May 24, 2016

A Toughkenamon resident and World War II veteran regularly attends the Kennett Square Memorial Day parade, but this year, he will experience it in a different way.

Anthony DiFabio, 93, is one of four WWII vets named as grand marshals of the 2016 parade, which steps off at 10 a.m. on Monday, May 30, in Kennett Square Borough. The other marshals are Ralph D. Doss, Raymond J. Natale Sr., and the late Horace J. Brown Sr., said a press release from Historic Kennett Square.

Each year the parade committee chooses several WWII veterans and has them lead the parade that draws more than 1,000 participants and more than 12,000 spectators. Each grand marshal is local, an active veteran (who attends parades and banquets, for instance), and has been involved with the American Legion or Veterans of Foreign Wars posts, according to parade Chairman Bill Taylor.

DiFabio served in the Army in the 11^th Airborne and the 472^nd Field Artillery. He enlisted in 1943 and was discharged in 1946 on the same date – Jan. 6. He and his brothers all fought in the war, and all came out of the war, DiFabio said in a telephone interview.

He served in New Guinea, Luzon, the Philippines, and finally Okinawa, Japan, where he helped disarm the Japanese soldiers after their country’s surrender, he said.

After the war, he moved from Ardmore, Pa., to Toughkenamon, where he spent 39 years working for National Vulcanized Fiber. He worked his way up from a trimmer on the line to a foreman, he said.

Another grand marshal joining DiFabio is Ralph D. Doss, 91. Doss lived in Kennett Square several times and now lives in Gordonville, Pa. He joined the Navy on March 20, 1943 when he was 17.

“I went into Philadelphia to enlist, and my mother had to sign for me since I went in before I was 18,” Doss said in a telephone interview. “Then they put me on a train to New York.”

He trained in Sampson, N.Y., and during the war served on the U.S.S. Sigourney, a destroyer, and the U.S.S. Duluth, a cruiser, in the Pacific Theater. The Sigourney was a flagship, where the highest-ranking officer in the fleet was stationed, and it traveled around the Pacific during the war.

After about a year-and-a-half on the Sigourney, Doss was transferred back to the states to await the U.S.S. Duluth, which was being built.

“I was on (the Duluth) for 17 months, and we ended up at Okinawa, at the mouth of Tokyo Bay,” Doss said. “They radioed and told us to move several hundred miles out to sea.”

The reason for that request, he said, was the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Doss earned four Bronze stars during the war and says he was fortunate to return home. He recalls one battle that began at 11 p.m. and lasted until 5 p.m. the next day.

“I could see the wake of the torpedoes coming toward us,” he said. “It missed us and hit another ship. I was just plain lucky to get back alive.”

After the war, he worked as a painter and painted many buildings around the Kennett area, Doss said, including the old borough building. In 1959, Doss was hired by Longwood Gardens and retired in 1987 after 28 years.

Raymond J. Natale Sr. is the third grand marshal, and, like DiFabio, had brothers who also fought in the war. The 90-year-old came from a large family in Darby, Delaware County. He dropped out of school with the hope of joining the Marine Corps, but his parents didn’t approve. Right after his 18^th birthday, President Roosevelt sent him a letter – his draft notice, on June 22, 1944. He was inducted in the Army in Pennsylvania and sent to Texas for 17 weeks, he said in an interview.

“I would up in the 659^th Field Artillery Battalion,” said Natale, who lives in London Grove.

He recalls how they went to the U.S.N.S. Henry Gibbons, a troop transport ship, and Natale found a bunk and fell asleep.

“I woke up to the noise of the tugboats towing us out,” he said, adding that the first couple days on the ship made him seasick. About seven days out, he got his sea legs; not too long after, a “terrible storm” hit the ships but his seasickness remained at bay.

“You’d look back at the other ships, and they looked like submarines,” he said.

Natale’s unit first went to England, and then to France and Germany. He was a truck driver in the motor pool. He also served as the reserve chauffeur for Major General Ernest Harmon, a two-star general.

Natale was discharged June 8, 1946, and returned to the Collingdale area to live and work. He said he went back to school under the GI Bill and encountered a history teacher who asked him what he wanted to do.

“I said I was interested in the state police,” Natale said, adding that the teacher’s husband, a retired state trooper, encouraged him to hone his clerical skills and mentored him on his way to become a state trooper.

After finishing school in 1948 and taking six weeks of clerical studies, Natale began working on joining the Pennsylvania State Police. He was shipped to the Wyoming barracks on April 1, 1950, and worked at different barracks around the state. He started with the Avondale barracks in 1956, and was the ninth trooper at the station, working there until his retirement.

He also worked in sales following his retirement.

Horace J. Brown, Sr. is a posthumous grand marshal. The lifelong Kennett Square resident died April 11 and will be honored along with the others at the parade. According to Taylor, Brown enlisted in the Army in 1943 and served in the Pacific Theater. He was an assistant machine gunner under General Douglas MacArthur.

He recently received nine medals he earned while serving his country.

The Kennett Square Memorial Day Parade begins on Monday, May 30, 2016 at 10 a.m., but organizers recommend arrive early to stake out a viewing spot along the route, which covers East South Street to South Union Street to East Cypress Street to South Broad Street to North Union Street. For more information, visit www.historickennettsquare.com.