October 23, 2015

Oroville Mercury Register
Sept 10, 1941
Plan Blackout Along Pacific
Vancouver, B. C. –(UP)- Canada and the United States plan a test blackout of the entire Pacific coast from California to Alaska, Mayor J. W. Cornett said today. Plans for the test are being made by Mayor F. H. La Guardia of New York, U. S. civilian defense director, he said, and it will be held “in the immediate future.”

Oroville Mercury Register
Sept 10, 1941
U. S. Marine Said Missing Off Iceland
An Oroville mother received word yesterday that her son was missing and presumably was lost from a United States craft near Iceland. The message came in a government telegram to Mrs. Nellie Glock, of Virginia Avenue, employed on the local WPA sewing project. It said merely that her son, Corporal Andrew Jensen, 41, of Sioux City, Nebr., was among the missing from the craft, she said. There was no further explanation. Possibility that additional information might be sent the mother was seen today. There have been no news reports on any mishap involving United States forces engaged in occupation of Iceland. Jensen went to Iceland eight months ago. He has been in the United States Marine Corps since 1914. He has a wife and four children in Sioux City, Nebr.
(Stu- help me find more of this man.)

Oroville Mercury Register
Sept 10, 1941
Army Speeds Private To Mother’s Bedside
Charles Kennady Sees Mother Before Her Death Thanks To Soldier’s Help
The last thing the boys in Company C of the 5th battalion, ordnance training center, Aberdeen, Md., would want is praise in this story. The army’s like that. Tough and hard on the exterior, but with a heart down inside. But because of their generosity Private Charles Kennady of Oroville, a selectee in the new draft army, was able to reach the bedside of his dying mother, Mrs. Mary M. Kennady in Oroville, before she expired last night. Receives Telegram Kennady left Oroville with the August 6 quota of selectees and was sent to Aberdeen after eight days at the Presidio of Monterrey. He received a telegram Wednesday night from a sister, Mrs. Myrtle Smith of Sacramento, that his mother was not expected to live through the night. When he asked leave to hurry to her bedside his company commander, Lt. William J. Barnes, endeavored to make arrangements to have the private fly west on an army bomber. But the only bomber leaving Washington, D.C., was going on a non-stop test flight to Albuquerque, N. M., and had no room. Men Raise Funds Train travel might be too slow, Sergeant Quinn of Kennady’s company, which includes among its members Private Bob Wallace, son of the vice president, later appeared with $140, money contributed by the men of Company C for plane fare. The Oroville man left Washington Friday morning and arrived here Saturday noon after alighting from an airline plane in Sacramento and coming here by automobile. His mother recognized him as he arrived at her bedside. He had won his race with death, thanks to those khaki-clad defenders back in Aberdeen who probably would blush like the devil if you even so much as hinted that the army has a heart, under the khaki, the discipline and the flinty exterior.

Memorial Tiles-Oroville Veterans Memorial Park
www.orovilleveteransmemorialpark.org
Legion of Merit, Charles Kennady Tec4 US Army 1941-1945

Stu’s Notes:
The above is all we know of Charles Kennady, although some one here has bought him a tile in our wall. We hope to build the footings for the wall soon. This is the second article I’ve found about an Oroville soldier getting home in time to see his Mother one last time. When my daughter, S.S. Deborah Shaner, was training on the east coast her Mother, my former wife, passed away. She was sent home with a plane ticket by a well known group, which I will not name, who made her pay back the Money. Which makes me wonder, why do we need Wounded Warriors? Our Government should take care of all the needs of our wounded men and women with 1st class care. Write the President a letter about this as he is Commander in Chief of all our Armed Forces. With the stroke of the pen this could be set in stone.

Tonight the Oroville City Council passed through $115,000 from the Department of Water Resources. Thank you all on the City Council