maintains that after having walked for 67 days, 2,000 people from the Bataan Death March were transferred from a prison on another island to the prison on Palawan. There were only 150 prisoners remaining when the 41st Infantry Division was assigned the mission to take Iwahig and liberate the inmates. But it didn't work out that way. The Japanese had heard the American Army was coming, and herded the prisoners into a tunnel on a cliff overlooking the bay. The Japanese placed a machine gun on each end, poured 50-gallon drums of gas in the space and set the tunnel afire. Three prisoners escaped the conflagration on the cliff end, and two of them were recaptured and tortured to death. One jumped over the cliff, swam to safety, and reported the incident. The survivor, Harris remembers, was from Iowa. After the war Harris wrote to let him know that he had a picture of the prison, but got no answer. Prior to putting men ashore, the Navy had bombed and shelled the island. Harris' unit [Annotator's Note: Company E, 2nd Battalion, 186th Infantry Regiment, 41st Infantry Division] landed in a mangrove swamp and trudged to higher ground. When they reached the prison, it was empty. The mission then became seek and destroy. Many men were lost to sniper fire before any actual encounter with the enemy. Harris' captain was killed. Harris and two other soldiers carried their captain out, then called for artillery. Artillery fell all through the night, but Harris doesn't think it killed many of the enemy, because after the first shell fell, the Japanese pulled back. The next morning, Harris was in a squad that walked up the battered hill. Thinking it clear, they laid their rifles down and settled in to eat k-rations. A Japanese machine gunner who had lived through the barrage came out of a foxhole and crept toward them brandishing a bayonet, and could have killed two or three of them, but he stepped on a stick. One of the soldiers in Harris's squad was a cowboy from Texas who carried a revolver. When the stick cracked, the Texan pulled out his sidearm and killed their would-be attacker, who fell right at their feet. One night the Japanese attempted a banzai attack. Their plan's downfall was attempting to attack through a narrow channel over a dry streambed. The Americans were dug in on the bank with a .50 caliber machine gun. Harris said all they had to do was "spray." He said it was "the awfullest mess of humanity." The first attackers were piled up, wounded or dead, but the Japanese just kept coming. Harris's troop killed about 90 percent of the enemy force in that encounter. The next night, the Japanese stragglers were heard moving bodies in order to stage another banzai attack. Rather than using their rifles, which would have given away their position, the Americans on the ridge threw three phosphorus hand grenades down into the enemy ranks that sent them jumping and screaming. [Annotator's Note: Harris slightly grins.] That ended the combat, without the loss of one American soldier. The stragglers fled, leaving behind ruined food products, but taking their machine guns. The islanders informed the Americans that the Japanese had killed all the people in a nearby village, except for two little boys, and had taken over the area. Those two boys guided the Americans to back to their village. The Japanese had not posted a guard, and Harris used his BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle] to spray the village. The enemy answered with machine guns and mortars, but Harris' troop prevailed; luckily no Americans suffered injury. When that episode ended, only a few enemy remained in the mountains. After patrolling every trail to insure the natives were safe, Harris and his troop went back to camp where they had hot showers and hot meals, and "lived the life of Riley." {Annotator's Note: Harris smiles broadly.] When Harris left Palawan, he was on a ship loaded and ready to invade Japan. He was surprised when his captain announced the war was over, that the United States had dropped an atomic bomb. Initially, because the weapon had been secretly developed, no one knew the meaning of what the captain said. Harris jokes that he thought the captain said A-D-A-M bomb. Instead of invading, Harris' unit went in to occupy Japan in the early part of September [Annotator's Note: September 1945]. His work included removing war equipment the Japanese had stored in religious shrines, and dumping it in the ocean. He also helped to keep the natives out of Hiroshima. Harris stayed in Japan until he was sent stateside. He was glad to go home, and though he escaped injury, he had lost a lot of friends. As a member of the VFW [Annotator's Note: Veterans of Foreign Wars] Honor Guard, he now helps officiate at three veterans' funerals a week.

Oran Harris was 17 years old when Pearl Harbor was attacked. He was returning from Sunday school when a man called out that Japan was invading. The man, thinking Japan was "just a little old country," said the war would not last seven days, but, Harris said, Japan had occupied the whole South Pacific, and the Allies had to take back one island at a time. Harris was working in the timber industry, truck-hauling massive hemlock tree trunks, when he was drafted. He went to Camp Wolters, known as "Hell's Bottom," in Texas for basic training. There he participated in combat exercises, dug fox holes, camped two to a pup tent and hiked. Once, they walked 20 miles overnight. Harris said that during that walk he sleepwalked into a field and back out to the road. It was Texas in July, really hot. After basic training, he was issued a winter uniform. Harris dreaded the cold. Soon, that uniform was taken away, and Harris was sent to the unit replacement depot at Fort Ord, California, where meals were served from four chow lines, 24 hours a day. Troops kept coming in, getting paperwork and shipping out. Harris sailed out from San Francisco, and in 1945 returned home through Seattle, Washington. Harris never got seasick. The seas were rough sometimes, other times the surface was like glass. He spent 32 days zig-zagging [Annotator's Note: an anti-submarine naval tactic] through the Pacific, reading "When Worlds Collide" all the way through. Accommodations on what Harris thinks was a Liberty Ship were tight: rows of five-high bunks stacked with just enough space to walk in between. They were served two terrible meals a day. He sometimes had to pull guard duty, but there was no KP [Annotator's Note: kitchen patrol or kitchen police]. He really enjoyed watching the ocean. Once, the big gun on the ship was fired, and the whole ship shook, scaring everyone on board. Harris thought they might be under attack, but it amounted to nothing. At Okinawa, his ship was moved out of the bay into open water so it could better weather a typhoon. Harris said the experience was frightening for everyone in the storm's path. He was assigned to the 186th Infantry Regiment, 41st Division when he reached Leyte. His shipmates split up when they got assigned to divisions, and most he never saw again. Asked how he felt knowing that he replaced someone who was injured or killed, Harris said that in combat, a soldier accepts the possibility of death. What Harris feared was being shot by a sniper; while walking in the woods, he would wonder what it feels like when a bullet hits. He said that in battle soldiers forget fear, and in their everyday life they joke and laugh, take it "big natured" all through.

When Oran Harris' ship pulled into port in New Guinea, he walked ashore just to say he had been there. But he saw no combat until he reached Palawan, a long, little island off Vietnam. Before he went into combat, he hated the Japanese because of their cruelty, especially as demonstrated in the Bataan Death March. Then, he was glad to shoot them any time he could. But he had some funny stories to tell about his experiences with the Japanese during occupation. After Palawan, Harris was sent to Hiroshima, then to Nagoya. There he had what he thought was a really good job, picking up supplies at the dock in the morning, and trucking the garbage out of camp at night. He remembers being instructed not to pick up any Japanese along his route, and refused a Japanese girl who asked him for a ride to base. That night he saw the girl working at the USO [Annotator's Note: United Service Organizations], and knew that, in the company of her friends, she was calling him names. On another occasion, Harris hit a rough spot in the road, and a case of food fell off his truck. The cans were immediately scavenged by the starving natives. When his mess sergeant noticed the missing case, Harris feigned ignorance. The sergeant shrugged it off, saying that no GI would steal a case of sauerkraut. Harris' third story was about a guard duty incident at Hiroshima. A Japanese man asked him the meaning of the expression "Hubba-Hubba." Harris responded that he thought it had something to do with football. Harris' last post was in Kobe. There, where brick buildings had once stood, there remained only shells, and there were little pieces of roofing tiles scattered all over the ground. In 2018, he saw pictures of today's Kobe, and couldn't believe the progress that had been made rebuilding that city.

Oran Harris feels that the leaders of the Axis did not care about their people. Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler], he said, cared only about himself. The war could have ended earlier, and saved a lot of lives, but Hitler had to go to the last man. In some of the raids on Germany, what the bombs didn't destroy, the dust killed, and thousands perished. Tokyo burned, from one end to the other, as a result of fire bombs. And we rebuilt all that. The point, Harris said, was that all of our wars were fought for liberty. We didn't take any country. If liberty was threatened, we were there to protect it and fight for it. So we can be proud to have a country like this, and he was proud to serve it. Harris was a BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle] man on Palawan. He had a rifle when on ship, but when he went into combat, he picked up the BAR. On Palawan, there were two soldiers carrying BARs, and when they set up a perimeter, a BAR was positioned at each end. At one point, the other BAR guy opened fire, and started screaming that he'd been hit. Harris and his guys thought they were being raided, but it turned out the guy was shooting at two stray dogs, and hot shells were falling on his back. The captain chewed the guy out. Harris had one more funny story. [Annotator's Note: Harris smiles.] During transport, a ship on which he was traveling was filled with war equipment and trucks, and the soldiers slept anywhere they could. Harris made a hammock out of a canvas tarp, and was quite comfortable. But it rained, and the hammock was filled with water. Harris picked up one end of the canvas, and unintentionally dumped water over the guys sleeping below. Surprised, they began shouting. Harris jumped over the side, walked casually around the back, and asked what happened. A GI responded that some "SOB" had wet him all over. Harris said to him, "That it was a dirty trick."

Oran Harris did not know the exact nature of his mission on Palawan Island until he reached the prison. A Navy ship in the vicinity sent in rockets ahead of their landing, and Harris' troop went ashore in an alligator [Annotator’s Note: the Landing Vehicle, Tracked, or LVT, was an amphibious tractor]. Harris said the alligator was heavy, and he doubted it would make it, but it climbed up into a mangrove swamp, and the soldiers continued on foot through the jungle. Harris didn't know if there were Japanese in the area. By that time he had the BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle]. They were sleeping out in the open. On the first night of combat, they encountered heavy resistance, and their captain was killed by a machine gunner shooting from a foxhole on the hill. Harris said it didn't have to be much of a hole, because the Japanese were little, and they would peep out and shoot, then squat back down out of sight. Harris crawled on his hands and knees to stay low, knowing that if he stuck his head up he would be shot. He supposed his captain stuck his head up, and in doing so lost his life. After they retrieved their captain's body, they called for artillery. The barrage was so close that pieces of hot metal were falling all around the American soldiers. They dug in and sat in their foxholes all night. After he was killed, Harris kept the dead Japanese machine gunner's wallet, bayonet and belt, which is still sturdy after all these years. Harris recons it originally came from America. The United States was shipping metal over to Japan for them to throw back at us. When the American troop got to the Japanese prison camp, they didn't know the 150 inmates had been murdered, but he later saw the tunnel where it happened. He conjectured that the remains were thrown into the ocean, for they were never found. He said the intelligence officers might have heard about the slaughter, but as far as the GIs knew, they were going in to save prisoners. Harris said the officers did the thinking for GIs; he didn't get much information in the lower ranks. Palawan consisted of three mountains and many ridges. The island was 200 miles long and 20 miles wide. Harris remembers his troop went up to a mountain village where all the children up to about 12 years old were naked. An old man who carried on his shoulder a big gourd-like neck growth asked the officers if he could go to America to have it removed. Harris found it all very curious. Harris related two experiences with prisoners of war. One was a very sick man who just walked into their camp. The Americans turned him over to the Filipino boys who took him away and killed him. Harris said the Americans would not have done that, but they couldn't take him aboard because they couldn't trust him. Another was an incident that happened when he was on guard duty outside a nurse's tent. The nurse was asking a prisoner if he needed water, or anything, and Harris remembers that made him angry. The Japanese were killing and torturing the Americans, and there we were showing them mercy. Of course, Harris said, that's the way we do things, it's our way of life. But it was kind of sad to see it happen. [Annotator's Note: Harris quietly chuffs.]

Oran Harris said the Americans went first by sea in pursuit of the Japanese that had retreated into the mountains of Palawan, then got off the ship and traveled a ways in an overloaded native canoe. Two native boys served as scouts. The guides said they knew where to get drinking water, and Harris went along to fetch some. To his surprise, the source was a green frogpond, and the Americans had to use pills to purify the water. They walked three miles the next day up to their target. The little village boys who had lost their families there were quick to point out where the Japanese were taking cover. Harris estimates there were 25 to 30 Japanese left, with no machine guns, but mortars and rifles, and maybe hand grenades. The American sergeant lined his soldiers up, and Harris was front and center with his BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle]. They were to fire all at once on command. When the word was shouted, Harris sprayed the two or three standing cabins, and saw blood coming down. The Americans took a different route when they left, and though they detected bullets hitting the foliage around them, they got away without any losses. Their two native guides were very animated when they told the story of the raid to the other natives back in the camp, pointing at Harris and making gun gestures and ak-ak-ak-ak sounds, and jumping up and down and laughing. [Annotator's Note: Harris smiles.] Harris said they gave the native boys all they wanted, including candy and cigarettes, but the boys, taking their que from the GIs, wanted the Lucky Strikes and Camels, and wouldn't take the Chesterfields. All this happened in brutally hot weather. When Harris' mother sent word of big snow back home, Harris thought he would have liked to be home to see it.

Oran Harris said that while he was on Palawan, he learned that Franklin D. Roosevelt had died, and the news made him sad. His dad was a staunch Republican, but Roosevelt built the Appalachian Trail, which Harris thinks was a great thing for the country. America also came out of the Depression under FDR, but Harris said the war had something to do with that. He remembers people going to Norfolk to build ships and bragging about earning 100 dollars a month. Harris feels Americans did well preparing for war after Pearl Harbor, considering we had nothing when the fighting started. Harris mentioned that while he was in the Pacific, he also had a brother in the United States, and another brother in Europe, and his mother dreaded going to the mailbox for fear that there would be tragic news about one of them. The seemingly imminent invasion of Japan didn't come off because Harry S. Truman did the right thing and saved a lot of bloodshed by dropping the atomic bomb, according to Harris. There were ships all over the south Pacific, loaded to the gills and ready to go. He knew there was always the threat of a Kamikaze attack, and for that there was no defense. It was a great relief knowing there would be no invasion, but Harris had to go to Japan anyway, as part of the occupation force. He said that was a breeze.

After spending months trying to kill Japanese, Oran Harris now had to live with them. He felt sorry for the civilians, he said, because for years their homes had been bombed and burned, and they were starving. The natives would beg at the windows of the Allied Forces mess hall, and it made Harris feel bad. But soon, the civilians were planting corn along the railroad, and other vegetables anywhere they could dig up ground to plant. In Hiroshima, Harris tried to find souveniers to buy, and he found two or three Japanese flags and a kimono that he paid for with money the natives could use. After he made his transaction and was leaving, a former Japanese soldier rushed out into the street toward him, and Harris felt sure he was going to be murdered. Others came out of a building and carried the would-be attacker back inside. They had already been told not to stir up any trouble. On the whole the Japanese were very humble. Once, Harris went into a Japanese home, first pulling off his shoes, then folding his legs to sit before a smoldering fire, and accepting something to eat. He stayed there for 30 minutes to an hour, communicating in in sign language. Some of his guard duty was also accomplished with the use of sign language. Civilians would ride up on their bicycles, pull off their caps while bowing low, and Harris would point them in a direction they could legally proceed. Bowing once more and donning their caps, they would be on their way again. Harris said they were taught to be really courteous. Some of the Japanese civilians spoke English. Harris talked with one man who had seen Hiroshima explode. The man said one minute, Hiroshima; next minute, no Hiroshima. Harris saw only pictures of people who had been burned, as the area had been cleared by the time his occupation force arrived. What he vividly remembers about Hiroshima is the many small pieces of roofing tiles. The bomb crater was a circle about a mile wide, and it contained nothing but those little fragments. Further out along the damage site were the remains of melted buildings, with drooping bare metal everywhere. Harris marveled at the extent of the damage that all came from one bomb. Harris said he hated that for the people, but we gave them every chance to give up.

Oran Harris remembers that he served with people from all over United States. The Soutern boys didn't like the way the Northerners said "yous guys," the Northern boys didn't like the Southerners' use of the expression "down yonder." Harris said when they got in combat, all that was forgotten. He said there was a guy called "Dago," an Italian from Brooklyn. He and Harris couldn't stand each other, and avoided contact. But when they were in combat, it was a different story: everybody was the same, everybody was your friend. Fellow soldiers don't judge anybody by their looks, because inside they are good people. When Harris left Kobe, Dago cried, and shook Harris' hand. That taught Harris a lesson. In August [Annotator's Note: August 1946] Harris came home through Seattle, Washington. He was discharged from a base in Wisconsin, and though he has forgotten [Annotator's Note: Harris scrunches his face trying to recall] the name of the base, he clearly remembers his last meal there as the best he ever had in service. Harris said there was an all-you-can-eat buffet with all kinds of meat. [Annotator's Note: Harris chuckles.] From there he went to Knoxville, Tennessee where his sister's family picked him up, all in one piece and thankful. Harris felt honored he was able to do what he did for his country. He said that although there were riots in the 1960s, people are now going back to being patriotic, and flying the flag. He is glad of that. His rank at discharge was PFC [Annotator's Note: Private First Class.] He was offered a promotion to corporal, but he did not accept because he did not want give a combat command that got somebody killed. Harris said the only thing he wanted to do was get home. [Annotator's Note. Harris chuckles.] Harris thinks the service helped people learn to get along. Everyone was fighting for liberty and freedom. He is sure we wouldn't be here if Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] had won, and Harris feels he almost did. If Hitler had used atomic weapons, Harris said, he would have wiped Europe off the map, killed all the black people, and made anyone who wasn't Aryan a slave. Harris found Hitler cruel for dispelling the Polish people from their homes. While in the Pacific, Harris was able to get news about what was going on in Europe. The government kept the troops informed by newsletter, and the soldiers had radios. Harris said he heard Tokyo Rose, and rather than breaking the GI's morale, they found her broadcasts very funny. [Annotator's Note: Harris laughs.] Harris does not think that his time in the service had any influence on his values. But, he said that it taught him to consider others' opinions, and not be overbearing, because everybody has their own personality. He is certain that it would be good for any boy to go in service, not to war, to learn something about how the rest of the world lives. He did not take advantage of the G.I. Bill, although he did collect what he referred to as rocking chair money [Annotator's Note: under the 52-20 clause for unemployed war veterans, honorably discharged soldiers would receive 20 dollars a week for 52 weeks for up to one year while they were looking for work] for one month before a schoolteacher who was boarding at his family's home got him job delivering goods for a local hardware store. Since then, he has never had an idle day in 37 years. He eventually was employed at a local plant, where he soon became a supervisor, and is proud of the fact that he was never laid off. He is now retired, and in good health, except for his poor hearing, the loss of which he attributes, in part, to his BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle]. He believes The National WWII Museum is a good thing, as is the National World War II Monument in Washington, which he has visited. He is now planning a trip to New Orleans with his nephew. Harris is thankful to live in a country that supports these memorial establishments. He is appreciative and proud to be a part of it all.