Jim Schuler

Yardley resident served as a Radiomanin World War II and the Korean War.

By R. Kurt Osenlund, BucksLocalNews.com


“Any sort of military operation must have communications,” says Jim Schuler, a Yardley resident and veteran who served in both World War II and the Korean War. Communications was Schuler’s specialty, and because of specialists like him (Radiomen, they were called), a great many American soldiers were able to reach their destinations safely and effectively. Now 84, Schuler still distinctly recalls the places he visited during his time served. And why shouldn’t he? His stops included Iwo Jima and Kure, a base next door to Hiroshima.

Before Schuler enlisted in the Navy, he attended the University of Missouri for one semester. Before that, he attended Sullivan High School in Sullivan, Mo. That’s where he was born, to parents James R. and Grace, but he says he grew up all through the Midwest. James R. was a highway contracting superintendent, and wherever the road took him, it took the family (which also included Schuler’s younger siblings, Robert and Linda). Schuler estimates he went to “20-some schools” in multiple states before finally graduating from Sullivan High in 1942.

Schuler enlisted at 17, a year before he could be drafted into the Army. After preliminary training, the Navy sent him to the University of Idaho for three months of communications training, where he’d get to know the radios of a Radioman. From there he headed out to Camp Pendleton, the Marine Corps base in Southern California. After partnering with the Marines for amphibious training, whereby he learned to be part of the liaison communication between ship and shore for incoming troops, Schuler moved on to Pearl Harbor, where he awaited orders.

“It was a personnel reassignment base,” Schuler says of Pearl Harbor. “They took us where they needed us. Some went with the Navy, some stayed behind.”

Schuler, it turned out, was needed in Iwo Jima, which he set out for in 1944.

“I was not engaged in the on-beach fighting, but it was very hostile,” says Schuler, who was based on a ship off the Iwo Jima coast. Helping to direct troops to shore via radio communication, he says the enemy had cannons that could have easily taken out his ship, and kamikaze pilots swirled overhead, attacking when not shot down by the Air Force.

After Iwo Jima, Schuler – who was not assigned to a ship’s company but was instead an “orphan,” going wherever the military sent him – made his way to Kure, a former Japanese naval base five miles from a then-already-bombed Hiroshima. He was performing the same duties, albeit this time on shore. Schuler and his fellow soldiers set up a port authority for radio communication in the village, which was separated from Hiroshima by a mountain range (the very thing that saved Kure from being leveled as well, Schuler says).

In 1945, Schuler left to set up another port authority in Tokyo, which at that point had surrendered, but still needed a properly established communications presence.

“You need that whether it’s war or peace,” Schuler says. “Our function was to direct traffic and to maintain communications with the Navy ships coming into port. They had to resupply and maintain the harmony and control of the country.”

Tokyo was Schuler’s last stop, and in 1946, he returned to the U.S. and was discharged as a Petty Officer First Class. He married is sweetheart, Diana, whom he hadn’t seen since 10th grade in Texas (“We wrote lots of letters,” he says). He completed a degree at Washington University in St. Louis, majoring in accounting and minoring in law, and shortly thereafter, he and Diana had a daughter, Diane. The familsettled down in a home in St. Louis, and then, Schuler got the call – the call that said he wasn’t quite finished with the military.

Though his one year as an inactive duty reserve soldier was nearly finished, the nationwide legislation to extend such terms drew him back in, and in 1950, he was called to fight in Korea.
Patrolling a large river along the 38th parallel, Schuler was tasked to draw fire from the North Koreans, and call in the Air Force to bomb and strafe (or attack with machine guns) the North Korean gun positions. He and his crew also took South Korean rangers up into North Korea to capture enemy soldiers for interrogation. Suffering a ship attack that claimed the lives of a few of his peers, Schuler was more than ready to come home for good when second stint at war came to an end after 13 months.

Upon his return, Schuler went to work for NCR Corporation (nee National Cash Register Company), where he worked with computers for 39 years before retiring as a state marketing director in 1988. He spent the subsequent years traveling with Diana, “his gal,” to everywhere from China to Russia to Germany to Australia, until she sadly passed away in 2007.

“I’m glad we had the time to travel together,” Schuler says.

These days, Schuler looks forward to the time he can spend with daughter Diane, his other daughter, Susan, and his granddaughters, Emily and Jessica. A born fighter, he recently emerged safely from a bout with cancer, and is focused on maintaining his health.

“Today, I feel good,” he says.

John Galione

Bristolian’s discovery of missiles changed America’s war-time strategy in Germany.

By Tim Chicirda, BucksLocalNews.com


“The Journey of Private Galione” is not only an incredible forthcoming story about a Bristol veteran, but it is the name of a book that chronicles the military accomplishments of the author's father.

Mary Nahas, a registered nurse and 1975 Bristol High alum, has been on a mission to get her father's story told, despite his lifelong humble nature.

“My father has died and I want to finally honor him for saving the people and bringing the weapons here to America,” said Nahas.

Specifically, Nahas is referencing her father's heroics in April of 1945.

In an excerpt from the description from Nahas' book, we learn that “after walking over a hundred miles to search for the prisoners of labor camps, an exhausted Private Galione found a secret tunnel, a train car filled with corpses, a German guard shooting at him, and prisoners praying for rescue behind a locked gate.”

According to Nahas, America's objective at the time, was solely to eliminate enemy opposition, not to search for camps. But, Galione's discovery of Mittelbau Dora and Nordhausen Concentration Camps and the German creation of ballistic missiles led to a change in approach.
Now, the main American objective was to search for and seize missiles.

“Private Galione's discovery saved the prisoners of Dora-Nordhausen and related camps, and changed the future of the United States and the world,” writes Nahas.

*****
John Galione was born January 25, 1919, in the famous haunted Long Island farmhouse that Douglas Fairbanks Sr. later bought.

John and several siblings moved to Pennsylvania's King's Farm, now known as Penn Warner Club.

Galione was at “Fields’ Dance Hall” on Wood Street, currently the Dragon Moon Martial Arts Association, when he met his wife, Viola.

Viola, formerly called Iole, tripped down the steps into John Galione’s arms.

After the couple married, they moved to Bristol and had a daughter. John then went to war. Upon returning, John and Viola had two more daughters.

John was not only a war hero, but an inventor, as well. He invented and designed a pollution system that kept five 3M Manufacturing facilities from shutting down. He also invented a harmonica holster which enabled him to play guitar and two harmonicas simultaneously.

But despite all of this, arguably Galione's greatest accomplishment was taking care of his beloved wife during a 10-year run of Alzheimer's disease.

John Galione passed away on June 23, 1999, at the age of 80, following a three-year fight with congestive heart failure. He received a military burial at Sunset Memorial Park in Feasterville, PA., where he rests beside his Viola.

*****
Two years ago Nahas had the opportunity to meet Charlie Lang, currently a New Jersey resident, one of the Jewish survivors of Mittelbau Dora's Nordhausen Death Camp.

Mary explained, “He was one of the Romananian Jews thrown in the camps when he was a young teenager. He was first in Auschwitz, then Buchenwald, and then inside Nordhausen Death Camp, the restricted zone of Mittelbau Dora. It's the place where they dumped the slave laborers who had become too weak to manufacture the missiles and left them there to die a slow death from starvation and disease.”

And Lang is not the only survivor who has many good things to say about John Galione. Michel Depierre, a Dora Survivor, echoed his appreciation for Galione:

“In a few more days I would have died. John Galione and his fellow soldiers saved my life!”

Richard G. Bleiler

Korean War veteran served aboard oil tanker.

By Jeff Werner, BucksLocalNews.com


Two years before the start of the Korean War, 17-year-old Richard G. Bleiler walked into a recruiting office in Philadelphia and enlisted in the U.S. Navy.

The next three years and nine months would be among the most memorable of his life.

Bleiler grew up in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, graduating from Germantown High School in 1948. Less than three months later, he was a member of the U.S. Navy attending boot camp in Great Lakes, Ill.

“At that time, it was pretty much the way guys did it. You got out of school and you went and joined one of the services,” said Bleiler. “College wasn’t a big factor back in those days, not for the average guy.”

Bleiler had intended to join the Marine Corps. But when he got to the office, there was a Marine sergeant standing outside the door. “He got me by the arm and said, ‘I think we can use you in the Marines.’ I decided, ‘I think not.’ And I went and joined the Navy.”

After boot camp, he was sent to Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay, then to the island of Guam. He eventually wound up on the island of Saipan in the Marianas where he was stationed from January 1949 to June 1950.

Scattered with abandoned air strips, the island was in the process of being demobilized following World War II. “Literally hundreds of planes, anything from B-51 fighters up to B-29 bombers, were just left there — like a big junkyard,” said Bleiler.

He worked in the supply department unloading and loading ships and operating a forklift.
In his spare time, he and others would venture into the mountains where they explored caves containing the remains — bodies and skeletons — of Japanese soldiers. He has photographs showing piles of skulls and bones documenting the gruesome sight.

While en route back to the states for leave, the war started in Korea on June 25, 1950. So instead of getting his expected leave, Bleiler was sent to Bremerton, Wash., to help in the reconditioning of a small World War II escort aircraft carrier in the mothball fleet.

“If you have ever ridden passed an abandoned industrial site, you know what it looks like. These ships were the same way. They were falling apart and filthy dirty,” said Bleiler. “We eventually got the ship running again. They re-commissioned it. They threw a fast paint job on it and as soon as possible they sent us down to San Diego.”

From there, he made two trips as a seaman working on the deck of the USS Sitkoh Bay as it traveled from California to Japan carrying Marine Reservists and airplanes. After the second trip, he was transferred to the Naval Hospital in Oak Knoll, Calif., for treatment of minor frost bite to his hands and face.

Following his hospitalization, he was reassigned to the Navy oil tanker USS Taluga, where he spent the next 17 months as a gunner’s mate.

The ship traveled first to the Aleutian Islands before being reassigned to carry oil from Japan to the East Coast of Korea where they refueled a number of warships, including the USS New Jersey, Wisconsin and Iowa.

“We would keep going at a designated speed and these other ships would come up along side of us. We would string hoses over to them and we would fuel them while were under way,” he said.
The good thing, he said, was that after the ships were refueled, the crew of the Taluga would return to the coast of Japan. “The guys on the warships would stay there,” he said. “We had a lot better duty.”

The tanker spent about six months off the coast of Korea, protected by small destroyer escorts that traveled alongside.

The closest Bleiler came to combat was when a destroyer in the formation struck a mine. The explosion ripped off the bow of the ship and they lost 200 men, he said.

Bleiler said he considers his service among the most memorable of his life. “I’m grateful I came out unscathed. It was an experience you just can’t put a price on it. Had I joined the Marine Corps God only knows if I’d be here today. The Marine Corps and the Army took a hell of a pounding,” he said.

Following his discharged in May 1952, he returned to Pennsylvania where found a job with Bell of Pennsylvania.

During the 1950s, Bleiler installed phones in the newly-built homes in Levittown and Fairless Hills. He also worked on the phone systems at the sprawling US Steel Fairless Works plant and at the Bucks County Courier Times.

He married his wife, Louise, in 1953. They lived in Bensalem before moving to Middletown Township.

In late 1983, when the government broke up Bell, he took early retirement and formed his own company, RB Communications. He handled all the branches for First Federal Savings & Loan, Union Fidelity Insurance and the Bucks County Courier Times among many others. After his retirement in 1997 he and his wife moved to New Holland in Lancaster County.

They have two daughters, Pat Mervine of Langhorne and Linda Mooney of New Mexico, and one grandchild.

Raymond G. Bertles

Korean War veteran was aeronautic radar mechanic.

By Petra Chesner Schlatter, BucksLocalNews.com


U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Ray Bertles, recently marked his 80th birthday. He lives in Lower Makefield Township where he is a lifetime member of VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) Post 6393.

A veteran of the Korean War, Bertles looks back on the time he spent in the military as somewhat of a training ground. He also noted that being a Civil Air Patrol Cadet (CAPC) as a teenager and his education at Trenton Central High School made a significant impact on his life.
He wanted to go into the Air Force pilot training program, though he did not go to pilot training until he worked in the commercial air transportation industry.

“The officer in charge of our unit, knowing what I wanted to do, told me because of the extensive training I had in electronics and radar, rather than going to pilot training on completion of officer candidate school said I would in all likelihood become an electronics officer,” he recounted.
“Not wanting to become an electronics officer, I withdrew my application for officer candidate school,” he said.

Bertles was already flying at the young age of 15 and took his first solo flight when he was 16. He couldn’t drive a car because the driving age was 18. Instead, he rode his bike to the airport.

Bertles, who enlisted when he was 18 and was discharged at 22, said he wants young people to be better aware of the CAPC program, which still exists today.

He started in the program when he was 14. “I’ve been keenly interested in aviation ever since I was a young toddler and I do mean very young,” Bertles said. “Because of this, I was able to build model airplanes when I was about nine years old.”

Basic training was at Lochland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. He completed Airborne Radar Mechanic School at Keesler Air Force Base in Beloxi, Miss. Upon completion of the training, he was transferred to the Air Force Base at Houston, Texas.

When the Korean War broke out, he was transferred to Fort Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio.

He was next transferred to the Korean Theater and was stationed at Tachikawa Air Force Base in Japan. He operated as an aeronautic radar mechanic with the 7th Signal Radio Maintenance team until it was absorbed into the 6400 Communication and Electronic Repair Squadron.

The squadron operated throughout Japan, down through Okinawa, Guam and Korea, which were all of the bases that operated in the Korean Theater, according to Bertles.

After the Air Force, he went to Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology in Illinois. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautics with a major in aircraft maintenance engineering.

After that, Bertles worked for the U.S. Naval Air Turbine test station in West Trenton. N.J. as an aeronautical power plant engineer and he tested jet engines.

On Dec. 5, 1955, he was hired by TWA (Transworld Airlines) as a student flight engineer and finished that program, and worked for TWA as a flight engineer.

Bertles became a pilot while working for TWA. ”In 1966, when there was a shortage of military pilots because of the Vietnam situation, TWA allowed some of the flight engineers with sufficient background to cross over to the pilot program,” he said.

He worked as a flight engineer, a captain and as instructor check captain and flew
On Dec. 23, 1989, he retired as an instructor check captain on the Lockheed 1011. He had worked for TWA for 34 years. And although he is retired, he still flies airplanes.

Bertles and his wife, Joan, who is in the aviation field, have lived in Lower Makefield since 1967. Bertles was born in Ewing, N.J. and is a lifelong resident of the area. The couple has four daughters and four grandchildren.