Vet hosts memorial hike to a forgotten grave
LOCK HAVEN — Rick Bressler may not have originally intended to dive deeply into local legends — but now he’s discovered something of a mission doing just that.
It started innocuously enough.
“I was doing a work study at the Veterans of Foreign Wars benefits center, under Dave Bower, who is friends with Randy Gillen,” Bressler told The Express.
“Randy saw an article in Mountain Home magazine about nine years ago… He and Dave were on a hike in the Renovo area and Randy mentioned it to Dave, who was very interested and wanted to know more about it,” he continued.
“So, he handed it over to me to find out more,” Bressler said, chuckling. “Dave didn’t know what he had started.”
That original Mountain Home article, written by Express writer Matt Connor, is republished in today’s edition with the permission of Mountain Home. Connor had completed a lot of research for his article, which offers additional context and information on Captain Lawrence Ritter.
When Bressler started his research, all he knew about Captain Ritter was from a picture of the memorial stone at the site of the captain’s fatal crash near Leetonia, which gave him “the year he was born, the day he died, his name and rank, and so forth,” he said.
“The first thing I did was to find his death certificate,” Bressler said, “which clued me in to family names and addresses, which got me to Yonkers, N.Y., which is where he was from.”
His next steps involved combing newspaper archives, which scored him a hit — a 1943 edition that featured an article on Ritter, including a picture featuring Ritter sitting on top of his P-47 Thunderbolt, named Lady Eve IV, talking about his confirmed downing of 12 enemy aircraft, as well as taking out a Nazi sub on his own while flying back from a mission.
“That is when I knew we had an ace pilot on our hands,” Bressler said.
While being officially designated an ace pilot has required various achievements throughout history, generally speaking, five or more aerial victories has been about where the line is drawn.
In Ritter’s 1943 picture, he was at 12 — and this doesn’t include the fact that he went back to the European Theater afterwards, including flying missions over Nazi Germany.
Bressler has yet to find any final records for Ritter’s tally by the end of the war.
More records continue to filter in even now, though.
“Just Monday (April 16), I got the paperwork for his pension,” Bressler noted.
This is important because although a long and complicated search eventually led Bressler to finding Ritter’s niece, Janice, believed to be his closest next-of-kin, it is possible that Ritter may have had a child with his wife, Eve, Bressler said.
Although Bressler had to explain his story to Janice, she proved to be a goldmine for his research.
“She had a box from her grandmother and looked at what was inside for me,” Bressler said. Inside, Janice found a picture of Captain Ritter, as well as a couple letters, to parents, to Dartmouth College, etc.
She also found a condolence letter from President Truman, pictures of Captain Ritter’s squadron and fighter group — he was part of the 325th Fighter Group, known as the Checkertail Clan, 319th Squadron.
Over the course of the research, Bressler found out some details about Ritter’s personal life before the war, including that he was a track, field, and football star.
“He won the 100-yard dash at 9.9 seconds in 1940 at the Penn Relays,” Bressler said.
“His father was a chemist, who invented the Ritter Reaction,” he said.
“The whole tragedy of this,” Bressler said, “is that Ritter crashed in a freak snowstorm –imagine that, snow in April,” he laughed. “April 26, 1946 … and it wasn’t until seven months later that his crash site was found.”
Most of the crash debris, including the engine, was allegedly retrieved and scrapped.
It was another 55 years after that first finding that Ritter’s memorial site was rediscovered.
In 2000-01, Boy Scout troops from the area raised money for and placed the memorial stone.
Bressler didn’t work alone, of course.
He had help along the way, in particular from Austin Donahay, a senior at Central Mountain High School who is completing his senior project by assisting Bressler with the planned Captain Ritter Memorial Hike and Ceremony.
“I’ve been to the site three times. There have been so many friends that have helped me. Randy, Austin, Dave, Jeremy Rossman — who was with me the first time we actually found it, on March 9, 2018.”
Bressler said, “Ultimately, Jeremy and I accidentally found the easiest way there. We started driving after we left the site — eventually, we found power lines and followed them out.”
Throughout all of this, Bressler noted wryly that he has somehow become a sort of “foremost expert” on Captain Ritter, to the point where “Selfridge Air Field Museum wants to include Captain Ritter and has asked me for help.”
Selfridge Air Field was Ritter’s last post, where he departed from on his ill-fated final flight.
As for the Captain Ritter Memorial Hike and Ceremony:
It will be held Thursday, April 26, and interested parties should plan to meet at 11 a.m. in the parking lot on Church Street, Lock Haven, behind the Jersey Shore State Bank and the VFW Benefits Center.
From there, Bressler intends for the group to convoy out to the site, leaving the parking lot between 11:15 and 11:30 a.m. at the latest.
“We want to start the hike at the gate at 1 p.m.,” he said. “We will have the gate unlocked, so you can drive up to the first landing and can get within 75 feet of the memorial stone, so we can still get people who are challenged physically up there.”
“Once everyone is there and calmed down, our little service will begin.”
Four different speakers are currently lined up to participate in the service — Gillen, Austin Donahay, Bressler, and Ritter’s niece, Janice.
“Ritter’s family is coming,” Bressler said, with emotion.
Bressler will have some help from his family, too.
His wife, Jamie Bressler, is singing the national anthem. His daughter Maggie is making paracord bracelets to commemorate the ceremony and giving one to everyone in attendance at the ceremony. Terry Banfill is handling taps and colors. Matt Teachey is doing the invocation and benediction.
“Anybody who wants to come is welcome to come,” he said, hoping locals will turn out and join this trek to honor a brave veteran.
From the intersection of East Water and Jay streets, the drive is about 43 miles to the gate.
Then, the hike from the gate is about 1.5 to 1.75 miles, with a 30-40 degree incline at most — making for a fairly tame hike, Bressler said.
There will be a reception after the hike at Creekside Restaurant, starting at 5 p.m. The VFW Benefits Center is providing the hors d’oeuvres, but “dinner is at your own expense,” Bressler said. The reception will also feature a little presentation, and Bressler expects this event to last about two hours.
Moving forward, Bressler plans to put a book together.
“I’m working on that slowly but surely,” he said.
He has also made a Facebook page dedicated to Captain Ritter, and started a Youtube channel called “American Heroes,” which has three videos about Ritter on it.
Bressler’s longer-term plans include researching and highlighting the stories of other veterans, both living and dead.
His plans have been complicated by a fire at the National Personnel Records Center on July 12, 1973.
A lot of the main archival records of veterans from World Wars I and II, as well as the Korean and Vietnam wars, were lost. Fortunately there are alternate sources to help him piece stuff together, Bressler said.
“The irony of all of this is that the day of the fire was the day I was born — so I feel a bit like I was supposed to do it.”
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