May 28, 2019 By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 2 min read

One of the perks of owning an antique car is being invited to show it off during parades.

Among the automobiles rolling along East McMurray Road during Peters Township’s Memorial Day parade was Carter Roth’s 1941 Ford De Luxe coupe, which was built shortly before American manufacturers ceased production of nonmilitary vehicles for the duration of World War II.

Sometimes, the Nottingham Township resident carries special passengers for similar celebrations, as he did back in the 1990s in Sarasota, Fla.

“A lot of the units that were in the Second World War trained in that area, so they came back to Sarasota for their reunions,” Roth said. “And one year, Doolittle’s Raiders were coming back.”

He was referring to the participants in the April 18, 1942, air raid over Tokyo, planned and led by Lt. Col. James Doolittle of the U.S. Army Air Corps, the first demonstration that American bombers could inflict damage on the Japanese mainland.

Roth’s passengers in Sarasota happened to be a gentleman named J. Royden Stork and his wife, Kay. And Roy, as everyone called him, happened to have been co-pilot on one of the raid’s B-25s, which bombed a chemical plant and landed in China when it ran out of gas.

“When I was a young man, I read the book ’30 Seconds Over Tokyo,'” Roth said about the chronicling of the raid by Bob Considine and Ted W. Lawson. “So I was thrilled to death. I told him, ‘I read the book, and to have you in my car is beyond belief.'”

The parade was a success.

“You would have thought it was V-J Day. The streets were lined. Everybody had little flags, and they’re waving them. We’re going along and smiling,” Roth recalled. “Every so often, there would be an old soldier from the big war. He’d be stuffed into his old uniform. When we went by, he would step off the curb and snap a proper salute to the gentleman in the back. And that’s when I lost it.”

He still could drive his Ford, though, while crying.

As for Roy Stark, he died in 2002 at age 85. And Richard Cole, the last surviving Raider, was 103 when he died this April. He had been scheduled to visit Sarasota that same month to be honored.