Spencer B. Fox
Spencer Baldwin Fox of Westmont (Haddon Township), NJ.
Rank: Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Air Forces
Serial Number: 13176383
Unit: 738th Bomber Squadron, 454th Bomber Group (Heavy)
Entered service from: New Jersey
Died:
Burial: Plot 82 O 220, Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, 2900 Sheridan Road, St. Louis, MO
Awards: Air Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Purple Heart
Staff Sergeant Spencer Baldwin Fox was born on April 5, 1923. He was a 1940 graduate of Collingswood High School, where his yearbook listed stamp collecting and reading as his hobbies. After graduation he worked as a shipfitter’s apprentice at the New York Shipbuilding Company in Camden, NJ, while attending Camden Vocational School on weekends. He enlisted in the Army in November of 1942 at the age of nineteen and was inducted at Fort Meade, Maryland.
After basic training, Fox was sent to Scott Field, Illinois, where he graduated as a Radio Operator and Mechanic and was promoted to T/3C. When offered a position as a radio instructor at Officer Candidate School, he declined, preferring combat duty. He then trained as a gunner at the Harlingen Gunner School in Texas, earning his Gunner’s Wings and a Marksman’s Medal, and was promoted to Sergeant.
He spent a week at the Replacement Wing in Salt Lake City, Utah, before joining the 454th Bomb Group at Walla Walla, Washington, for training. Additional training phases followed at Charleston, South Carolina, where he attained the rank of Tech Sergeant before being retrograded to Staff Sergeant. His group sailed from the Port of Embarkation in New York on December 11, 1943, flying from Morrison Field in Miami to Africa via British Guiana, Natal (Brazil), Dakar, and Algeria. The group then moved to Cerignola, Italy, joining the 15th Air Force and the 738th Squadron, 454th Bomb Group.
Staff Sergeant Fox flew his first formation mission on January 31, 1944. After serving initial missions as a radio operator, he transferred to the nose turret as a gunner. He was killed in action on April 12, 1944, on his thirteenth mission, when the B-24 bomber he crewed — serial number 42-64485, nicknamed “Mickey Finn” — was shot down by German fighters over Kiskoros, Hungary. Eight crew members bailed out; Fox, pilot Second Lieutenant James Ormsbee, and bombardier Second Lieutenant Kenneth Speaker went down with the plane. The remains of the three men were later found buried in the Catholic cemetery at Bikacs, Hungary, and reinterred together at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri.
Spencer B. Fox was survived by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Maurice B. Fox, of 2 Chestnut Place, Westmont, NJ, and a sister, Mrs. Lorayne Pims.
Spencer B. Fox is memorialized on the War Memorial on Haddon Avenue in Westmont (Haddon Township), NJ.
Spencer B. Fox, 738th Bomber Squadron
Biography of Spencer Baldwin Fox, 738th Bomber Squadron, 454th Bomb Group.
B-24 42-64485 “Mickey Finn”
B-24 bomber serial number 42-64485, nicknamed “Mickey Finn,” the aircraft in which Spencer Fox was killed on April 12, 1944.
Sgt. Spencer Fox To Be Buried in National Plot
Camden Courier-Post —
Final military rites for Staff Sgt. Spencer B. Fox, son of Mr. and Mrs. Maurice B. Fox, 2 Chestnut Avenue, Audubon, will be held Oct. 3 with reburial in Jefferson Barracks national cemetery, St. Louis.
Mr. and Mrs. Fox, recently received word that the remains of their son were buried together with two buddies, Lt. James Ormsbee, Alexandria, Va., and Lt. Kenneth Speaker, Ontario, Calif., whose plane went down in flames April 13, 1944, in Hungary. Remains of the three were found buried in the Catholic cemetery at Bikacs, Hungary.
Staff Sergeant Fox was on his 13th mission as nose turret gunner in the 15th Air Force.
Because the bodies could not be identified individually, the government choose St. Louis because of its central location.
Staff Sergeant Fox is survived by his parents and one sister, Mrs. Lorayne Pims, of Westmont. His mother, Mrs. Irene Fox, is vice president of Camden County Chapter 1, American Gold Star Mothers. She will attend the services in St. Louis.
Photos
The Fox family home at 2 Chestnut Place, Westmont (Haddon Township), NJ (July 2004).