Bob Vickman

Bob Vickman was the son of Morde and Elsie Vickman. The Vickman family were Russian Jewish immigrants to the United States who arrived circa 1905. The Vickmans originally settled in Chicago. Bob's dad Morde and his brother Abe moved to Los Angeles, California area. Morde and Elsie had three sons: Harry was the oldest, Bob the middle son, and Ted the youngest. Morde went into the restaurant business in 1930 creating the restaurant known as Vickman's feed bag. See Margaret Engel's article in the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/food/1985/06/19/an-odd-assortment/89f0f773-6f40-443a-a760-22a1c0f968fe/. Bob's older brother Harry took over the restaurant after Morde died. Bob had not married and left no kids. There are numerous cousins in California, Chicago and various other parts of the U.S.

In the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, on July 9, 1948, Vickman flew a mission over the Israeli Negev Desert in an Avia S-199. He never returned from the mission, and his body was never recovered.

Vickman was the co-creator of the symbol of the famous 101 Squadron, Israel's first fighter squadron, which flew its first mission on May 29, 1948. Its symbol was the Angel of Death, derived from the Biblical account of the ten plagues wherein the Angel of Death was the only plague that was able to completely defeat the Egyptians.

In 1943, at the age of 22, Bob Vickman joined the United States Army Air Forces and served on a photography unit in the Asian-Pacific front, where he undertook about two hundred hours of combat flying.

Vickman attended Marshall High School in Los Angeles and earned a B.S. degree in Business Administration from UCLA, studying from 1942 to 1945.

Robert Vickman (born November 21, 1921 in Hollywood, California, missing in action since July 9, 1948) was an American pilot and one of the first pilots in the Israeli Air Force. He died on active service in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.