Vic Oberhansley Photos
This page was last updated on May 24, 2025.
Photo Albums
Vic Oberhansley Photos -- A collection of more than 1,000 photos by Vic Oberhansley, taken in the period of the late 1950s through the 1970s. Includes a large set of amazing passenger car photos. The photos have been scanned from a wide variety of prints of all sizes, black & white and color negatives from 35mm to 616, and 35mm color slides. These photos are made available through the courtesy of Ralph Gochnour, a good friend of Vic's for many years, and who has kept Vic's photos safe after Vic passed away in 1987.
Vic Oberhansley
From Vic Oberhansley's obituary.
Vic C. Oberhansley, of Murray, died Friday evening of an apparent heart attack preceding an auto collision near his home. Bom Janurry 14, 1918 to Henry E. and Salome B. Oberhansley in Parowan, Utah. He attended public schools in Logan and in Cedar City where his father was director of Southern Utah State College for many years until his death in 1945. A veteran of World War II, Vic later attended the University of Utah. Employed by U.S. Bureau of Land Management until his retirement.
Victor Curtis Oberhansley was born January 14, 1918, and died on May 8, 1987.
Born in Parawan, Utah, where his father was principal of Parawan high school. The family moved to Logan in 1918, very soon after Vic's birth, where his father served a variety of teaching roles at Utah State Agricultural College. In 1930, the family moved to Cedar City, where his father was director of the Branch Agricultural College there, until his death in 1945.
Vic registered for the draft on October 20, 1940, at Cedar City, Utah. He was age 22 at the time. He was 5 feet, 11 inches in height and weighed 165 pounds, and wore glasses.
At age 24, Vic enlisted in the National Guard at Cedar City on March 3, 1941, as part of a field artillery unit. At the time of his enlistment, he had three years of college where he had been studying music, and played in the school's band.
"The 4,016 enlisted men and 156 officers of the Utah National Guard were called up on March 3, 1941, and sent to San Luis Obispo, California, as part of the 40th Infantry Division that included units from Salt Lake City, Ogden, Brigham City, Garland, Spanish Fork, Fillmore, Richfield, Beaver, Cedar City, Pleasant Grove, Bountiful, Logan, Manti, Nephi, Springville, St. George, and Vernal. Following training in California, many of the Utah guardsmen departed for the Philippine Islands on December 6, 1941, but when news of the attack at Pearl Harbor was received, the transport returned to San Francisco and the soldiers assigned to help defend a three hundred mile area of coastline from Santa Barbara, California, to the Mexican border. The 40th Infantry Division prepared for a possible Japanese invasion and also participated in the movement of Japanese American citizens from coastal areas to ten inland camps, including the Topaz Relocation Center northwest of Delta." (Utah Historical Quarterly, Spring 2005, Volume 73, Number 2)
Records do not show where Vic was stationed from 1941 until late 1944. But being in a National Guard field artillery unit, he may have remained stationed in the United States, likely as a member of the 40th Infantry band.
Records at the National Archives show that Vic embarked aboard the USS Hercules on October 9, 1944, and sailed from San Francisco on October 13, 1944. He was among hundreds of U. S. Army personnel on the ship.
(Read the Wikipedia article about the USS Hercules)
(General Douglas MacArthur waded ashore in his return to the Phillippines on October 20, 1944.)
Later records show that he was on LST 1024 on July 17, 1945, bound from Toloma, Mindinao, to Leyette, Phillippine Islands. He was mustered out of the Army on August 19, 1945.
From the U. S. Navy's Naval History and Heritage Command.
LST-1024 was laid down on 26 April 1944 at Quincy, Mass., by the Bethlehem Steel Co.; launched on 22 May 1944; and commissioned on 28 May 1944.
During World War II, LST-1024 was assigned to the Asiatic-Pacific theater and participated in the Leyte landings in October 1944 and the assault and occupation of Okinawa Gunto in April and May 1945. Following the war, she performed occupation duty in the Far East until late December 1945. She returned to the United States and was decommissioned on 27 June 1946 and struck from the Navy list on 31 July that same year. On 12 March 1948, the ship was sold to Alexander Shipyards, Inc., for operation.
LST-1024 earned two battle stars for World War II service.
(Read some history of LST, Landing Ship Tank, 1024, includes photos)
After the war, Vic attended University of Utah as a benefit of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, also known as the G I Bill, and was later employed with the Salt Lake City office of the federal Bureau of Land Management. He stayed with BLM until his retirement in the mid 1980s.
While attending the University of Utah, Vic became a fan of their band program, tapping into his previous experience of being part of the band during the early 1940s while attending the "Branch Agricultural College" in Cedar City, Utah. The Branch Agricultural College was a branch school of the Utah State Agriculture College, and today is the Southern Utah University. Because of his interest in the UofU's band program, Vic became aquainted Ralph Gochnour, a local railfan and modeler, and a band instructor at a local high school, as well as being involved with the UofU's band program as an alumni of the university.
Vic never married or had no children. Vic's father passed away in 1945, while living in Cedar City. His mother stayed in Cedar City until 1951, then moved to Murray, a suburb of Salt Lake City, to live with Vic, her only living child. They shared Vic's home in Murray until her death in 1984.
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