Paul Crager, Navy Sailor on the USS Bon Homme Richard CVA-31       This Month’s Guest Speaker      
In November 1965, Paul Crager joined the U.S. Navy.  As part of the terms of his three-year enlistment, he was given a choice of recruit training.  The choices at that time were Great Lakes or San Diego.  Since it was February, he chose San Diego.  After graduation, he received orders to report aboard the USS Bon Homme Richard CVA-31.  He was able to become part of the photo lab after several months aboard.  He became quite accomplished processing film and printing photographs.  The main mission of his ship was intelligence and photographically documenting everything that happened aboard the ship. He and his ship made two deployments to West Pacific where they would fly missions to support ground troops and bomb strategic targets. The Bon Homme Richard was credited with more enemy MIG kills than any other unit in all of the military in the Viet Nam era. During deployments, his ship made liberty calls to Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong, Subic Bay Philippines, and Singapore.  He was discharged from the Navy in January 1969.  With the assistance of the G.I bill, he attended college and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Business. His professional career was in the field of Sales and Marketing, which he did until I retiring just a few years ago. He and his wife will celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary this August. They have two children- a daughter and a son.  Their daughter and son-in-law just had their first child –a boy- Noah four weeks ago, making Paul and his wife grandparents. Currently he is doing computer-consulting work on a part time basis and teaching computer classes at the Warminster Senior Center. He will be present a video. A question and answers period will follow his lecture.

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Future Programs at the Abington Township Library          Coordinator – Brandon Traister

April 17	Love Company – The 100th Infantry Division	John Khoury
May 15	Afternoon Program - A B-17 Pilot Shot and former POW	Craig Shields
May 15	Evening Program - A Memoir of WWII (8th Airforce)	Charley McCracken
June 19	6th Marine Division at Okinawa	Eric Turner
July 17	Wounded and Captured at Normandy	Bob Levine
Aug 21	Captured at Sicily with the 82nd Airborne	Tim Dyas
Sept 18	B-24s in the Pacific “Snoopers”	Stephen Perrone
Oct 16	Ten Year Anniversary Dinner at Williamson’s Restaurant
Nov 20	P-47 Fighter Pilot	Charlie Osbourne
Dec 18	Pearl Harbor and 9/11 Attacks	Tom Kimmel

Programs are held on the third Tuesday of each month at 3:00PM and at 7:00PM. Please contact Brandon Traister at BrandonTraister@aol.com or 856-296-9256 if you have any ideas for future lectures at the Abington Township Library. Please note that we are not only looking for WWII Veterans, but also for veterans and survivors who lived and served during any armed conflicts to share their memories and experiences with our audience.

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Abington WWII Lecture Series Ten Year Anniversary Dinner          Williamson’s Restaurant

Save the date… we will be celebrating our ten-year anniversary at Williamson’s Restaurant in Hatboro, PA on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007. We will have a panel of former guest speakers of our lecture series. Cost will be twenty dollars per person and will include a full dinner. Sign up sheets will be in the back of the room at future lectures. You may also contact Brandon Traister by phone (856-296-9256), e-mail (BrandonTraister@aol.com), or regular mail (1324 Lincoln Drive, Voorhees, NJ 08043) to sign up. This will replace our October program at the Abington Library. Please make note: There will be no October program at the Abington Library.