Joseph J. Watts Jr.

Navy air traffic controller instructor was stationed stateside in AC.

By Petra Chesner Schlatter, BucksLocalNews.com

Joe Watts Jr. was a Seaman Second Air Control man in the U.S. Navy. He coincidentally enlisted at the same time as three other young men from Newtown.

As it turned out, they were in boot camp together at the Great Lakes Naval Station, about 40 miles north of Chicago.

The foursome had their picture taken together sporting dress whites – the classic white sailor’s hat and a white uniform with a dark blue tie.

Standing from shortest to tallest, from left, were: Eddy Teschner, Harry Holmes (who lived down the street from Watts), Harry Hauler and Watts. Watts was the tallest.

“It was the four of us --it was neat,” Watts said from his Newtown apartment, where he lives with his wife, Maureen.

“We were buddies when we got to boot camp,” he said. “We had been in school together. We really didn’t hang out together. At Great Lakes, it was basically all training.”

Watts had graduated from Newtown High School. A year after graduation, he decided to join up. He had considered becoming a mechanic, but the pay was not very good. So, he headed to Great Lakes instead.
He enlisted in 1948 and was discharged in 1952. The Korean War broke out in 1950. He had opted for the Navy because he wanted to go on carriers and work on airplanes. “That didn’t work out,” Watts said.
At Great Lakes, he had a row boat on Lake Michigan. “It was lifeboat,” Watts said. “Our training was how to get in and off of the ship and load it up. That was the only time on the sea.”

He was stationed at Navy air stations. He never got on a carrier much to his chagrin.

After basic training, he was sent to Memphis for training in the Air Department of the U.S. Navy.

Watts was asked to be an air controller. “I was given a series of exams like a guidance counselor would do,” he noted. He trained at a U.S. Naval air station 20 miles outside of Kansas City.

Watts was stateside in Atlantic City during the Korean War. For three years, he was instructing controllers. He also saw Memphis, Kansas and Lakehurst, N.J. He was back and forth in the Northeastern United States.

In Atlantic City, he got quite a bit of experience with civilian air operations in addition to Navy air traffic. Eastern Airlines flew in there two or three times a day.

When the Korean War broke out, they activated the Navy Reserves. “They sent all of them from New York and New England air control reserves,” Watts said. “They were weekend warriors. They had to stand watch with us. We mentored them for everything. We stayed there and trained the reserves.”

Watts never went overseas during the service. “I was already to go,” he said.

Nearly 60 years later, Watts commented from an air controller’s point of view on the recent incident when an air traffic controller was out of communication for 16 minutes during a medical emergency.

A radar facility last week in the tower of the Reno-Tahoe International Airport in Nevada was staffed with a lone controller.

Normally, a second controller is on duty and takes charge if the other one falls asleep.

“That’s a civilian tower,” Watts commented. “I don’t know what their hours are. There have always been arguments about the schedule that they work. Controllers can take a nap or snooze with somebody else in the tower to wake them up.

“Our shifts were sometimes long but there were always three or four of us around,” he said. “That was the military. We had plenty of help.”

This September, Watts will mark his 82nd birthday. Born and raised in Newtown Borough, Watts was the third generation to run the family’s neighborhood store on North Congress Street. His grandfather and his wife opened the store and had the house built with a storefront in 1900.

Watts ran the store from the 1950s until 1979 when he retired.

He is a member of Post 440 Morrell Smith American Legion. He just received his 50-year plaque.
Joe and Maureen Watts have three grown children -- Keyna, Donald and Randy. Keyna and her family live in the house that her great grandfather had built in 1900.

1st Lt. Pete Thompson

Notre Dame High, West Point grad leads his platoon in Basrah.

By John Williams, BucksLocalNews.com

The spark that ignited the fire was small, just a simple newsletter.

“It caught my attention,” said Lower Makefield resident Lois Tragone. “I told my son, Jeff, that we had to do something.”

The newsletter was produced and sent by 1st Lt. Pete Thompson, a high school friend of Tragone’s son Jeff, as a form of communication for family and friends at home.

“People were interested in their progress in Iraq,” Tragone said, “so the newsletter highlighted what was going on, where they were stationed and so-on.”

Pete and Jeff attended Notre Dame High School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey and graduated in 2005.
Upon graduation, Pete had mentioned that he wanted to join the military and was, in due course, accepted to West Point Military Academy in southeastern New York State.

“(Pete and I) met during our freshman year and have kept in touch to this day,” Jeff said of his friend. “He was the type of kid that you could tell was ‘going places.’ Even at such a young age, he was a man on a mission - had a good head on his shoulders, hung out with the right people and was loved by all the teachers and staff.”

While at Notre Dame, 1st Lt. Thompson was also a standout track and field athlete and
He studied Systems Engineering at West Point and participated in extensive training and graduated with top honors. Before leaving West Point, 1st Lt. Thompson was designated as commander of his platoon – Unit 107. He was deployed to Iraq about two months later and is currently stationed in Basrah with his platoon.
Pete’s tour of duty in the Middle East began in February. He is slated to stay for 12 months.

“I'm sure Pete won't be done after tour number one,” Jeff speculated.

“At 24 years old, he’s already a platoon leader,” Tragone said, “and there are guys in his platoon that are much older than him. It’s a lot of responsibility for a young man, but he takes everything in stride and is such a great kid.”

Inspired to do something bigger-than-herself and to provide basic necessities that Pete and his platoon needed, Tragone sent out a few e-mails. It started with her e-mail addresses contact list and before long, a small ground swelling of support had spawned. She did not expect her idea to take off like it did.

In an open letter to the public on her grassroots organization’s website, SoldierStuff.org, Tragone writes that some men under Pete’s command will not receive a single letter of encouragement or even a piece of food during their tour of duty.

“He respectfully asks that any or all of us who are able,” Tragone writes, “please send some necessities or pleasantries to these young men.

“I sent one email to everyone on my contact list – about 10 or 12 people – and before I was even finished doing it my doorbell rings and my old neighbor drops off a box of stuff at my doorstep. Many people offered help and were interested in getting involved.”

Tragone described Pete as a smart and athletic individual who could light up the room with his smile and who, most importantly, is goal oriented.

Tragone enlisted the guidance and help of family friend and Lower Makefield Supervisor, Ron Smith. E-mail blasts were sent out and soon enough, Tragone got another surprise.

“One man emailed me to let me know that he had setup a website,” she said. “I thought to myself ‘What am I going to do now? The donations started coming in fast, so I opened up my living room and closed it off. Now, it’s my workshop, so to speak.”

Some of the necessities that 1st Lt. Thompson and his platoon use on an almost daily basis range anywhere from baby wipes (the only “shower” they get for a few days sometimes), beef jerky, sunflower seeds, toothbrushes and toothpaste – which are not only used for dental hygiene, but to clean their rifles.

Ground coffee is always a hit, said Tragone.

“It’s almost like treat,” she said, “to get a real cup of coffee. The troops also ask for fruit rollups so when they’re out on patrol they can give it to the local children. With the blistering heat almost year round, lip baum and moisturizer are essential, including sunscreen.

Some other items include batteries, packs of crystal light and propel and swiffer brooms. For a complete list, visit SoldierStuff.org.

In a little over a month, 14 boxes have already been sent and another 19 are packed, labeled and ready to go.

“I probably have another 15 to 20 boxes that could be packed and ready to go at anytime,” Tragone said, while sifting through a box filled with classic car magazines.

“We put so much importance on the wrong things anymore,” she said. We get mad because a hospital is going to be put in down the street, but that’s what people think are a priority. It upsets me. I think I’m getting more joy out of doing this than anything I’ve ever done.”

“He is a great kid, a true friend and someone who would always help you out,” Jeff eloquently said about Pete. “He will give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. He is a true leader and we wish him all the best.”

Newton Dana

World War II veteran was a member of the Flying Tigers.

By Jeff Werner, BucksLocalNews.com

Newton Dana lived a lifetime in 1945.

It was during that historic year that Dana flew with the infamous 14th Air Force’s Flying Tigers under the command of Gen. Claire Lee Chenault. He co-piloted a B-24 Liberator, flying harrowing bombing and supply missions over the Himalayas and into China during World War II.

“Because of what we were doing in China, the Japanese had to split their forces in the Pacific,” said Dana. “They had to bring forces over to China and that made it easier for our guys in the Pacific who were bombing Japan.”

A native of Trenton, Dana graduated from Trenton High School in 1941. After high school, he enrolled at Ohio State University to study animal husbandry. In 1943, World War II interrupted his education. He left OSU and volunteered for the draft to become a flight officer with the U.S. Air Force. He was 18 years old.
“I always wanted to fly, but it was in the back of my head. Now, here I am enrolled in flight training,” said Dana. “And I always knew I was going to end up in China. No rhyme, reason or correlation. There was nothing on paper as to why this should occur. I just had a feeling,” he said.

For the next year, he underwent extensive training to become a pilot with the U.S. Air Force. He took basic training on the 12th floor of the Claridge Hotel in Atlantic City. He then trained in West Virginia, Florida and Alabama before earning his wings in September 1944 from twin engine pilot school in Arkansas.

From there he was sent to Texas where he was trained to fly the Liberator and then to Westover Field in Massachusetts where he met his flight crew in October 1944. The crew trained together in Charleston, S.C., before flying to Mitchell Field to pick up their plane, which they named the Manhattan Maiden.

In February 1945, the 12-member crew with Dana in the co-pilot’s seat departed on the long flight to China with stops in Bermuda, the Azores, Marrakesh, Tunis, Benghazi and Iran. The crew arrived in India before traversing the Himalayas to their final destination, an airbase in China.

During their seven months there, Dana and the crew of the Manhattan Maiden flew 40 bombing and supply missions over Eastern China, hitting targets occupied by Japanese forces.

“If it wasn’t for the Flying Tigers, they would have overrun China,” said Dana, of the Japanese.

One of their most frequent missions was the Yellow River Bridge that crossed the Yangtze. “That was the main link going down into China and our job was to knock that out,” he said. “But every time you’d hit it, they’d rebuild it overnight,” he said. “We were constantly going over it. It was heavily armed.”

Dana said the crew frequently flew through exploding flack, which caused tension on the plane. He remembers one mission where a burst exploded overhead and one of the guys ducked his head down too quickly and broke his scalp open. Blood dripped down onto the navigator’s charts causing some concern until they determined the injury was not life threatening.

During a mission to bomb a power plant, Dana said several planes in their formation were lost. “Coming back we lost people running out of gas because it was over 12 hours. 12 hours in the air is a lot of damn time,” he said. One of the planes barely made it back after losing two of its engines.

With the end of the war approaching and after exhausting their targets in China, the crew relocated to an airbase in India and flew supply missions over the Himalayas.

Flying “over the hump” was scarier and more dangerous than the bombing missions, said Dana. And the statistics bear him out. The Air Force lost 580 aircraft between air transport and heavy bombers during that time period.

“Imagine not having navigation, no stars to look at and you’re fighting weather, sometimes with winds of over 150 mph, and you can’t get a real good fix. You had no control over your destiny,” he said.

“Every bomb we dropped, every gallon of gas we used we had to fly over the Himalayas,” said Dana. “We lost more people hauling gas then we did in combat."

Inside the cockpit, Dana said he felt invincible, like nothing was going to happen to him. “When you’re young and 20 you’re stupid,” he says today. “Whatever happened, happened to the other guy. The only time you got excited is when something comes close to you. Over the hump I got rid of that feeling. Flying over the Himalayas was worse than combat. The Himalayas was enough to scare the hell out of anyone.”

The crew returned to the United States in early October 1945 not long after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan putting an end to the war in the Pacific.

“Had President Truman not dropped the bomb, I wouldn’t be sitting here,” said Dana. “I guarantee you that. We would have had over 50 percent fatalities.”

Following the war, Dana returned to Ohio State University and finished his degree in animal husbandry, graduating in 1948.
He returned to Trenton where he worked for his family’s meat packing business, Delaware Valley Meat Packing. He was married in 1952 and moved across the river to Bucks County in 1955. He eventually moved to Lower Makefield where he raised his family.

He recently moved to Buckingham Springs where he continues to work as a food broker, a job he has done since 1964. He’ll be 87 next month.

“I lived a lifetime in a very short time and the only heroes are not in this room,” he said, his voice filling with emotion. “This was a war of survival. There was no choice on this. It was just something that had to be done.”