US Navy 1st Class Bernice Topling Gainey was born on February 18, 1920 in Wewahitchka, Florida, the son of Son of Charles Franklin Gainey (1881-1964) and Amanda "Mandy" Ellafais Collinsworth (1890-1926). His father supported his family as a laborer in one of the local sawmills and perhaps that's where he obtained his love for carpentry. By 1940, Bernice had moved to Pensacola as did his parents and some of his siblings.
Bernice enlisted in the US Navy on March 8, 1942 and and by 1944 had reached the rank of 1st Class Carpenter's Mate. Following the capture of Majuro, Kwajalein, and Eniwetok by February 1944 the US military set about building them into a huge naval base and airfields as they readied for their next leap in the Pacific Theater. While stationed there, Gainey put his carpentry skills to work and invented what became known as the famous "Gainey Sawmill." He built the contraption from scrap parts and powered it with two rear wheels from a Navy truck. When finished, his makeshift sawmill could cut 600 feet of lumber per hour. Being a tropical island of low elevation, wood planks were hard to come by until they were shipped in as cargo. But his sawmill could make boards out of almost anything.
He had married Juanita Earl Wellman (1921-2011) on July 30, 1942 before he shipped out and now would return from the war to start a family. Like so many returning veterans he would go to work for the civil service at NAS Pensacola where he would finally retire prior to his death on August 4, 1998. He was buried in Bayview Cemetery where he was joined by Juanita in 2011 and his daughter Patricia in 2015.
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