Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

‘Flying Fortress’ stirs emotions


World War II veteran Mike Bibin, second from left talks about experiences as a bombadier on a B-17 bomber.  Listening, from left, are Don Koch, Bob Schneider and Bob Seyle.
 (Jesse Tinsley / The Spokesman-Review)
Carl Gidlund Correspondent

The B-17 “Flying Fortress” bomber that visited Coeur d’Alene recently is named Sentimental Journey, but for four veterans who served in similar aircraft during World War II, it was a journey back in time, but not necessarily of the sentimental variety.

Lee Fossum, 89, was a 30-mission bombardier, flying out of Mendelsham, England, with the 8th Air Force. Attacked by fighters and enduring anti-aircraft fire on virtually every mission to bomb factories, airfields, oil centers and marshaling yards in Germany, he was injured on his 27th mission when his plane crashed on takeoff.

According to his wife, Bonnie, he’s extremely reluctant to discuss any of his wartime experiences, but over the 60 years of their marriage, she’s learned bits and pieces of his three years in uniform.

He broke three vertebrae in that crash, she says, and was hospitalized in a body cast for a month. Then, when the cast was removed, he was sent up to fly four more missions.

After the war, she learned, he earned an Air Medal for climbing into an open bomb bay to release bombs that had hung up.

He took off his uniform in 1945, returned to Coeur d’Alene, his hometown, earned a civil engineering degree from the University of Idaho, worked for the state highway department, then opened Fossum Paint and Flooring Co.

Bonnie says Lee still suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and visited the airplane only because he was persuaded to by a friend.

The Army Air Forces in World War II suffered horrific casualties, a total of 54,700 dead or missing and 17,900 wounded. Each time one of the four-engine B-17s went down, it carried 10 men.

B-17 pilot Bob Jenkins, 86, flew his first mission on D-Day, and 26 after that over occupied Europe.

He arrived in Europe relatively late in the conflict, when the Allies had gained air superiority. His aircraft, named The Heavenly Piece, featured a painting of movie star Betty Grable, the same lady who appears on the nose of the Sentimental Journey.

Despite the flak and fighter attacks, only one man on his crew was wounded, and his gunners were credited with shooting down one attacker and a probable second.

Jenkins was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for landing his bomber behind enemy lines to deliver supplies to French resistance fighters. His other wartime exploits over Germany, Italy and Russia earned him four Air Medals.

After three years’ service, Jenkins returned to civilian life and became a banker. With savings from his military pay he founded an institution that eventually would include branches in 44 states. At his wife’s death in 1996 he sold his business and moved to Fernan to be near his daughter, Diane Asper.

Jenkins suffered a stroke seven years ago and now walks with the aid of a cane and speaks with difficulty.

Joe Cifka, 86, signed up with the Army Air Corps right after Pearl Harbor and was trained as a B-17 ball turret gunner. He’s proud of his association with retired Gen. Paul Tibbets, pilot of the plane that dropped the first atom bomb on Japan.

Tibbets was his commander in the 97th Heavy Bombardment Group in England and Africa before he was detached for the Japanese mission.

Cifka flew 50 combat missions in the Flying Fortress over Italy and Germany and was credited with downing a Messerschmitt fighter. He was wounded in a leg by anti-aircraft fire but considered it so minor that he didn’t apply for a Purple Heart.

Following his overseas service, he was transferred to Rapid City, S.D., where he trained other gunners. After his discharge there, he opened a bar with some of his Air Corps buddies, broke horses on a small ranch, then worked a variety of jobs in California, Oregon and Washington before retiring as a contractor in Redmond, Wash. He and his wife, Lael, moved to Coeur d’Alene five years ago.

His scariest moment during the war?

“Every time I flew,” he says.

Mike Bibin, 91, was a B-17 bombardier, an enlisted man as many were prior to and during the early years of the war.

He flew only one combat mission.

Bibin had joined the Army Air Corps in 1933 and was trained first as an armorer, then as a bombardier, and was sent to the Philippines in November 1941.

A month later, on the first day of the U.S. entry into World War II, a Japanese Zero fighter attacked his B-17 as it was about to land on Clark Field. A bullet ripped into his left shoulder, shattered his collarbone and lodged near his spine.

He was taken from his hospital bed by Japanese soldiers and held in prison camps in the Philippine Islands until June 1944, when he was marched onto a “death ship” and eventually shipped to Japan, where he was forced to work in a foundry.

After the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, Bibin was repatriated, weighing only 80 pounds. Aboard a hospital ship, he gained 70 pounds in 90 days.

He retired from the Air Force as a captain in 1963, then lived and worked in Tahiti and California before settling in Coeur d’Alene in 1983.

These warriors of “The Greatest Generation” have at least one thing in common related to the B-17: Not one of them is willing to fly in it again.

“I was scared enough,” says Cifka.