Gorlinski, Joseph S.

Joseph Shirley Gorlinski
Colonel, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
No. 6085 Class of Nov. 1918
Died 27, February 1983, aged 85 years
Sacramento, California
Interment: Presidio of San Francisco
San Francisco, California
Joseph Shirley Gorlinski was born in San Diego, California on 6 September 1897. His grandfather, Maj. Joseph N. Gorlinski, served with distinction in the Civil War as an Engineer with the Union forces and to this day his maps of the Red River defenses are on display at the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. His father, Frank L. A. Gorlinski, served many years with the Bureau of Land Management in Washington before moving West where he became a Mining Engineer. There is little doubt about the great influence Joe's father and grandfather had on his subsequent 50 years of uninterrupted service to his country as an Engineer, both in and out of uniform.
His early years were spent with his mother, Maud Estelle Tarwater Gorlinski, and his father in California and Nevada. A few months before his death he revisited his boyhood home in Willits, California, and described to his family how he used to ride his horse into town every day to earn a few pennies dusting off passengers as they descended from their stagecoaches. Who could have dreamed at that time what he would accomplish in the years to come?
After a year at the University of California at Berkeley, Joe received an appointment to West Point once again reviving his ancestral heritage of military service, and joining a lifelong fraternity of classmates who would accompany him through two world wars and serve with him from Marrakech to Kunming, Godthaab to Sidney, and Fort Dupont to Schofield barracks. At West Point Joe Excelled in Academics, graduating 57th in the class, and in sports where he was appointed captain of the West Point boxing team. His classmates called him "The Count" and that is the name he became known by for the rest of his life.
Upon his graduation from west Point Count Gorlinski was assigned to France where he got an introduction to the devastation of World war I. Following training assignments at Camp Humphreys, Virginia, and Fort Benning, Georgia, he was appointed to the ROTC Staff at the University of Tennessee where he taught for three years. That assignment coupled with a tour as Training Director of Officer Reserve Camps at Fort Dupont, Delaware, laid the foundation for the key role he would play in training Engineer troops during World war II when he served in the Office of the Chief of Engineers.
Following his ROTC tour Count joined the 3rd Engineer Battalion At Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, and served in a variety of command and staff assignments. There he met and wed Mary Kathleen Savage who remains his faithful wife after more than 56 years of marriage.
Count was entrusted with great responsibilities early in his career. In 1932 he was assigned as Resident Engineer to the Bonneville Dam Project where he supervised the construction of the dam and the design of the first fish ladders that still draw the admiration of thousands of tourists, environmentalists, and engineers each year.
1938 saw Captain Count Gorlinski graduate from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces and the Army War College with a following assignment to the 13th Engineers at For Belvoir, Virginia, where he remained until the outbreak of World War II.
During the war years as Chief, Operations and Training Branch, Office of the Chief of Engineers, and later as Chief, War Plans Division there, he prepared initial plans for overseas task forces and for establishment of engineer headquarters in Iceland, Greenland, Ascension Island, africa, New Zealand, Canada, Alaska, India, China, and the South Pacific. He was responsible for training Army Service Forces engineer troops including critically needed special units such as petroleum distribution companies, port repair ships, and others not contemplated during peacetime.
After the war Count was appointed Theater Engineer, China Theater, where from Shanghai and Nanking he directed all engineering activities in China. Of special significance was his direction of the coastal map surveys from Cork Point to Mirs Bay and Hongkong to the Hainan Strait which proved invaluable to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In 1947 Count assumed duties as District Engineer, sacramento District, where he served until his retirement in 1950 with over 31 years of service to his country. His military decorations included two awards of the legion if Merit, Commendation Ribbon, Order of the Cloud and Banner (China) and Commanders Order of the Orange Nassau, presented by the Queen of the Netherlands.
He subsequently served his State of California as the original Executive Officer of California's first Central Valley Regional Water Control Board. In that capacity he developed the first water pollution control standards for the State and upon his retirement in 1966 the State Legislature passed a resolution honoring his pioneering accomplishments in the field of water pollution abatement and control.
A few days before he passed away he reflected over his long productive life thinking of his family, his Class, and his career and said "Who would have thought a little cowboy from Willits could have done so much?"
Count is survived by his wife Mary, daughter Joan, son Chuck and seven grandchildren.
[Text and photograph courtesy of Charles Gorlinski.]