Andrew J. Orloski

First generation American served in U.S. Army during WWII.

By Petra Chesner Schlatter, BucksLocalNews.com

Seven decades ago, Andrew J. Orloski, 91, was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II. He was 21. The year was 1942.

Orloski grew up in Burnham, Pa., which is 30 miles from Penn State and about 60 miles northwest of Harrisburg. Upon his return home from the service, he would work in the steel mill.

Later, he would move to this area and work at U.S. Steel – Fairless Works as the second helper at the open hearth. He lives in Fairless Hills.

When Orloski was drafted, he was the sole supporter of his Polish mother who could not speak English. He is first generation American. His sister would take care of her mother in his absence.

After he left, his mother was known to lie down on the ground and pray that her son would return to Burnham safely.

Orloski does not talk much about the flesh wound he got in his shoulder while he was in Italy. But when he does, there’s often a joke behind it.

There was a big hole in his jacket. “One of the soldiers said, ‘Were you in that?” I said, ‘Yes, I was in that when it happened.’”

He does tell the story seriously. “I was on a hillside,” Orloski said. “I was sitting down, taking my rifle apart and I was cleaning it. A shell came over and exploded and tore a big hole in my shoulder in the back.”
Orloski was given The Purple Heart.

He has other medals: the European African Middle Eastern Service Medal and the Good Conduct Medal.
“One time I was up on top of the hill,” Orloski said. “I was on the downside and I was sitting there and I heard the Germans firing way down in the valley and I saw three shells go over the top and down in another valley. They were behind me. They were firing at some of our troops that were in front of me.”

When Orloski went in the service, he was a private. He reached the rank of sergeant. He was honorably discharged in 1945.

Boot camp was in South Carolina near Spartanburg, Va. He then went to Camp Edwards in Massachusetts. “I joined the 36th Division – that was the Texas National Guard – there were a lot of Texans!” he said.

From Massachusetts he was sent down to Virginia to get mountain training. “We did a lot in the mountains -- up and down,” he laughed. “I just carried a rifle. I was in the 60 millimeter mortar…It’s a tube and there’s a base plate. You drop a shell and it goes up way far and drops on the enemy.

“We went overseas from New York,” he continued. “We landed in Oran, Algeria in North Africa near Morocco and Libya. We just did some more training there.

“Then we got on a convoy and we made the landing in Salerno, Italy near Naples – about 30 miles south of Rome,” Orloski said. “We made the landing. You had to get off those little boats. We got in the water.
“We got on the beach,” he continued. “We walked a little bit and BOOM!! I hit the dirt. It was another BOOM!! A tank was shooting at our ship.”

They kept going. “We cut across a big field,” Orloski said.

“There were a lot of big black cattle. They started attacking our guys. We started shooting them.
“We kept on going,” he continued. “We went up the hills and then we saw the tank shooting the people who were doing the landing. Some of our guys started shooting at the tank.

“I remember once we were up in the mountains and I could hear those bombers that bombed the abbey at Monte Casino,” Orloski recalled.

Later on, they were near Rome. “We fired the 60 millimeter mortars there before we got to Rome,” he said. “When we conquered Rome, that’s when they made the big landing in Normandy. We were glad.”
“They sent us to relieve Patton’s Army so he could relieve Bastogne,” he said. “It was an important village. There were different crossroads. It was like in a forest -- The Ardennes.”

Among the many photographs of his service days, Orloski has a Christmas card from 1944 that he sent to his mother, Anastasia, from France. His wife just ran across the treasure this last year.

Orloski and his wife, Cecelia, have three sons: Andy Jr., Stephen and Perry.

One of their grandchildren, Anastasia, is in the U.S. Air Force and is stationed in Alaska.

Pete Gilbert

Major Gilbert has served three tours of duty in Afghanistan

By John Williams, BucksLocalNews.com

It’s funny how the simple things in life are always the most enjoyable, and oftentimes, the most cherished.

The same can be said of Army Major Pete Gilbert, who had the opportunity to meet his niece, Sophia, for the first time over the Easter holiday when visiting his sister in Newtown.

“It was awesome,” Gilbert, a Maryland native, enthusiastically said. “Over the past six years, I’ve missed out on some of the most important events in any person’s life, like Christmas’s and birthday’s…so being with them in person was a nice change of pace.”

“This all just comes at a great time for me when I’m transitioning to the next stage of my career and my sister having her first child,” he said. “It’s very rewarding.”

Over the past few years, especially with the amount of work that his high tempo unit is assigned to, Major Gilbert didn’t have the opportunities to visit family in the States. He was serving overseas, in many different capacities, in Italy, Kuwait and Afghanistan.

“It’s truly a double-edged sword,” Gilbert said. “On one hand, you’re sacrificing a lot of family occasions and milestones, but on the other hand you’re improving the security situation over there. The long-term goal is the same – protecting the American people.”

He called his position in the military rewarding and said that all of his efforts are worth it to “secure freedom for this generation and beyond.”

Twelve years ago, at age 22, Major Gilbert was commissioned into the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) at Indiana State University in 1998. He received a military scholarship while at college and earned his bachelor’s degree in Communications. He went on to serve three combat tours of duty in Afghanistan as a member of the 173rd Airborne Bridge Combat Team. He spent a total of 42 months in theatre.

Gilbert describes himself as somewhat of a military brat. His father served in the military as well as his grandfather – a World War II veteran.

Currently, he is stationed at the U.S. Army Command and Staff College at Webster’s University in Fort Leventhal, Kansas, and is pursuing his Master’s degree in Acquisitions and Procurement Management.

Typically when you’re ranked Major, you attend the advanced learning center as opposed to a war college, which is usually intended for veteran military personnel.

Upon graduation from the general staff college, he will be assigned to a higher echelon position based on his particular skill set. He plans to stay in the military “for as long as I can.”

He explained military operations in the Afghanistan, and the Middle East as a whole, as complex.

“After being deployed to that theatre of operation I can honestly say I see a lot of improvement in establishing security forces,” he said. “There’s been a lot of reconstruction projects and development in the Afghan national army, the core of security in the country’s police and security agencies.”

He said the objective is to assist the Afghan people with building a government that they can trust.

“Over the past 5 years, I’ve seen significant progress,” Gilbert said. “I partnered as company commander and I would consistently be in contact with the same Afghan leaders and village elders. They’re all tired of the violence in their country and just want a legitimate government.”

In his experience with civilians, he said they want an economy where their children can prosper – an attitude they share with Americans.

“It’s about helping out,” said Gilbert. “When we do bilateral military training, we’re looking to improve their system. In today’s world, we’re going to war as an allied force. It’s coalition-based. In the military, we have to be able to accomplish the mission at any time in any given situation. That’s what we do best.”

Major Gilbert also recognizes the importance in staying neutral when it comes to political rhetoric about the military.

“We can’t afford to lean to one side or the other,” he said. “At that point, we really become ineffective. You need to realize that you serve the American people on-or-off duty. Sharing and experiencing different cultures is critical because when you’re partnering with other countries, they may have a different approach than we may have.”

“The relationships we build at our level are more critical than political attitudes political attitudes that are portrayed in the news media,” he explains.

And his feelings on the U.S. Navy SEALs mission that killed 9-11 mastermind and notorious al-Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden?

“I think the death of Bin Laden is critical to destroying and dismantling the adversarial networks that exist world-wide,” he said. “[What a] great Job by our special operations forces in such a decisive operation.”
To sum everything up, Gilbert’s opinion is straightforward and said it will take the work of the international community to seek and rid the world of terrorist hotbeds.

“At a macro level, we’re already fighting in two theatres of operation,” he stated, “and we have to be sure to consider how far we are willing to stretch our already limited forces. It’s all tied back to the international community and what our allies are willing to contribute.”

For now though, it’s back to enjoying “life in the States” and the “smaller things in life,” like getting his degree, advancing his career and enjoying time with his family.

“My sister having a child has really changed a few things and the center of attention is on Sophia,” he said. “It’s nice to sit down, not venturing out too far, and sharing memories and stories. It’s something that I’ve missed in the past, but now can look forward to.”

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.”

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.”