Lieutenant Leslie Belmont Zubiri was born June 17, 1917 in Salt Lake City, Utah, the son of James and Jane Griswold Zubiri. His father, who was born in Spain died, in 1937. Lt. Zubiri was killed at age 25 on March 4, 1943 when the B-17 bomber he was piloting was shot down and ditched in the North Sea.

He graduated from East High School in Salt Lake and attended the University of Utah. He was employed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer distributors prior to entering the service.

He enlisted in Salt Lake City on January 21, 1942 and was accepted for the Aviation Cadet Program. When he completed this training, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, awarded wings, and given additional training as a pilot on the B-17 type aircraft. He deployed to England as part of a replacement crew, and was assigned to the 91st Bomb Group.

The crew flew several missions in the weeks to follow, and on March 4, 1943, this crew was scheduled to participate in a bombing raid on the railway marshaling yards located at Hamm, Germany.

Because of weather and related reasons, all groups in the bomber stream turned back, but the 91st continued to the target and bombed it. Flak was intense, but the bombers made the turn off target and headed for home. Off the coast of Denmark, the formation was attacked by German fighters, and Lt. Zubiri's aircraft was shot down west of Den Helder and crashed into the North Sea. All crew members were declared killed in action, although one survived.

Lt. Zubiri's body washed ashore near Blavand on Skallinger Island on June 27, 1944. He was buried in Forvelt cemetery in Esbjerg on June 29. On April 20, 1948, he was moved to the Netherlands American Cemetery at Ardennes.

He was married to the former Lucille “Penny” Centlivre, who was a “stewardess” with United Airlines. Unbeknownst to either of them, she was pregnant when he left for Europe. She gave birth to a daughter on September 29, 1943, six months after his death. Lt. Zubiri’s mother died in 1950. His widow remarried, lived in California, and was active in the Sierra Club. She died in 2004. His daughter was an artist and writer who lived in the San Francisco Bay area and died in 2005.

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (www.storiesbehindthestars.org .) This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen person's name and read his/her story.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56361787/leslie-belmont-zubiri

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