memoir
Robert Earl Wildermuth's WWII scrapbook — aircraft and the homecoming, captions
Transcribed typed captions from Robert Earl Wildermuth's World War II photo album / scrapbook — the companion images to his combat log. Includes nose-art portraits of three B-24 Liberators of the 90th Bomb Group: GLADYS (named for someone's wife or girlfriend), BELLE WRINGER (a much-used aircraft, mission bombs painted on the nose), and CHEROKEE STRIP (which blew up in flight the day after the photo was taken, killing all aboard); plus 'THE U.S.A. AT LAST,' an aerial photograph of the California Coast Range shot at ~12,000 feet from his own aircraft on the triumphal return to the United States in October 1945, with the plane's rear stabilizer visible in the frame. NOTE: the photographs themselves are not yet held as images in this archive — only Robert Earl's typed captions are transcribed here, pending higher-resolution scans.
What this is
Alongside his combat log and memoir, Robert Earl Wildermuth kept a photo album of his war, each image captioned in his own typed voice. Four of those captioned photographs have surfaced (forwarded by Chuck in 2026). The images themselves are not yet held in this archive — a higher-resolution scan can be dropped in later — but his captions are transcribed here.
The aircraft — nose art of the 90th Bomb Group
GLADYS
“This airplane was named after somebody’s wife or girl friend.”
“BELLE WRINGER”
“Another much used airplane. Note bombs denot[ing] each mission.”
CHEROKEE STRIP
“A real Indian beauty. The day after this picture was taken, the airplane blew up in flight kil[ling] all aboard.”
The three captions are a compressed portrait of the Jolly Rogers’ daily reality: planes named for wives and sweethearts, mission tallies painted bomb-by-bomb on the nose, and — in a single flat sentence about Cherokee Strip — the ever-present nearness of death, an aircraft and its whole crew gone the day after a routine photograph.
The homecoming — “THE U.S.A. AT LAST”
“Picture taken as we approached the Coastal Range of mountains in California on our triumphal return to the United States in October 1945. Isn’t it beautiful!!! No place like it. Picture was taken at about 12000 foot altitude and in the upper left hand corner you can see part of the rear stabilizer of our plane.”
This is the visual companion to the 28 October 1945 log entry — the flight home from Hickam Field, Honolulu, into Mather Field near Sacramento. The photograph of the California Coast Range from 12,000 feet, the tail of his own B-24 clipping the corner of the frame, is the image behind his log line that he could “find America going east” as surely as he had found tiny Canton Island going west a year before.
Source: Robert Earl Wildermuth’s WWII photo album, typed captions, forwarded by Chuck Eesley, 2026. Bracketed letters restore text cut off at the edges of the photographed captions. The photographs are pending higher-resolution scans.