Cecil Harris

[knusel]

Good morning gentlemen,

how come Cecil Harris is sometimes attributed with 23 kills other times with 24 kills ?
Was one of his kills a shared or unconfirmed one ?

Have a nice Thursday,

Michael

[Chris Goss]

It would help if you give an idea of nationality or unit?

[knusel]

Cecil Harris is the second-ranking US-Navy ace (VGF-27 and VF-18).

[Frank Olynyk]

Cecil Harris is credited with 22 victories while serving with VF-18 off the Intrepid in the September - November 1944 period. He served with VGF-27 during Operation Torch in North Africa, without claiming any victories. When VGF-27 was redesignated as VF-27, he served with it in the Solomons in 1943. The VF-18 history, prepared at the conclusion of their tour in 1944 noted that he had two victories while in the Solomons, but gave no further information. Thus a total of 24. His second flight log, held by the family, has a single page with 24 Japanese flags, with the type of aircraft shot down for each flag. The first two flags are noted as "Zero". A combat report for only one of these has been found, for a single Zero on April 1, 1943. Unfortunately he lent his first flight log to someone, and it was never returned.

The total of 23 victories for Cecil Harris is based on the fact that no combat report for a second Solomons victory has been located. I prefer to accept the number of victories as 24 until such time as it can be shown that he only made one claim in the Solomons.

Enjoy!

Frank.
Historian, American Fighter Aces Association

[knusel]

Hello Frank,

thanks for your elaborate answer, wihch is of good help.
Thus, I have to look for VF-27 documents.
BTW, wikipedia lists a 21Oct44 kill as "assist" which is a quite unusal choice of words...does it mean "shared" ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_E._Harris

I wish you a splendid Thursday,

Michael

[Frank Olynyk]

The term `assist' was used by the USN and USMC early in WW2, and seems to have been considered equal to half a victory credit. At the same time, shared victories seem to have been counted as full victory credits for each pilot. It appears that from late 1943 onwards, for the USN and USMC, they went to fractional credits for all shared victories (with the apparent exception of VF-27 and VF-80). An assist was then recognized as damage insufficient to be considered as a shared victory. In the case of Oct 21, Harris damaged the Sally, which was credited to Franklin Burley as destroyed.

Enjoy!

Frank.

[knusel]

What an intresting piece of knowledge ! Thanks a lot.

Edward Sims (1972) lists 24 kills for Harris whereas Barrett Tillman (1996) lists 23 including 1 F4F kills. In the www it's a tie between 24 and 23.

I'll report to you as soon as I find a VF-27 victory list.

Have a nice weekend,

Michael

[Frank Olynyk]

I published my USN Victory List (#2) back in 1982. It covered all carrier based squadrons, and all land based squadrons except the multi-engine units. It has been out of print since the middle '90s. I am in the process of updating my database, and hope to publish a new edition someday (very nebulous, I know). The only hope for finding information on Cecil Harris' missing victory is either to locate his original flight log (for 1942-43), or to find documents on VF-27 outside of Record Group 38 in NARA II at College Park, Maryland. I have been through all the squadron and group records in RG 38.

Enjoy!

Frank.

[knusel]

Hello Frank,

your Stars&Bars is listed at the German amazon, however currently out of sale.
I wish you good success with the new edition and I really look forward to it.
If I come across the victory list in question, I'll give it to you.

All the best to you and your work,

Michael

[MikeFink]

Dr. Olynyk,

Does RG 38 contain the ACA Reports for VF-27? I'm the author of the Cecil Harris Wikipedia page and a volunteer at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. I'd love to give those documents a once-over.

By the way, I'm with Michael: your previous edition of Stars and Bars is $80 used on Amazon and the nearest library to stock it is 174 miles from my apartment! Can't wait for the new one to come out. Thanks for all the research that you do. I hope the work I've been putting in as an amateur holds up to professional scrutiny—feel free to shoot any suggestions my way.

Cheers,
-Mike