work in progress
check our youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@oldboldpilots
this one-hour video by TG Vallas covers our most prominent members; wish we could have covered them all
Our background:
We started meeting for breakfast in 1985 and consisted of two former military pilots from Oceanside: Bernie Schechter and Ray Goodrich. It was Schechter who came up with the group’s name. Herb Anderson is also one of the earliest members.
The Old Bold Pilots goup (OBP) of Oceanside, California was founded by four exP47 fighter pilots around 1984-85.(2) The pilots were:
Col. Bernard “Bernie Schechter, USAF ret., Vista” CA.
Howard Dentz. Oceanside. CA
John Simone, Vista CA (current whereabouts unknown)
Bob Woodruff- Oceanside. CA
Bernie, Howard and Bob are deceased. Bernie and Howard continued attending the breakfast meetings until their deaths.(2)
Bob Woodruff was a motorcycle rider who lived in the Oceana commrmity in Oceanside.
Because his motorcycle had a loud muffler, he would wheel it down to El Camino Real, pushing it so as to not wake his neighbors on his early morning rides. One day while pushing his motorcycle along, Bob was hit by an automobile and killed. This was prior to 1997.(3)
John Simone left the group early on because he wanted the group to meet at a restatrrant in Vist not Oceanside. He attended rarely, if at all, after a falling out with the other three because of the location issue.(4)
Byron Cramblet of Vista and Bill Hosmer of Calsbad were the next two members. Bill’s wife says he was number five but she also says that Byron introduced Bill to the group so Byron was probably #5 and Bill #6.
Col. Raymond *Ray” Toliver, USAF ret- of Oceanside was an early member but not one of the originators.
l) Pacific Flyer May 2001 issue
2) info provided by Ethel Hosmer in 2009
3) from Charles Watry based upon info from Howard Dentz and Byron Cramblet
4) from Charles Watry based upon info from Howard Dentz
What’s very cool is that Larry Bishop would watch these guys meet when he was on active duty at Camp Pendleton.