The Bugle Call
April, 2017, Volume 7, Num. 4
PRESIDENT
Rudy Stroh
215-443-5782
VICE PRESIDENT
Herb Colyer
215-675-3004
SECRETARY
Bob McQue
215-443-5065
TREASURER
Rose Torgerson
215-672-1416
PAST PRESIDENT
James Morgan
215-682-0187
CB1 DIRECTOR &
COLOR GUARD
LEADER
Jack Robbins
215-444-0140
CB1 DIRECTOR
Jerry Wright
215-674-2328
CB2 DIRECTORS
George Hopely
215-672-7287
Josie Larson
215-675-5290
CB3 DIRECTORS
Keith Lawrence
215-444-0116
Don Leypoldt
215-441-5160
SGT AT ARMS
Frank Gorman
215-674-1418
SERVICE OFFICER
Herb Craft
215-672-2960
CHAPLAIN
Chuck Donnelly
215-675-3307
SHIRTS /
MEMBERSHIP
Don Lawrence
215-572-5654
PROGRAM
Bob Swan
215-674-1935
VALET SRVICES
Russ Neiger
610-930-3077
Warminster, Pennsylvania
ANN’S CHOICE RESIDENTS AND GUESTS ARE INVITED TO THIS FREE
PROGRAM - (Club membership is not required)
NEXT MEETING:
May 2017 Memorial Day Service
The Memorial Day service will be held
on Tuesday, May 30 at 11:00 in the
Ann’s Choice Chapel. Major General
Bucks County Tour of Honor - 2016 (ret) Wesley Craig will be the
speaker. Major General Craig is a
Prior to the meeting, staff from the Bucks
former commander of the 28th
County Recorder of Deeds Office will be
Infantry Division and former Adjutant
available outside the entrance to the PAC
General of Pennsylvania.
to process applications and take pictures
for a Bucks County Veterans ID Discount All members are encouraged to wear
Card. Bring your form DD-214 with you. their Veterans Group shirts to the
service.
The program for the meeting will be a
video presentation by a resident who
Rides to Horsham VA Center
went on the
Do you need assistance getting to the
October 2016
Horsham VA Center? Or do you know
Tour of Honor
a veteran who needs assistance?
to Washington,
The Veterans Group has a group of
DC. These
Tours of Honor volunteers who will provide transportare a program tation. For more information, contact
offered through Judy Wright at (215) 674-2328.
Buck County. Information will also be
Valet Service Volunteer
provided on these Tours
Opportunity
Other residents have been on previous
The Valet Services group assists
Tours of Honor. Each has been moved
residents with seating at events in the
by the trip and enjoyed the experience
PAC and at the chapel. With the next
immensely. If you have not yet taken
term of ACLLA underway and the RAC
the opportunity to participate in a Tour,
and Executive Town Hall meeting
you are encouraged to sign up for a Tour.
additional volunteers are welcome to
assist with this service. Contact Russ
Bucks County Tours of Honor
Neiger at (610) 930-3077 for more
On Monday, June 5th, there will be a Tour
information.
of Honor to Washington, DC, for Vietnam
Veterans and for other veterans who
New Members
served during that time. Six buses
A big welcome to Jay S. Hambro (US
scheduled for this Tour are full; standby
Army – served in Alaska during the
registrations are being accepted and they
Korean War) who has recently joined
will have first priority for the next
the Ann’s Choice Veteran’s Group.
Vietnam Tour.
Treasurer’s Corner
There will be another Tour of Honor in
October for World War II and Korean War Income for the general fund comes
veterans. Bob Swan will have applicafrom new member dues and the skill
tions for this Tour at the April meeting.
drawing. The balance in the General
Fund is very low and extra donations
More information can be found at
would provide a welcome boost.
www.BucksCountyTourofHonor.org .
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
at 7:30 pm, Ann’s Choice PAC
*****
April 2017
The Bugle Call
The Doolittle Raid, April 1942
America Strikes Back
Once the shock of the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor subsided, the focus of American military
planners turned to retaliation even if it was only
symbolic. A few weeks after the attack, Lt. Col.
James H. Doolittle presented his superiors with a
daring and unorthodox plan. B25 bombers,
normally land-based, would be transported by an
aircraft carrier to within striking distance of the
Japanese mainland and launched to attack a
number of cities.
A top-secret training program began immediately.
The major problem was to learn how to force the
bomber, which normally required a minimum of
1200 feet of runway for takeoff, to get airborne
using the 450 feet of a carrier deck. After weeks of
training, the volunteer crews flew to San Francisco
where they boarded the USS Hornet and joined a
small flotilla of ships headed for Japan.
The attack was launched on the morning of April
18, 1942, 150 miles further from Japan than
planned out of fear
that the task force had
been spotted by the
Japanese. All sixteen
B-25s lumbered
successfully off the
carrier's flight deck
and headed toward
Japan, each one
skimming just above the waves and carrying a
payload of four bombs. Thirteen bombers targeted
Tokyo; the others struck Nagoya, Osaka and Kobe.
After dropping their bombloads on their assigned
targets, the attackers flew on until they ran out of
fuel. Fifteen of the crews landed in Japaneseoccupied China and made it to friendly territory
with the aid of Chinese peasants. One crew landed
in the Soviet Union and was immediately interned.
Eight airmen were captured by the Japanese, four
of whom were later executed.
Although the raid was materially but a pin prick,
its psychological impact was monumental. It
elevated the flagging American morale and
destroyed the Japanese conviction that they were
invulnerable to air attack. The humiliated Japanese
command hastily planned an attack on the
American outpost at Midway an attack whose
failure would become the turning point of the war
in the Pacific.
After landing in China, Colonel Doolittle considered
Page 2
his mission a failure. He was surprised when he
was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor
upon his homecoming.
Takeoff:
Lt. Ted Lawson (Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, 1943)
piloted one of the attacking bombers. We join his
story as he watches the strike
leader, Colonel James H. Doolittle,
gun the engines of his B25 and
attempt to take off from the carrier
deck:
"A Navy man stood at the bow of the
ship, and off to the left, with a
checkered flag in his hand. He gave
Doolittle, who was at the controls, the signal to
begin racing his engines again. He did it by
swinging the flag in a circle and making it go faster
and faster. Doolittle gave his engines more and
more throttle until I was afraid that he'd burn
them up. A wave crashed heavily at the bow and
sprayed the deck.
Then I saw that the man with the flag was waiting,
timing the dipping of the ship so that Doolittle's
plane would get the benefit of a rising deck for its
takeoff. Then the man gave a new signal. Navy
boys pulled the blocks from under Doolittle's
wheels. Another signal and Doolittle released his
brakes and the bomber moved forward.
With full flaps, engines at full throttle and his left
wing far out over the port side of the Hornet,
Doolittle's plane waddled and then lunged slowly
into the teeth of the gale that swept down the
deck. His left wheel stuck on the white line as if it
were a track. His right wing, which had barely
cleared the wall of the island as he taxied and was
guided up to the starting line, extended nearly to
the edge of the starboard side.
We watched him like hawks, wondering what the
wind would do to him, and whether we could get
off in that little run toward the bow. If he couldn't,
we couldn't.
Doolittle picked up more speed and held to his
line, and, just as the Hornet lifted itself up on the
top of a wave and cut through it at full speed,
Doolittle's plane took off. He had yards to spare.
He hung his ship almost straight up on its props,
until we could see the whole top of his B25. Then
he leveled off and I watched him come around in a
tight circle and shoot low over our heads straight
down the line painted on the deck."
Adapted from "The Doolittle Raid, 1942," EyeWitness
to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com (2007).
Published monthly January through June and September through November
Editor: John Hodges, (215) 323-4969, BC 412, [email protected]