POCATELLO — World War II B-25 bomber “Maid in the Shade” recently touched down in the Gate City, giving area residents a chance to connect with a piece of history that may have a connection to a real life “Rosie the Riveter.”

Jerry Washburn has been with the Commemorative Air Force since 1986 and with the Airbase Arizona Flying Museum since 2003, but his love of World War II aviation began when he was a teenager growing up in the late 1950’s.

Washburn immersed himself in reading the autobiographies of veterans and participants following the war and it got him excited about aviation and flight. Sometime in the early ’80s Washburn committed to his dream of flying, earning his pilot's license and joining the Commemorative Air Force. Washburn now has the unique opportunity to pilot the B-25 bomber “Maid in the Shade.”

“The mission of the Commemorative Air Force is to honor all of our veterans and active military people, to share the history of significant wartime events through education and to inspire people to learn more about that era of our country's history because of the immense amount of sacrifice that went into it,” Washburn said. “Not only those who actually served actively in combat, but those in the factories and (other) places, the people who went without food and whatnot to donate materials to the war.”

Washburn said some of his personal benefits from serving on the Commemorative Air Force has been meeting some of our country’s most respected WWII heroes.

“The old guys who actually flew these planes,” Washburn said. “I had the benefit of starting early enough that there were still quite a few of them around. That's not the case so much anymore. It's very rare, in fact, to have an old guy or woman come up who's actually served but many, I would say, even brought me to tears a few times.”

Over the years, Washburn has had visitors of the B-25 who flew on the aircraft for missions while it was in combat service, their signatures etched on the plane itself.

“We had three of the Doolittle Raiders who actually flew in that famous raid in April of 1942,” Washburn said. “Their signatures are on the bomb bay doors of this plane. We had a woman who we don't know for sure that she put rivets in this plane, but she was working in the Franklin North American factory in Kansas City during the same time that this plane was built. It's possible, maybe even probable, that she put rivets in this plane. A real life Rosie the Riveter.”

Washburn pointed out that they often designed, built and manufactured these planes with a number two pencil and a piece of paper on a table with a slide ruler with no computers and no technology of any kind.

“That's pretty amazing,” Washburn said. “And they did them in relatively record time. Actually, they built these planes faster than we can build them today with computers and everything else.”

Washburn continued, “Certainly, from a career path, aviation has a lot of opportunities, and, relative to a lot of professions, pays well. I wouldn't discourage anybody from going into aviation. Not everybody's a pilot, but there's a lot of other job positions where they pay quite well. Other than that, education wise, I'm focused on helping them understand more about that period and the history that immediately surrounded it.”

Another aspect of the visitors and historical significance of that era that Washburn shared was the unique experiences of those who were in combat during World War II and the effects it can have on them. With modern understanding of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, veterans can now receive diagnoses and take medication to help with nightmares, but many of those WWII veterans had to grapple alone with the intensity of war and death in the decades that followed.

“It helps now to understand why some of these people don't want to talk about it,” Washburn said. “One of the things I observed early on is that there are two types of veterans, one who would not talk — individuals who came out, they would look at the plane, you'd try to get them to talk and they wouldn't. You couldn't force it out of them. Whereas some of the others would come out and they wouldn't quit talking. These poor guys didn't have the benefit of PTSD diagnosis and stuff. They had to live with it.”

Upon inspection of the aircraft, visitors could duck under the bomb bay doors and see etched signatures from dozens of air servicemen, a stalwart few that risked life and limb on the rumbling and rivet sewn metal goliaths that roamed the skies over Europe decades ago. Their dedication and sacrifice are paramount to the lessons that the Commemorative Air Force imparts upon those who are willing to listen, who take time out of their day to appreciate one of the last vestiges of WWII B-25 bomber planes that now remain.

“There were about 10,000 B-25s built and of that number, there's about 40 to 42 that are still flyable,” Washburn said. “There's many more that are in museums and of those 40 that are flyable, there were only two that actually flew in combat during World War II. This is one of them. It's a very unique plane.”