The exhibit of crew photos lining the walls of the museum’s second floor is the result of many individuals’ painstaking research efforts. Sometimes the photos had to be tracked down while others may have been submitted by veterans or members of their families. The images may have come with names written down but often there was little to no information about the men pictured. Different staff and volunteers spent years identifying men in the photos. Even the museum’s Square J magazine would occasionally include crew photos along with requests for information about the identity of the pictured men.
And the work is still not done! To this day, we receive physical and digital crew photos we’ve never seen before. Each crew photo represents another piece of the 390th story and we are honored to accept and display them.
Exhibit Highlights
The 390th Bomb Group crew photos have been carefully organized to allow descendants to locate their veterans. They are first broken into four sections according to the four squadrons of the 390th: 568th, 569th, 570th, and 571st. Each row has a letter – A through D – and each photo a number. Descendants can simply share their veteran’s name and, using the name of the pilot in that crew, locate the spot on the wall where the photo hangs.