Brainard, Ira F.

Description

Ira F. Brainard

Lt. Cmndr. Ira Fitch Brainard was born on February 4, 1902, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, his father, Edward, was 34 and his mother, Laura, was 35.

He married Antoinette Van Gaasbeck Nash on November 25, 1924, in Syracuse, New York. They had four children during their marriage. In Rye the family lived on Holly Lane.

Ira served as an officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He served as a Lt. Commander onboard the USS Talamanca.

See Navy Muster Rolls

For three years Auckland was Talamanca’s home port.

Between August 1942 and April 1945, she plied the southwestern Pacific supplying US bases. She visited such places as Fiji; Espiritu Santo; Efate; Manus; and Napier, New Zealand.

The closest she ever came to the combat zone were stops at Guadalcanal, Tulagi, Florida Island, and the Russell Islands in the Solomon Islands. However, these voyages were in 1944 after the fighting had moved up the Solomons chain past Bougainville and into the Bismarck Archipelago.

In all, Talamanca made 36 resupply voyages from Auckland to various bases in the South Pacific and back again