Winning Was Only Way Out of the War
Wesley Goodwin with his wife, Irene • Sioux City
Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Corps
Don Doll, S.J. photo • Story by Tim Gallagher
Airplanes fascinated Wesley Goodwin from the time he could squint to the sky. When told his father had a new grocery truck sporting "wings" on the sides, young Wesley raced home from school only to be disappointed. "They didn’t look like airplane wings. I was thoroughly disgusted. Even then I was a nut about airplanes."
His passion showed during World War II as a welder who helped maintain U.S. bombers that helped defeat the Germans. The Ida Grove, Iowa, native served with the 98th Service Squadron, attached to the U.S. Air Corps 371st Fighter Group. His service included stints in England, France and Germany and added up to one year, 10 months and 25 days.
"The sounds - I remember the sounds. I knew exactly what a German rifle sounded like. I could tell exactly what kind of German plane was coming."
The sounds of war had been nonexistent for a boy growing up during the Great Depression. Wesley left school after eighth grade and began working as a laborer. He soon "graduated" to welding, earning 35 cents an hour.
He met Irene Stoneking at Quimby, Iowa, and they left Cherokee County on Saturday afternoon, Jan. 31, 1942, to be married. "We could get a marriage license and marry the same day in South Sioux City," says Irene. "So we did it."
Six months later, Wesley was drafted. He trained with the Signal Corps before being transferred to the Air Corps after showing high aptitude for welding. He served in Kansas, Missouri, Louisiana and New York before heading to England.
On Oct. 20, 1943, Irene sent him a telegram: The couple had a son named Gary born that day. "I showed my commander. I thought there was a chance I could go home to see our son. He told me it would take an act of Congress for me to go home." Seven days later, Wesley shipped out. "I knew the only way I’d get home was to win this war."
Wesley welded modifications for airplanes used for photoreconnaissance in England for a period. Twenty days after D-Day, the unit moved six miles into France. With Germans to the north and south, he saw plenty of sniper fire. He was injured when a fighter’s bomb load exploded in a crash on a runway under construction. Hearing loss has plagued him ever since. A fellow soldier lost a leg.
"I put my fingers in the hole in his pants, right at the knee, to help. But he had no leg."
Others had it worse. Wesley’s older brother, Howard, was a medic in the Pacific Theatre. He was taken prisoner for a short time. "The planes we fixed each day had a lot of damage," Wesley says. "I counted 285 bullet holes on one plane.
Wesley’s unit was in Frankfurt when the Germans surrendered. With enough points to his credit, he earned a ticket home. He made it to Iowa in September 1945 and got off the train at Cherokee. He walked three miles before a former soldier driving a gas truck pulled over and gave him a lift home.
"This fellow asked me if I was surprised people were driving by. I told him I was. He said the same thing happened to him when he came home. He’d lost a leg in the war."
Wesley held his wife and son close, but little Gary didn’t warm up to him for weeks. "He got into something and I had to spank him a little bit. He hadn’t called me Dad until then. After that, he always did."
The expert welder worked around Cherokee and then in eastern Iowa. In 1951, the family moved to Sioux City where Wesley worked until retiring at age 62. He and Irene raised two children and now boast of seven grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. Has it been a good life? "Not bad," Wesley says. Only one regret: His discharge papers say he qualified for a Good Conduct Medal. But the medal never came
"I guess I’ve still got that coming."