November 6, 2015

From the scrapbook given to me to use by Peg Russell the articles are from 1942 Oroville:
Girl Helps Send Ship Down Ways
An Oroville girl, Miss Lucille Kirby, a welder at Marinship, in this composite photo, is looking through the door opening of a prefabricated deck house as the eighth Liberty ship went down the ways at the Sausalito yards. Miss Kirby, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L. S. Kirby of Oroville, has been a welder at the Marinship yards for some time. Another daughter, Mrs. Katherine Cardona, is also a welder and she is working for the Western Pipe and Steel Co. in the bay district.(Stu- They may not have riveted but they sure welded some big ships together.)

Former M-R Carrier Now Drives A Tank
“Driving a tank today is a far cry from the days when I delivered the Mercury at home,” writes Lance Corporal Clyde L. Thomas of Co. C. 9th battalion, A. F.R.T.C., U.S. Army, Fort Knox, Ky. He asked the Mercury to tell folks ‘hello’ for him and added: “It would be nice to hear from some of my friends from home.” Among Wounded Darrell E. H. Johnson 21, an outstanding member of the Oroville high school graduating class of 1939, who is in a naval hospital in Maryland receiving treatment for wounds received at Pearl Harbor. A bomb knocked him from a turret of the Flagship Pennsylvania, and he received several rib fractures and other injuries.
(Stu- This is all we know of the 4 above. Help me find more.)

Local Boy Tells Of Shooting Down Japanese Ships In Aleutians
It’s touch and go in the Aleutian islands air fighting, according to Russell Brinkerhoff, aviation ordnance man third class, of the U. S. navy, who was visiting here today while on leave. Brinkerhoff, a machine gunner on a flying boat crew, has been in action against the Japanese on the Aleutian chain, and opposed them at Dutch Harbor. His boat has shot down several Japanese planes. Weather conditions are so difficult, he related, that there is opportunity for only brief bursts of fire before Japanese airplanes are again hidden by clouds. Brinkerhoff is on patrol duty. He is visiting his parents, Taylor Brinkerhoff, mail specialist third class, U. S. N., and Mrs. Brinkerhoff. The father and the son came to Oroville yesterday from San Francisco, where Taylor Brinkerhoff is stationed. They were to return to the bay area tonight. Russell Brinkerhoff, who is on 14-days leave, must be in Seattle next Monday.

Ten Years Ago - Looking Back on Oroville Heroes
July 20, 1944
Brinkerhoff’s Tough Missions
Flight from the navy air base in the Aleutians to bomb Paramushirs in the Kurile islands of Japan, calls for a hop as long as from Oroville to an exact area six to eight blocks square near Vancouver, B.C. And in this treacherous, fog-shrouded, bleak, icy stretch there is no sanctuary for the pilots and crews of the Navy’s “Empire Express,” which has been running loads of death and destruction to Japan’s Kurile Island bastion for almost a year. They must take their Lockheed VENTURA (PV) search planes over the target quickly and head homeward without loss of time, for their life expectancy, should their plane go down in the water, is from 20 minutes to an hour.
WORST IN THE WORLD
It’s “one of the toughest over-water two-engine bomber hops in the world,” says Commodore Leslie E. Gehres, U.S.N., of Seattle, Washington, Commander of Fleet Air Wing Four. Father In Service Too Brinkerhoff took part in six such missions. He is the son of Taylor R. Brinkerhoff, who is himself in the navy, a mail specialist in the South Pacific. Brinkerhoff graduated from Oroville high school with the class of 1940. In school he made good in basketball, track and baseball. One of the first things Russell will do when he gets back to California is to get married. He will marry Miss Margorie Jackson, of Oakland, sister of his best pal. Mrs. Taylor Brinkerhoff, of Bridge street, said today that she had heard from Russell on July 5, He had arrived in Seattle on the 4th and expected to get leave. She has not heard from him since.

Stu’s Notes:
What ever happened to the Brinkerhoff family, help me find more of this very Patriotic Family.

Veterans Parade Wednesday, November 11, 2015, beginning at 11:00 at Fifth Avenue and Montgomery Street. The weather looks to be good, come on Oroville and let’s line Montgomery street with people. Show the World that Oroville cares about the Men and Women that keep our Country Free. Without them I dread to think of what would happen to our great country.