* Howard A. Sessler; Engineer, WWII Bomber Pilot

Howard Albert Sessler of Moorpark, a retired general engineering contractor, has died at the age of 83.

Sessler, who died Feb. 9 in Thousand Oaks, was born Aug. 11, 1917, in Boston, to Edward and Elizabeth Sessler.

As a young man, he worked as a caddy at a local golf course and played baseball with a Boston Red Sox farm team.

While attending Northeastern College in 1940, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps. After attending flight school, he was trained to fly a B-25 bomber and was commissioned just a day before Pearl Harbor was bombed. He flew routine missions on submarine patrol off the coast of Oregon before being transferred to Tacoma, Wash., where he met Gen. James Doolittle and volunteered for a secret mission with the general.

He trained at Elgin Air Force Base, practicing short takeoffs and landings, then went to Oakland, where he boarded the Hornet. It was there that he was told, along with 80 other volunteers, that they were going to bomb Tokyo.

The planes were to land in China afterward, but poor visibility forced Sessler’s plane to make a water landing. He swam about a mile to an island, where he met up with four others. They were taken on a Chinese merchant ship to another island, where they hid from the Japanese in the tunnel of a Buddhist temple. After finally arriving in mainland China, they walked for five nights to get to a hospital.

Back in the U.S., he volunteered for duty in Africa and from there went to Italy with a B-25 group.

When he returned to civilian life, he married Frances Shrader in 1944 and their daughter, Barbara Elizabeth, was born in 1945. He earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from USC and was employed by the Los Angeles County Flood Control District.

In 1964, he married Anna Bell and started his own company.

He was a member of the Moorpark Townsite Committee, the Contractors Arbitration Board, the Underground Contractors Assn., the Engineer and Grading Contractors Assn. and the Associated Contractors of America. He was named Contractor of the Year by the Ventura County Contractors Assn. He was also a master Mason of Downey and a member of the American Legion Post 502.

In addition to his wife, Anna, of Moorpark, and daughter, Barbara, of Long Beach, he is survived by stepson Duncan Fane of Escondido, three grandsons and two step-grandchildren.

A memorial service is scheduled for 11 a.m. March 17 at Faith Lutheran Church in Moorpark.

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In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Doolittle Raiders Scholarship Fund, c/o Col. Henry A. Potter USAF (Ret.), 2605 Loyola Lane, Austin, Texas 78723; or to the American Diabetes Foundation.

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Arrangements are under the direction of Pierce Bros. Griffin Mortuary in Thousand Oaks.