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The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Raymond C. Hoersch.md

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category tags alias summary location relations created updated
Crime & Abuse Networks
Person
RCHorsch
WorldWarII
GliderPilot
BucksCounty
Aviation
Raymond C. Hoersch Sr.
Raymond Hoersch
Ray Hoersch Sr.
Bucks County engineer and Second World War glider pilot, father of the pornographer and fugitive R.C. Horsch, whose Chalfont house and aircraft registration were tied to his son's cases. Chalfont, Pennsylvania
type with role fn
relative_of R.C. Horsch father 1
type with role fn
relative_of Albert Hoersch son 2
type with fn
spouse_of Clara Hoersch 5
2026-09-23 2026-09-23

Raymond C. Hoersch was a Bucks County, Pennsylvania mechanical engineer and a glider pilot of the United States Army Air Forces in the World War II, the father of the Philadelphia pornographer, counterfeiter, and fugitive R.C. Horsch, who was born Raymond Charles Hoersch Jr. in 1943. He was a son of Albert Hoersch and Helen E. Hoersch of 417 West Chew Street in the Olney, Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, the house that his grandson Eugene Horsch acquired from R.C. Horsch in 2006 and that was searched in the Olney House Investigation of 2026.123

Glider Pilot

His son said in 2026 that he flew cargo gliders for the Army Air Corps and was stationed in London: large plywood aircraft, towed aloft six or eight at a time behind a Douglas DC-3, each able to carry a jeep or twelve to sixteen troops, which landed once behind enemy lines by crashing in a controlled way. "My father said generally, you pick two trees and you went between them to shear the wings off," he said, and added that his father's war stories concerned "slipping across the English Channel and smuggling back a plane load of wine." In January 1979 a notice in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania newspapers asked former World War II glider pilots living in the area to contact "State Commander Raymond Hoersch, 523 N. Main St., Chalfont."14

Bucks County

He married Clara Hoersch, a daughter of Eugene D. Hagerty and Cecilia T. Hagerty of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. In January 1955 a Bucks County social column reported that Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Hoersch had been entertained at a New Year's Eve party in Paoli, Pennsylvania in honor of their thirteenth wedding anniversary, and that Mr. and Mrs. Albert Hoersch of Philadelphia and Mr. and Mrs. Elwood Hagerty of Reading, Pennsylvania had been their guests.56 His son described a childhood on a farm near Stroudsburg, a one-room schoolhouse, and a father with whom he "never, ever agreed about anything," especially about the Second World War and the Vietnam War, but who "would always stand up for me and pretty much get me out of whatever trouble I was in with the authorities."13

In May 1964 a firm named R. C. Hoersch & Associates, at Rural Delivery 1, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, advertised in The Philadelphia Inquirer for a mechanical design draftsman.7 In September 1969 Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Hoersch "of Doylestown" attended the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Clara's parents in Stroudsburg with their daughter Helen; the son's wife attended separately, listed as Mrs. Raymond Hoersch Jr., of Philadelphia.8 The following month Raymond C. Hoersch and his wife sold a property on Gayman Road in Plumstead Township, Pennsylvania for 48,000 dollars.9 In July 1971, when a car he owned crashed into a tree on South York Road in Hatboro, Pennsylvania with his daughter, then Mrs. Bowers, in it, he was living at the English Village Apartments in Horsham Township, Pennsylvania; in September 1971 he bought a property in Chalfont, Pennsylvania from Karl R. Zuch for 36,400 dollars, and in July 1973 the Chalfont borough council approved the division of land he owned on Oak Avenue into three lots.101112

523 North Main Street

The house at 523 North Main Street, Chalfont, was the address his son gave in December 1972 when, as "Raymond C. Hoersch, Jr.," he sued the Secretary of the Army to void his call to active duty, and in December 1974, when the United States Secret Service arrested the son for counterfeiting, officials described it as his parents' home, where he had been living recently.1314 On August 20, 1973, a Cessna 210A, registration N1437J, was registered to "Hoersch Raymond C" at that address; the registration was cancelled on July 11, 1984. On July 26, 1981, while the son was living in New Zealand under a false identity, the aircraft lost power in its initial climb from Doylestown Airport and was brought back for a wheels-up landing; the National Transportation Safety Board recorded the pilot in command as 62 years old, an engineer holding a commercial certificate, with a minor injury.1516 Clara Hoersch was still living in Chalfont in 1991.5

Footnotes

  1. West, Ashley. "Unknowing Ray Horsch, Episode 1: Youth," The Rialto Report, Podcast 171, September 13, 2026, audio at 08:39 to 10:20 and 26:01 to 27:14. https://www.therialtoreport.com/2026/09/13/ray-horsch-2/ ↩︎

  2. "Hoersch, Albert," death notice, The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 3, 1972, p. 10 ("father of Albert Jr., Raymond C., Helen M Hoersch, 417 W. Chew st."). https://www.newspapers.com/image/180006503/ ↩︎

  3. "How a pornographer's violent fantasies blurred fact and fiction as cops searched Olney house for missing women," The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 2, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/a/raymond-eugene-horsch-olney-philadelphia-missing-women-history-20260802.html ↩︎

  4. [Notice seeking former World War II glider pilots], The Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre), January 29, 1979, p. 36; the same notice ran in The Mountaintop Eagle and The Miner (Carbondale) in January and February 1979. https://www.newspapers.com/image/407620980/ ↩︎

  5. "Cecilia T. Hagerty," obituary, The Morning Call, October 26, 1991, p. 115 ("Daughter, Clara Hoersch of Chalfont, Bucks County"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/283774999/ ↩︎

  6. [Social column], The Daily Intelligencer (Doylestown), January 10, 1955, p. 2. https://www.newspapers.com/image/40163522/ ↩︎

  7. [Classified advertisement, "Draftsman, Mechanical Design"], The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 12, 1964, p. 42. Whether the firm was the father's or the son's is not stated. https://www.newspapers.com/image/180608119/ ↩︎

  8. [Report of the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Hagerty], Pocono Record (Stroudsburg), September 26, 1969, p. 6. https://www.newspapers.com/image/40464241/ ↩︎

  9. [Bucks County real-estate transfers], News Herald (Perkasie), October 29, 1969, p. 29 ("Plumstead ... Raymond C. Hoersch ux to John W. Richards ux $48,000 ... Gayman Rd."). https://www.newspapers.com/image/540614261/ ↩︎

  10. [Report of a car crash on South York Road], The Daily Intelligencer, July 21, 1971, p. 25 ("The car is owned by Raymond Hoersch, English Village Apartments, Horsham. Hoersch is the father of Mrs. Bowers."). https://www.newspapers.com/image/47541500/ ↩︎

  11. [Bucks County real-estate transfers], The Daily Intelligencer, September 10, 1971, p. 8 ("Chalfont: ... Karl R. Zuch to Raymond C. Hoersch, $36,400"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/47552873/ ↩︎

  12. [Chalfont borough council report], The Reporter (Lansdale), July 19, 1973, p. 4 ("A subdivision of land owned by Raymond C. Hoersch, located at Oak ave., was approved"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/1034188168/ ↩︎

  13. Hoersch v. Froehlke, 382 F. Supp. 1235 (E.D. Pa. 1974). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2596970/hoersch-v-froehlke/ ↩︎

  14. "[...] bogus $180,000 in Bucks raid," The Morning Call (Allentown), December 11, 1974, p. 5 ("The Chalfont address was identified as Hoersch's parents' home where he had been living recently"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/275702319/ ↩︎

  15. Federal Aviation Administration, Aircraft Registry, Aircraft Deregistered File, record for N1437J, downloaded September 23, 2026. https://registry.faa.gov/database/ReleasableAircraft.zip ↩︎

  16. National Transportation Safety Board, pre-1982 aviation accident database, record for N1437J, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, July 26, 1981. https://data.ntsb.gov/avdata ↩︎