The Veterans Project is featured in the June 1st, 2008 issue of the Davis Enterprise. Here is all we know about the veterans listed in the article. Also listed are known family members who are either deceased or unable to locate. As we have had difficulty finding anybody who knew them, please let us know if you have any information on these veterans.

World War I

Ernest Olney Billings was from Woodland. He was an uncle of World War II veteran Ray E. Harr through his sister Maude, and also had ties to the Wirth family in Woodland. Billings served in the 363^rd Infantry Regiment, 91^st Infantry Division of the Army. He died in France in September 1918 and is buried at the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery in Romagne, France. He left a widow, Rose Billings, who resided in Oregon after Billings died

Otto Shonomay was from Beatrice, which was located on the banks of the American River about 10 miles southeast of Woodland. (You can find the location of Beatrice by going to Google Maps  and typing in "Beatrice, Yolo County, CA") . Shonomay's last name may possibly be spelled 'Schenomay.' There have been no actual records found regarding Otto Shonomay, nor any evidence of a Shonomay family existing in Yolo County or indeed California.   

Basil Campbell Williams

For these veterans, we have no information whatsoever:

John Parkes

Chad Smith

World War II

Sam J. Banks grew up in Davis and the Sonoma area. He was born in 1914 to Ansel and Gretta Banks and had two sisters, Margie and Helen. Sam was a Army Staff Sergeant in the 352nd Railhead Company. He was killed in January 1945 and according to military records was buried at Hamm Cemetery in Luxembourg.

Curtis Biddick lived with his aunt and professor uncle, Beulah and Elmer Hughes, in Davis. He was born in 1916 to Ernest and Delphia Biddick in Mifflin, Wisconsin, but sometime after 1920 moved to Davis to be with his childless aunt and uncle. He was a Pilot and First Lieutenant in the Army Air Corps's 100th Bomb Group, 418th Bomb Squadron. Biddick was killed in 1943 in Regensburg, Germany, and is buried at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis, MO. Any surviving family members probably reside in Wisconsin.   

Harold Delay and Clarence Delay were brothers who were born in Montana and lived in Davis. They were the sons of Homer and Alice Delay. Their family also included two brothers named Roland and Aaron. Harold “Stubby” Delay was a Gunner and Staff Sergeant in the Army Air Corps 714th Bomber Squadron, 448^th Bomber Group.  Harold was lost over Germany in 1944. Private Clarence “Mac” Delay, the older of the two, was in the 40^th Air Squadron, 50^th Base Group, and was taken prisoner by the Japanese in 1942. Clarence died off the Philippines in 1945 in the sinking of the Shinyo Maru, a Japanese ship holding 750 prisoners of war that was bombed by the USS Paddle. It was unknown to the Americans that American POW’s were on the Shinyo Maru. 

Frank Frazier served with the 530^th Army Air Corps Fighting Squadron  of the 311^th Fighter Group and achieved the rank of First Lieutenant. He went missing in action in March 1945 and is honored at the Fort McKinley Monument at Manila in the Philippines. Frank was born in 1911 and lived at various times in Vallejo, Davis and Oakland.  He was the son of Frank and Lela Frazier, had one older brother named Millard, and two younger brothers named Archie and Dumah.

Ray E. Harr was an Army Air Corps Captain with the 20^th Operational Weather Squadron who enlisted in July 1941 and served in the Pacific theater, probably in Luzon in the Philippines. He died in August 1945 and is buried at Fort McKinley Cemetery at Manila in the Philippines. Harr was born in April 1917 to Maude Billings Harr, the sister of World War I vet Ernest Billings. He had a stepfather named Claude Strawn.

Tow Jer enlisted in the Army in 1944 at the age of 20. He achieved the rank of Private. In November 1940 he emigrated from Hoiping, China (Now called Kaiping; it is located in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong) to the United States on the President Coolidge. He was accompanied by two probable family members named Jin Jer (6 years younger than Tow) and Sui Jer.  At the time of enlistment he lived somewhere in Yolo County. He is buried at Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, CA.

Henry Clay Hansen was the son of Mapleton Hansen Pierce of Davis, the nephew of President James Irving of the Placerville Fruit Growers Association, the husband of Alva Georgia Hansen of Davis and the father of Mary Joyce Hansen, born 1943. After graduating from El Dorado County School in Placerville, Hansen and his family moved to Davis, where he graduated from the UC Davis College of Agriculture. He joined the Air Corps four days before Pearl Harbor, and served as a bombardier on a plane piloted by Lt. Henry Chovanec of Fayetteville, Texas. After destroying two cargo ships and two barges on a reconaissance mission in New Guinea in April 1943, Hansen's plane crashed, killing all on board. Hansen and his crew received the Distinguished Flying Cross for their final efforts.

Ralph W. Hoffman was the son of Mr. and Mrs. A.H. Hoffman of Davis. He was born in 1921 and attended the UC Davis College of Agriculture before enlisting in the Army Air Corps in February 1943. He trained to be a pilot in Oxnard and Santa Ana, CA., and La Junta, CO. Completing training in December 1943, he served at McClellan and Travis Air Bases until June 1944. It was then that he was deployed to New Guinea in the Pacific Theater; he would be killed piloting a B-24 bomber there only two months later.

Thomas Ross Jordan was a Seaman First Class in the U.S. Navy. This Davis veteran was killed in action.

Donald Lowe was born in Davis to Grover and Mabel Lowe. He went missing in July 1943 while piloting a P-38 Lightning aircraft in North Africa. For valorous actions in combat, he was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

World War II (Continued)

Orville Shavey was born in Montana in 1919. He enlisted in the Army in April 1943. Shavey was a Private First Class in the 115th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division. According to his enlistment records, he was married, and his occupation was listed as a locomotive mechanic. His wife Marjorie was living at 333 E Street in Davis when he died. He was killed in action in Europe on September 17th, 1944 and is buried in the Ardennes American Cemetery in Neupre, Belgium.

Leo Sweeney was a Chief Petty Officer with the Coast Guard. Prior to joining the service, Sweeney was a sergeant with the Woodland office of the California Highway Patrol. Sweeney may have been married. He died in 1945 following an operation at his base in Hawaii.

Korea

Ross Rickard was born Mar 1, 1931 in Sutter County, and lived in Woodland. He served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and achieved the rank of Corporal. He specialized in combat construction in South Korea. Rickard died September 26, 1950. Two of Rickard's siblings, Ted Rickard and Leatrice Rickard Hadley, may be alive but have not been located.

Ervin Steinert was the son of Mr. and Mrs. John Steinert and the nephew of Ted Hochhalter, all Woodland residents who moved to Lodi in the 1940’s. He graduated from Woodland High in 1950 and enlisted in the Air Force that fall. He left to serve in Germany in 1951, and died in March 1952 when the C-47 he was flying in crashed into a glacier in the Swiss Alps.

For this veteran, we have no information whatsoever:

James Hoggart

Vietnam

James P. Galvin was born in Davis on December 4th, 1942. At the time of his enlistment in 1964, he was listed as unmarried, and Galvin's family has not been identified as of yet. He served as an Infantry Indirect Fire Crewman, Specialist Fifth Class, U.S. Army. He died in South Vietnam from and unknown disease three days short of his 24th birthday in 1966.

Robert W. O'Keefe was born June 28th, 1937, and was a Davis resident. O'Keefe's family is unknown except that he was married at the time of his death. He entered the service in 1959, approximately, and achieved the rank of Army Major. Prior to the start of his tour in Vietnam in September 1968, O'Keefe was at some point an ROTC drill instructor at Leilehua High School in Hawaii. While in Vietnam, he was an Infantry Unit Commander. He was killed in June 1969 in Phuoc Long, South Vietnam when the helicopter he was traveling in was destroyed by the enemy.

Wayne C. Reinecke was born in Salem, Oregon to John and Nadine Reinecke on May 8th, 1946. While Reinecke's hometown is given in mlitary records as Milwaukie, Oregon, he is believed to have been a Davis resident. Reinecke was a radar sonar technician on Navy rescue helicopters. He died on January 12th, 1967, when his helicopter accidentally crashed into the Bay of Tonkin. His body was not recovered.