Geiger Field: Spokane, Washington

Laundry Day at Geiger Field: Dad on the right–the tall one of course!

[Missing] Bob Wooldridge has [missing] transferred from Ham-[missing] eld, Calif. to Geiger [missing] pokane, Wash. where [missing] ending U. S. Engineers [missing].

Uncredited newspaper item in Grandma’s scrapbook.

I have not been able to find this in any of the area newspaper archives, so once again, I assume it was the local small town newspaper in Proffitt. A few items about Dad appeared in the Olney and Graham newspapers which were the largest towns in the county. By the time he left Hammer Field in California, he was already in the Aviation Engineers training.

Geiger Field to Be Training Center

SAN FRANCISCO, Mar.1 -(AP)- The army’s Fourth airforce headquarters announce today that Geiger Field, Spokane, would here-after be used as the aviation engineer unit training center for the Fourth airforce.

Corvallis Gazette-Times – 01 Mar 1944, Wed – Page 5 – (Corvallis, Oregon)

I was unable to locate the news item in the Great Falls Leader from Montana shown below, so I am unable to figure out why that was included, unless for some reason he sent a newspaper from there. The Greetings from Portland, Oregon souvenir may be related to just traveling through on the troop train from California and a stop prior to Spokane. I did find one newspaper items about work the Aviation Engineers did in Oregon.

The Bend Bulletin, Bend, Oregon, Friday, June 16, 1944, p. 2.

This was the type of work Dad was being trained for, and what he did in India and China after he shipped overseas. Similar work was also done in the Coeur d’Alene mountains, to build a runway. They transported their “tournapulls, heavy ‘cats’, bulldozers, scrapers, sheep-foot rollers and all the heavy equipment needed by the world’s most highly mechanized construction soldiers” (Engineers Do It: 1886th Aviation, Geiger Field, Cuts Out Landing Field in Idaho Forest. (August 20, 1944). The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash., p. 29.). The landing strip was completed with 15 days, constructed in the Horse Heaven canyon, to be used in fire fighting activities.

The primary function of the Aviation Engineers was to construct airdromes, air fields, and air bases. At Geiger, training in basic combat and use of heavy equipment for construction was part of their routine. In the page from Grandma’s scrapbook labeled “Geiger Field, Dad is in the photographs on the rope (top row center and second row left and center (on the gun), bottom row left (sitting on the rock), and bottom row center (leaning against a building with another soldier).

In the two photogrqphs above, Dad is on the far left, slouched on his buddy, and on the right on the Tournapull (sitting on the wheel).

Caricature of Dad getting an injection

Dad sent several sketches of himself home over the time he was in the Army Air Force. Charles F. Spewachek “Bud” was from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, born a year before Dad. He was 16 in the 1940 Milwaukee census, and after release from the Army, was in the 1950 Milwaukee census as a real estate salesman, living with his wife Arlyn. He died in December 1971, but I have been unable to locate any other information about him. He was only 47 at his death. His wife later remarried (she was 7 years younger than he was) and died in 2010, still in Milwaukee.

This is classic Grandma!

I wondered why this chaplain bulletin was in the scrapbook…until I read the notes. The chaplain had stated in his message:

Have you written home this week? Do so by all means. Your Chaplain received a splendid letter from one GI Joe’s mother. He had written her about our chapel services, enclosing a program. We are grateful for his word to his mother and her word to us. It gives us strength and inspiration. But more than that, it gives your mother trust and faith in you. She glories in your faithfulness.

Vesper Service, Geiger Field.

When I read that, my first thought was “it was Dad’s mother!” Grandma was famous and infamous for her letters. It took me a while to read the faded note on the right margin, but it reads:

Wonder who wrote Ha! I know
Love,
Bob