CPO James Harris first joined the US Army where he served 1 year as PFC. CPO Harris transferred from the Army to the US Navy in Dec 1941 after the attack in Pearl Harbor. For the next 5 years he served in the Navy which included participating in the Normandy Invasion on D-Day and was assigned to the first wave of landing craft at Omaha Beach in WWII. He was later stationed in Sicily and Cyprus also during WWII.