February 12, 2025
Julius W. Becton Jr., Pathbreaking Military Normal, Dies at 97

Julius Wesley Becton Jr. was born on June 29, 1926, in Bryn Mawr, Pa. His father was head janitor for an house constructing close to Bryn Mawr Faculty, and the household, together with his mom, Rose (Banks) Becton, a housekeeper and laundress, lived in a basement house.

When he was 17 and a senior at Decrease Merion Excessive Faculty, Julius Jr. enlisted within the Military Air Corps reserves, then went on lively responsibility after commencement. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in officer candidate faculty in August 1945, simply as Japan surrendered in World Conflict II. He was nonetheless shipped out with an all-Black division to the Pacific, to the island of Morotai, the place his unit used a bullhorn to inform Japanese troopers holding out within the jungle to give up. They didn’t all the time comply.

“That took care of my first fight expertise of being shot at,” he recalled within the oral historical past.

In 1948, whereas he was a pupil at Muhlenberg Faculty in Allentown, Pa., he married Louise Thornton, who grew to become a nurse; she died in 2019. Along with their son, Julius III, he’s survived by their 4 daughters, Shirley McKenzie, Karen Becton-Johnson, Joyce Finest and Renee Strickland; 11 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

Normal Becton was serving within the Military reserve in Maryland in the summertime of 1948 when his base commander learn aloud President Harry Truman’s government order desegregating the army.