Chapter 5: 1969

Joey Harris concludes his eulogy

“With Old Ernie keeping three crop dusters in the air, it was sure as eggs were eggs that I would fly with Papa as soon as I could sit upright on a sack of cornmeal so I could see out of the cockpit. So, it didn’t take long before I was doing the flying while Papa operated the sprayer from the passenger seat. Momma, being the driving force she was in the family, was also solo flying planes, she learned to fly solo while I was still in diapers and she was a fine and careful flier. Yes sir, she had Old Ernie fixing everything that was slightly under regulation.

“As soon as the war against Japan was declared, followed by the declaration of war against Germany, Papa wanted to volunteer for the Air Force. He was 55 but told the recruiting Sargent he was 42 and had been a captain in the British RFC. I think they realised he had lied about his age, but they put him on delivering new aircraft from factory to airfields all over the country for training, or flew them close to the ports that were sending them overseas for the invasion of Europe, D Day. He was often gone from home for weeks at a time, but never happier than when he was in the air. He hardly ever spoke about his First World War, but you couldn’t stop him talking about the Second.

I was only 12 when the war started, but you grow up real quick in war time. Momma had also joined up too, also volunteering to deliver airplanes from the factory to where ever they had to go. They both trained on a variety of aircraft from fighters to bombers and spent the next couple of years crisis-crossing the country, hardly ever meeting.

“Then in 1944 Papa flew bombers over the Atlantic in preparation for the D Day invasion of Europe. This was the first time back in his old country for eighteen years.

All through his life he used to tell us kids, and anyone else who was listening, or tried to heap praise on him, that he was just an Average Joe, doing his duty to the best he could. Well, we have packed out this church today to say say goodbye to a Joe who was son, husband, father, grandfather, colleague and friend and to us all he was anything but average.”