August 26, 2005

Looking Back on Oroville’s Heroes

By Stu Shaner  533-8174

 

Bill Connelly and I are Co Chairmen of the Oroville Veterans Memorial Park Committee.  If you would like to have a speaker at your club or organization, Ted Grainger and I would be happy to come and speak.  Please call me at 533-8147. Find us on the web at www.orovilleveteransmemorialpark.org.

 

Oroville Mercury February 24, 1944

 

“SOME GAVE ALL” 

Two Chico Soldiers Killed at Kwajalein  

Two Chico men were killed in the invasion of Kwajalein Island in the Marshalls.  Tech. Sgt. Donald G. Hansen, 26, met death Feb. 3, according to a telegram from the war department received by his mother, Mrs. Marie P. Hansen of Chico.  Mr. and Mrs. Fred F. Watson received official notice that their son, 1st Sgt. Earl L. Watson, was killed in action at Kwajalein Feb. 4.  Both men were members of Company G of the National Guard before the war, and both participated in the Kiska invasion.

 

Farewell Party Will Also Mark Birthday  

Ernest Jovich of Quincy Road, who will report at Monterey tomorrow for induction into the army, will be given a combined birthday and farewell party at the home of his wife’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. W. Mastellotto of Canyon Highlands Drive this evening.  A turkey dinner will be served members of the family.  Jovich, the father of four children, was inducted from the Quincy district.  His 31st birthday is tomorrow.

 

OKLAHOMA CITY AIR DEPOT, TINKER FIELD

Now stationed at Tinker Field is Major Garrison A. Frost, formerly of Oroville, Calif.  He is a war surgeon at the station hospital at this model establishment of the Air Service Command for the maintenance and repair of aircraft and the training of air depot groups.  Major Frost is the son of G. A. Frost of Los Angeles.  He is a graduate of Loyola high school, and received his B. S. and M. D. degrees at Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, where he became a member of the Phi Chi Medical Fraternity.

 

GERALD BARNES TRAINING AT YMA GUNNERY SCHOOL 

Pfc. Gerald J. Barnes has arrived at Yuma, Ariz., for training in an air gunnery school after graduating from the radio school of the Army Air Forces training command at Scott Field, Ill.  Advice from Scott Field was that Barnes was now qualified for duty in radio operation on a fighting bomber.  He was six months at that base.  Son of Mr. and Mrs. Gerald E. Barnes, the soldier formerly was manager of the grocery department at Barney’s market.  He entered the service with the air force cadets at Santa Ana, Calif., in Feb. 1942.  He graduated from the local high school in 1939.

 

PALERMO BLUEJACKET WINS NAVY MACHINIST RATING

AMES, Iowa- At recent graduation ceremonies at the Naval Training School (Diesel) on the Iowa State College campus here, Noel Spain, from Clarington Avenue, Palermo, Calif., was promoted to the petty officer rate of motor machinist’s mate third class.  Selection to the specialty school is based on the results of the bluejackets’ recruit training aptitude tests.  The completed course of study included the operation, function and maintenance of internal combustion engines.  A theoretical phase also included fuel oil engines and electricity.  The petty officer is awaiting active duty orders to sea or to some shore establishment.

 

A big thank you to Dr. J.A Sigfrid and Jim Halsey for putting on “Halsey’s Barn Dance”.  Also thank you to, Jim Halsey and Dave Houser for the dinner music and Cow Boy Poetry by Mandy Olmstead, Hank Gibbons, Jim Cartwell and Mary Kauk, Browns Valley writer .   Also the delicious Tri-Tip prepared by C & C B.B. Q.  The event is held at Dr. Sigfrid’s Big Barn in Palermo.  This event has really grown in the last 3 years that I have attended.  Doc Sigfrid served well in WWII on Amphibian Tanks and proud he is of his two sons, Stuart and Dave.  Two of my brother Ironworker friends.  Good hands both of them.  The American Legion has been invited to the Barn Dance for a number of years to serve cool refreshments and again this year the proceeds from that has gone to help build our Veterans Memorial.  Two young Chico Men died for us, National Guard Members before the war, was Company G from Chico?  Hopefully these Men will be honored on Chico’s new Memorial.  Could Ernest Jovich be my Thermalito grammar school friend Cisco’s, Gene to everyone else, father?

V. J. Day has come and gone in Oroville, Most here didn’t even know.  Well, I remember 60 years ago, I was 4 almost 5.  I remember, in my small, patriotic, Pennsylvania town of New Brighton, a wild celebration in the Streets.  My Father, Walter Shaner, shot off the 22 rifle I still have.