Eight members of American Legion Allen O. Delke Post 16 in Slatington, were honored for their 70 years of continuous membership in the organization on April 20.

Among them were 1st Lt. Vincent Burke, who served in World War II as a radar technician. He flew in B29s and at one time was on Tinian Island, the location from which the flight carrying the atomic bomb to Japan began.He went on 16 missions over Japan and was termed an independent meaning he flew on whichever airplane needed a radar technician that day rather than being part of a regular crew.He worked in countermeasures searching for anti-aircraft locations once the plane got close to a danger zone.He went to radar school in Sioux Falls, then to a school near Harvard University. It was there that he was commissioned a second lieutenant. After he got his commission he was moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, and went on to the Pacific Theater of the war.As an Air Force Cadet he heard the Glenn Miller Orchestra.Alfred Neff Jr. was in the Army and calls himself a "grunt." He was in the Battle of the Bulge. Asked what he did at the Bulge, he said, "I prayed. I was just like any other soldier shooting at someone."After the war he went to school in England, where there was a school with both English and American professors. The credits for the four courses he took were transferable to any school in America. By allowing the men to take classes in England, there were fewer getting home at the same time which had to be absorbed by the home population.He was to be home in five days, but it took from Dec. 5 to Dec. 27, 1945, due to rough water. He landed on Pier 92 in New York, went to Fort Dix and then New Cumberland. He called his parents to tell them he wouldn't be home for Christmas but would be shortly thereafter.Donald Roberts was a Navy radar operator, first on destroyer escorts in the Atlantic. The escorts were needed to stop the German submarines. Later he was converted to transport destroyers that carried troops to Japan.While on Okinawa he saw a lot of kamikaze activity. The harbor at Okinawa was smoke-screened so the ships could not be seen as readily.He was on the second ship to go to Nagasaki after the second atomic bomb was dropped."We were lucky. Our ship did not get torpedoed. Not too many people I knew got hurt," Roberts said.He returned home in January 1946.Joseph Zeller was an aviation electrician's mate chief with the Navy Air Troop CV4, on the carrier USS Ranger. He spent time in Africa and then was part of the first invasion of Europe on Nov. 8, 1942.The Ranger was supposed to be sunk by a German submarine in April 1943, and Adolf Hitler honored the sub captain for sinking it. However, it was a transport heading for Russia that had been sunk.Zeller was on a ship that escorted the Queen Elizabeth back to England.He came back to Argencia, Newfoundland, to train to go to Norway. That training continued at Scapa Flow, the largest naval base for England. It was above Scotland.The mission was to take out the heavy water facilities at Bodo, Norway. That would have allowed Germany to make the atomic bomb, which, Zeller said, would have changed the world.Not present to receive their plaques were Earl Acker, Allen Beltz, John Jones and Charles Person.