It would be a journey that ended almost before it began, when a transport plane carrying several fliers crashed minutes after take-off from the Gold Coast of West Africa in early 1944. There were no survivors.

It had been a whirlwind courtship and marriage for Capt. James Vernon Wilke and Lois Forrester. The nation was still reeling from the devastating, surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Barely one month later, the young couple from Webster City wed on Jan. 6, 1942, in Oakland, California, where Capt. Wilke was stationed with the U.S. Army Air Corps.

Not knowing what the future would bring, there was no time to waste. Fancy wedding venues and expensive gowns were nowhere to be seen in the 1940s. Instead, many brides married in whatever best dress was already in her closet, and vows were exchanged in church, or even a pastor’s study. What mattered was the bond, having someone to come home to when it was all over.

The young couple’s married life in California would be but a honeymoon. The new Mrs. Wilke would be expecting the couple’s first and only child by the time her new husband shipped out. Like many wives of the day, she would return home, to family, to wait for her husband’s return.

-Messenger photo by Lori Berglund
Jim and Charla Wilke visit the grave site of his parents and other family members at Graceland Cemetery in Webster City. Capt. James Vernon Wilke was killed in the crash of a transport plane in 1944 while on his way home for his first leave in nearly two years. Capt. Wilke was married to the former Lois Forrester, who would raise the couple's only son, Jim, by herself as a young widow in Webster City.

“I never really knew much about him,” laments the couple’s only son, Jim Wilke, of Fort Dodge. “My mother didn’t talk about it a lot.”

The steadfast resolve of Jim Wilke’s mother was a hallmark of “The Greatest Generation.” They did not linger long in their sorrow, or wear it on their sleeve — too many others were also grieving. They simply carried on, for what other choice was there?

“That’s just how it was,” recalled Jim Wilke.

He would grow up in Webster City, farm for several years on what is now the back nine of Briggs Woods Golf Course, and eventually retire from Electrolux. He would grow up knowing that his father had enjoyed the outdoors and always wanted to fly, but he knew little else.

It was a time, he agreed, when, “You didn’t think a lot about your own troubles.”

Capt. Wilke was a 1934 graduate of Lincoln High School in Webster City, as well as the local junior college. Prior to entering the army, he had worked in the production room of the Webster Theater.

After enlisting in the army, Capt. Wilke took his initial training in Missouri. The army then sent him to Randolph and Brooks Fields in Texas, where he earned his wings, and was later transferred to Hamilton Field in California and then Wilmington air base in North Carolina. Prior to being deployed overseas, he had ferried planes across the country.

Once overseas, it didn’t take long for the young flyer to start making headlines in his hometown newspaper:

“In a dispatch from a United States air base in Northern India, Lieut. James V. Wilke, son of Mr. and Mrs. W.C. Wilke of (Webster City) was named as one of the American fliers who braved withering enemy machine gun and cannon fire to take up planes during Japanese air attacks,” the Daily Freeman-Journal reported in November 1942.

“The American fighter pilots, of which Wilke is a flight leader, were credited with six confirmed victories, and four aircraft probably destroyed.” British tea planters and natives were said to have confirmed the number of wrecked Japanese planes in the jungles, according to the dispatch.

At that time, Wilke had been overseas for just seven months. Back home in Webster City, Mrs. Wilke was cuddling her weeks-old baby. Son Jim Wilke had arrived on Oct. 29, 1942, born at Hamilton County Public Hospital. The growing family would remain worlds apart.

The year 1943 had to be a long one as Capt. Wilke spent the entire year overseas. But as 1944 drew near, he had reason for optimism and took time on New Year’s Eve, 1943, to write a letter home, indicating that he was in India, as part of the Burma campaign. He wrote that members of the Army Air Corps were being rotated home for leave, and he expected to be granted a leave soon.

It would be the last letter any of his family received. The headline in the Jan. 28, 1944, Daily Freeman-Journal told the tragic story:

CAPT. J.V. WILKE

KILLED IN PLANE CRASH

FIGHTER PILOT DIED

JAN. 26 AT ACCRA, AFRICA

“It was believed that Capt. Wilke was on his way home,” the newspaper reported.

Capt. Wilke was given a military funeral and buried in Accra, located in Ghana. His family, likely including both his wife and his parents, William and Lola Wilke, inquired about having the body returned home. They were informed that was possible, but only after the war. This was several months before D-Day, and it would be a long wait.

Young Jim Wilke would be 5 years old by the time his father’s remains were repatriated to the United States. He received military honors again when Capt. Wilke was finally laid to rest at the Forrester/Wilke family plot at Graceland Cemetery in June 1948.

“When he came on the train, I remember my uncle telling me that they brought him home on the same engine, or the same type of steam engine, as when he left,” Jim Wilke said. Capt. Wilke’s remains arrived via train to the depot north of Second Street in Webster City. A hero had come home.

Capt. Wilke would never see his son graduate from high school, nor the birth of his four grandchildren. What Capt. Wilke did receive is the respect of a grateful nation. For his service, Capt. Wilke earned the American Theater ribbon, Asiatic-Pacific ribbon with one bronze star, the World War II Victory ribbon, the distinguished unit badge, and the pilot’s aviation badge.

He was also recommended for the Silver Star for his leadership during an enemy assault at Assam. Then under British rule, Assam served as an important hub and staging point in the India-Burma Campaign. And, in 1947, Mrs. Wilke was presented with the air medal and the American Defense Service medal

As a young, widowed mother, Mrs. Wilke would work as a bookkeeper in a family business, the fondly-remembered Forrester’s Dairy in Webster City. She also worked as a cashier at the Webster Theater, and as a long-time teller at the former Farmers National Bank until retiring in 1972. She never remarried and passed away in Webster City at the age of 98 in Webster City in 2012.