The lonely B-24

After putting up the post yesterday on the B-17 "Casper Kid", I realized I hadn't posted these photos of the marker for the B-24 that went down in Natrona County in 1945.  I took the photos a year ago.

I've been aware of this wreck my entire life, although apparently the location was regarded as lost.  Only recently has this memorial been put up.

As with the Casper Kid, it's good to see the plane and its crew remembered.  Men who gave their lives for their country, but not in the way the expected.  In this case, they went down in the dead of winter and the conditions were so severe that there was little that could be done to attempt to rescue them. All perished.

 

The Crew of the B-17F, "The Casper Kid".

 

This is a new memorial in Wyoming's Powder River Basin, dedicated to the crew of the "Casper Kid", a B-17F that went down in what would have been an incredibly remote lonely spot on February 25, 1943.

In recent years, there's been a dedicated effort in Central Wyoming to memorialize the crews who did in aviation accidents during the Second World War. This is the second such memorial I'm aware of (there may be more) which is dedicated to the crew of an airplane that was flying out of the Casper Air Base, which is now the Natrona County International Airport. Both accidents memorialized so far were winter accidents which resulted in the loss of an aircraft in remote country.

We don't tend to think of those lost in training accidents as war dead, but they were.  And there are a lot of them.

Wyoming Veterans Museum: World War One Display

Display dedicated to George Ostron, who was an accomplished armature illustrator and who won a contest to design what became the unit insignia.  A post on this topic is coming up on Lex Anteinternet.

I have a very lengthy photo post on the Wyoming Veterans Museum on this site already.  Normally, when adding to an existing topic, I do just that, but in this case I'm posting a new thread as, like most museums, the Wyoming Veterans Museum updates its displays and it would neither do justice to their new display nor to the prior thread to add to it.  Their new display concerns World War One and is focused on Wyomingites who served in the Great War.  They've done a very nice job with it and its a real credit to the museum.

 

 

 

 Ostrom illstration of a New Mexican town.  He had served with the National Guard in the Punitive Expedition.

 

 

 Very nice example of National Guard collar insignia from this period in the upper left, and a subdued chevron on the right.  Subdued chevrons would be a feature of the uniform all the way into the early Vietnam War but rank structure for enlisted men constantly changed.  This insignia hearkens back to the 19th Century with its bugler specialty device and would pass into history before World War Two.

Early in World War One the push for recruitment was with the Navy over the Army and in the opening weeks of the war it was assumed that the Navy would be taking the primary role in the fight with the Army doing relatively little.  Many Wyomingites, in the first rush towards the flag, joined the Navy accordingly.

Fred Kislter's name is associated with Kistler Tent & Awning, an early Casper business that's still in operation today.

French carbine and Adrien helmet, as used by some US African American soldiers assigned to French command.

Trench knives.

Telephone switchboard.  World War One came at the beginning of a revolution in communications that would soon change that area completely.

A display dedicated to nurses in the Great War.

While its very much contrary to what is commonly believed, women played a role in World War One's home front work place that was as great as that which they'd later play in World War Two.  It's just largely forgotten.

German equipment, including a machine gun, brought back to the US as souveniers.

The legendarily bad Chauchat automatic rifle that was used by the US, as supplied by the French, for a light machine gun during World War One.

Somewhat bizarre veterans' organization outfit.

The Red Cross played a very large role in World War One support.

Casper/Natrona County Fallen Firefighter Memorial. Casper Wyoming.

This is Casper Fire Station Number 1.  The fire station was built in the early 1970s as part of an urban renewal project when Federal and City funding renovated the former red light district of the Sand Bar in Casper.  The station replaced one two blocks to the south, which was Casper's original Fire Station Number 1.

When it was built, the east wall of the new fire stataion was deciated as a memorial to Casper and Natrona County's fallen firefighters.

Today In Wyoming's History: September 27. Disasters and ships.

From Today In Wyoming's History: September 27:

1923  Thirty railroad passengers were killed when a CB&Q train wrecked at the Cole Creek Bridge, which had been washed out due to a flood, in Natrona County.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1944 USS Natrona, a Haskell class attack transport, launched.

There's something in the county memorializing the latter (the ship's wheel, in the old courthouse), but not the former.

Such an awful disaster, you'd think there might be.

Standard Oil Refinery Building, Casper Wyoming

Headquarters for the former Standard Oil Refinery in Casper Wyoming.  This building, with additional new construction is now a branch of branch of tbe University of Wyoming's Wyoming Technology Business Center.

Every once in awhile I'll have some of these photos, taken for one of my blogs, that I end up not being sure what to do with. This is an example of that.

I took these sometime during the summer of 2015, while down on the Platte River Commons pathway.  I was probably riding my bicycle down there.  After that, I didn't put them up as I wasn't quite sure where they belonged.  My original thought was that they should go on Painted Bricks, our blog dedicated to signs painted on buildings, but there aren't any signs painted on this building, and the old Standard Oil sign has been removed.  Having said that, there is a major sidewalk feature here, and I do put sidewalk features on our Painted Bricks blog, so there will probably be an entry there after all.

Instead, I decided to put this up here because of this somewhat sad memorial at this location.

Now, there were people who died one way or another at the refinery over the many years it was in operation, but this monument is simply to people who worked there from 1913 up until it closed in 1991.  When it closed, it came somewhat close to being a mortal blow to the city, which was already really hurting at that time.  Having said that, the decline of the refinery, which had at one time been enormous and one of the prime economic engines of the city, was obvious for years.

When the refinery was operating, this building was on the edge of the refinery, along the old Yellowstone Highway, prior to that highway being moved across the river. As a kid I must have ridden as a passenger in my parents vehicle past it countless times.  I can remember it quite well, and frankly it looks newer now than it did then.

I don't know when the building was built, but as the refinery opened in 1913, chances are that it was right around then.  The substantial refinery, now a golf course, was a major Natrona County employer and its closure really nearly ended an era in the town.  The town had three refineries up until about that time, but only one of them, the  Sinclair refinery, remains today.  The Standard Oil refinery was the largest of the three.