Hugh A. Bell

Cold War vet forged brotherhood of allies, four- and two-legged.

By R. Kurt Osenlund, BucksLocalNews.com


Hugh Bell isn’t like most veterans. Most veterans look back on their military careers and recall spending the bulk of their time alongside other soldiers, two-legged ones who might have barked, but likely used words instead.

Bell, however, primarily served as a patrol dog handler and a K-9 supervisor, positions he took on as a military policeman with the U.S. Army. He says one of the most important things he learned in the service was the importance of mentorship, and what he cherishes the most is the brotherhood he forged, which, he says, included men and dogs alike.

“I’ve always been a dog person,” Bell says. “Ever since I had a cocker spaniel growing up.”

Bell, 53, grew up in Northeast Philadelphia, until his parents, John and Agnes, moved the family to Levittown. Bell was 7. He and his siblings, John, Karen and Theresa, attended Woodrow Wilson High School. Bell says he knew he wanted to join the military well before he graduated in 1976.

“My junior high school and high school years were during the Vietnam era,” he says. “My cousins were in Vietnam and my father was a WWII vet. That influenced me a lot. I just knew I was going to be on a path into the military.”

Bell set his sights on military police, specifically the K-9 program. He enlisted in August 1997, heading to Ft. McLellan, Ala., where he underwent both basic training and Advanced Individual Training (AIT). In October, he became a K-9 handler, joining the Sentry Dog Program at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. He learned basic obedience with the dogs, ran obstacle courses, learned how to use them to detect people, and how to attack and apprehend.

His first official assignment was in Alaska, where, as a sentry dog handler, he walked the interior and exterior of a fence line, guarding a Nike Hercules defense missile site.

“The assignment took a kid from the suburbs and put him into the wilderness,” Bell says. “We were 50 miles outside of Anchorage. It was my first experience seeing a bear and a moose walking around like a dog or a cat.”

Bell moved on to the (warmer) military police unit at Ft. Hamilton in Brooklyn, N.Y. He worked gate duty, and his job became, as it would remain, quite akin to that of a traditional county or local police officer. He issued parking tickets, enforced speed laws and patrolled barracks areas. In 1980, at the end of his three-year enlistment, he thought he’d logged enough experience to join his own local police, but couldn’t due to quotas based on gender and race.

To remain associated with the Army, he joined the Reserves, reporting to Ft. Totten in Queens, N.Y., the closest base with a military police unit. It was there that he met one of his mentors, Mickey Goldman, who helped Bell meet with a recruiter, reenlist and get back into active duty (“Something was missing,” Bell says. “Full-time military was missing”).

Apparently, something else was missing, too, for before he set out to Seneca Army Depot in the Finger Lakes to guard a Navy ammunitions storage unit, Bell literally married the girl next door, Barbara, whom he dated for a mere six months before making her his wife. Barbara, Bell says, followed him to virtually every subsequent military mission.

That included a return to Lackland, where Bell upgraded his K-9 education and learned more about using dogs as “regular police dogs,” getting them involved with tracking, building searches and traffic stops. His training ran until September 1982, at which time he went to Fishbaugh Army Depot in Germany, again doing walking patrols with dogs to guard an American weapons and ammo storage unit.

A Cold War veteran, Bell went back to Lackland to hone his skills as a patrol narcotics dog handler, then landed at Ft. Dix, N.J., where he served as a military police K-9 supervisor. Patrolling the massive fort just like a normal town, he oversaw other handlers and performed duties with the dogs regularly. He held his post for five years, working with the Philadelphia Police K-9 Academy, the Atlantic City Police K-9 Academy, the New Jersey State Police and the New Jersey State Corrections Department.

From Ft. Dix he went back overseas to Bremerhaben, Germany, serving as a certified U.S. Customs inspector at the nation’s border. In 1992 he went to Bad Kreuznach in Germany, fulfilling the same duties. His most intense assignment came in 1995, when he was temporarily sent to Bosnia for Operation Joint Endeavor. Landing at Eagle Base Camp in Tuzla, he worked as a bomb dog handler, detecting explosives and sweeping areas newly occupied by U.S. troops. Bell never came across an actual mine, but danger loomed, as he’d heard of multiple soldiers being wounded or killed doing the same tasks during his same mission.

“It was scary work,” he says.

Bell’s final assignment was at Ft. Hood, Texas, where he oversaw 20 K-9 teams as a K-9 supervisor. He retired in 1998 as a Staff Sergeant, and moved back to Levittown with Barbara. Since then, the couple has relocated to Fairless Hills, and Bell has worked as a security guard with numerous regional facilities.

As a hobby, he’s trained dogs with PetSmart and the Lower Bucks Dog Training Club. A mid-’90s hip injury cut into some of his activities, but he remains an active member of the Guardians of the National Cemetery in Washington Crossing, The Disabled American Veterans of Levittown Chapter 117, and the American Legion of Yardley Post 317. He says that these affiliations provide him with the same sort of brotherhood he valued so much in the service.

“The most important thing is to surround yourself with good people,” he says.

Good dogs help, too.

Salvatore Castro

Levittown resident served in the South Pacific during WWII.

By John Williams, BucksLocalNews.com

Bullets fired from Japanese infantry whizzed overhead and Corporal Salvatore Castro took cover in the rugged terrain of the dense Philippine rainforest.

Three days earlier his battalion had just started a six mile prowl through the jungle. He and his unit had come to a big valley shaped like a horseshoe, bare of vegetation due to all the fighting; they spread out and took shelter in fox holes.

Just as he thought the worst had passed, grenades began to shower down on top of his unit’s position. They exploded from all directions with a fierce veracity. Many of his fellow soldiers – some of whom he trained with – perished in the attack.

“I was instructed to shoot in the general area of where the Japanese troops were firing from,” Castro, 85, said. He took his Browning automatic rifle and fired into the directed area.
“So I shot, but that exposed my position,” Castro said.

“As the grenades began exploding, I caught pieces of shrapnel on my legs and arms and, quite frankly, all over,” he said. “Most of it missed me, but I still had foreign objects like stones and clogs of dirt kicking up at me.”

He immediately started feeling the pain and began to bleed.

“I passed out and rolled down this hill,” Castro recalled. “I heard my battalion call to ‘pull back’ and I heard them leaving the area. I started crawling up the hill screaming for their assistance because I didn’t want to be left behind.” He assumed that the rest of his battalion thought he had died.

“I finally got up the hill and managed to catch up to them,” he said. “I still have nightmares sometimes about that moment. I wake up screaming.”

It all started when Castro was a mere adolescent.

He said joining the military was an ambition of his for a while. Before the war started, he aspired to be a pilot. His plans took a detour though after he was drafted in October of 1943 in his senior year of high school.

“I was assigned to infantry,” Castro said. “My basic training took place at Camp Blandey [a military installation outside of Jacksonville] and lasted 17 weeks. After training, they sent us home for a two week furlough.”
After his furlough, Castro was sent to Fort Ord – a disbanded Army post on Monterey Bay in California – and on March 20, 1944, he and his unit embarked on a three-week trek across the Pacific Ocean en route to New Guinea.

“We were attached to the 32nd Division who were already in combat at a small town named Aitape,” Castro remarked. “We got there around the beginning of July and in about a week the Japanese began their offensive.

“We ended up killing some 9,000 Japanese who ambushed us,” he said. “So, we pulled back and prepared for the next invasion, which came not too long after on Sept. 15, 1944 on the island of Morotai,” a member of the Molucca Islands in New Guinea.

Castro said the island wasn’t well occupied and that it stretched only about 50 miles long. It was all a part of General Douglas MacArthur’s strategy of island hopping dubbed “Hittin ‘em where they ain’t.”

Our mission at Morotai was to destroy a Japanese radar station and setup a United States controlled radar facility,” he stated.

“Information intelligence told us that there were about 3,500 Japanese ashore, but mostly service troops,” which Castro said wasn’t a huge threat. “Apparently, the Japanese were told to create fake camps to create an illusion, so we thought we were outnumbered. We fought them head on and were relieved by men in the 33rd Division.”

By the time he left the South Pacific, he had developed Jungle Rot, a type of tropical, fungal parasite that was often contracted by soldiers overseas. He was treated for the fungus while in Hollandia, New Guinea.

“It nearly killed me,” Castro said. “Penicillin helped relieve the fungus.” He said that Penicillin was his saving grace. Then on Feb. 20, 1945, he was permitted to return to the United States because of the complicated nature of his injuries.

“I quick grabbed my bags and got out of there. We stopped in Hawaii for a day to refuel and then shipped out to San Francisco. It was a great feeling seeing those Golden Gates,” Castro said in a relieved tone.

A military hospital train took him across country to Camp Upton in New York, where he recuperated and attended shows featuring Hollywood personalities such as Lena Horne and Irving Berlin. He even met and spoke with actress and film star of the 1930s and ‘40s, Jean Arthur – he even got her autograph.

He got discharged on Christmas Eve, 1945.

“I was in New York and there was a horrible snowstorm,” he stated. “We stayed in these wooden shacks – it was very cold – so I wore every bit of clothes I had and I was happy to get out.”

The Army had asked him to join the Reserves, but he declined. He served a total of 27 months of active duty in the military.

He attended Drexel University and received his degree in Mechanical Engineering. Not long after, he returned to school and earned a degree in Electrical Engineering because the devices he worked on at work required knowledge of electronics.

“We designed centrifuges and flight simulators,” he said. “I got involved with Environmental Tectonics Corporation (ETC) where we designed pilot training systems.”

He got involved with the Guardians after a close friend of his died. He is currently an active Guardian of the Washington Crossing Cemetery.

“I knew he was going to be buried in Washington Crossing Cemetery and I wanted to be in his honor guard,” Castro said. He volunteers in the office once a week – usually on Tuesdays.
Castro reflected on the enormity of military enlistment in the wake of World War II.

“When the Japanese hit the U.S., we only had a about a half million men in the service.
Eventually we had 16 million people join the service.

“It’s incredible.”

His parents emigrated to Cuba from Spain in 1917, where they met and traveled to the U.S. Salvatore was born in Newark, N.J., and moved to the Philadelphia area in 1948 and got married to his wife, Elenor.

Retired Army Corporal Castro moved to Levittown in 1953-54 and bought his house in the Highland Park section for $13,500.

“When you’re overseas there’s not much to get away from,” Castro divulged. “Living in foxhole isn’t great and living in tents in the South Pacific was very hot and uncomfortable. The best moment was when we got on that boat to go home.”

Michael Donovan

Newtown native pays tribute to local veterans who died in WWII.

By Petra Chesner Schlatter, BucksLocalNews.com

U.S. Coast Guard Veteran Michael J. Donovan has become known as the hometown researcher who keeps a folder filled with a variety of information for each of Newtown’s service people who lost their lives during WWII.

He prides himself on having been “born and raised” in Newtown.

On one sheet of paper, Donovan, who served stateside during WWII, has assembled the photographs of 16 people, many he knew from attending Newtown High School. The Chancellor Center, as it is known today, now houses the Council Rock School District central administration.
Their pictures are situated under the heading: “1941 Reflections of WWII 1945.”

The photo page pays tribute to George Hennessey, Billy Swayze, Leon Hennessey, Ned Maher, Varsal Kirby, Cliff VanArtsdalen, Arthur Strathie, Wm. T. Werner, Wallace Murfit Jr., George Dutton, Mary Bond, Mickey Swayze, Conrad Atkinson, Bob Cahill, Marvin Hilsee and Norman Davis Jr.

Donovan is ensconced in his complex project, which is being made into a Power Point presentation.

Those who attended Newtown High School are part of a memorial at the center, which Donovan made.

“I was young when the war started,” he said. “You are part of the group. I was 13 or 14 when the war started.”

Donovan is married to Josephine and they have two grown children, Amy and Patrick. The couple’s home is in Newtown Township. He enjoys sitting in his easy chair with the fireplace aglow, paging through his research, which is carefully organized.

He went into the service on Oct. 8, 1943 when he was 17 with his father’s permission. The recruiting station was in a former bank at Third and Chestnut in Philadelphia. Basic training was at the Manhattan Beach Training Station in New York.

“I enlisted because I didn’t want to go into the Army,” Donovan said. “I would have gone in the Army when I was 18. I was a junior in high school.”

He would have graduated from Newtown High School in 1945. He had attended St. Andrew School until the eighth grade.

Donovan is humble about his time in the service. “I was just a seaman -- that’s all. I wasn’t an admiral,” he joked.

He said one of the reasons he compiles history about Newtown’s part in World War II is for younger people to learn more.

He emphasizes that WWII is an important part of history. “Hitler was going to take over the world – he tried to anyhow – Hitler and the guy in Japan – Tojo,” he said. “The Imperial Japanese Navy was taking over the whole Pacific Rim. It started with Pearl Harbor.”

Donovan described what the feeling was in the States when the war broke out. “Everybody made a great effort to get the planes, and the tanks and the ships into production,” he said.
“We didn’t have anything -- we started from scratch,” he said, noting that he worked at an aircraft factory after the war in West Trenton.

Donovan described the climate when everyone learned that the war was over. “We were all glad, but we didn’t get discharged until the following June” he said. “The ones with the higher points [amount of action you saw] were discharged first.”

One of his prized pieces of history is a picture of the “Newtown Honor Roll,” which listed all of the people from Newtown who served in World War II. When someone was killed, a star was put next to their name.

The actual honor roll had been displayed in the Gaine and Murfit Chevrolet showroom at 215 South State. Donovan said the expansive board with seemingly countless names no longer exists. He thinks it was destroyed in a barn fire, though he does not know that for certain.

The deaths of ‘Newtowners’ who perished during WWII weighs heavily on his mind and heart. “I knew all them - I knew everybody from Newtown,” Donovan said. “Instead of graduating, we were in war.”

William H. Swayze was one of the 16 who died. He was killed in action on April 28, 1945 in Okinawa, Japan. “The war was over in August 1945,” Donovan stressd.

Donovan’s file on “Billy” Swayze is nearly complete, including a write-up by Donovan.

“Pvt. Swayze and others were guarding a restricted area when an enemy artillery shell exploded nearby,” Donovan wrote. “He was wounded in both legs and received immediate treatment from a medical officer. He was rushed by ambulance to a field hospital where he received treatment on both legs.

“However, the “shock?” seemed to be too much for him,” Donovan wrote.

Donovan explained where he found the information about the 16 who died during WWII. The Newtown Historic Association has a 100-year history of Newtown in a newspaper called the Newtown Enterprise, which was published from 1865 to 1965.

“It’s on microfilm – that’s where I got a lot of this information,” he said, noting that he also wrote to the Army, Navy and Coast Guard for information.

Ned Maher was killed in action in Anzio, Italy. He was in the 3rd infantry division, U.S. Army.
George Hennessey’s transport was “rammed by a French aircraft carrier,” Donovan.

His brother, Leon, died in the Azores off the coast of Africa on March 3, 1945.

“I have a file on every one of them,” Donovan said.

He is especially proud of is seniority in the local American Legion. “I got 63 years in The Legion,” Donovan said. “Not many people can say that.” He is the historian for the Morrell Smith Post 440 in Newtown.

One of Donovan’s treasured possessions is a photograph of himself with his boot-camp buddy, Joe Connell, who he keeps in touch with today.

The picture was taken in Baltimore on the 110-foot harbor tug – a Coast Guard cutter called the Chinock.