Mike Croissant
"The Country Where Human Sufferings and Human Life Count for So Little”
Under the Yalta Agreement, signed by the Allied powers in February 1945, Allied prisoners of war (POWs) freed from German captivity by...
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Mike Croissant
- Feb 17
- 5 min
The Race to War's End: A Tale of Three War-Weary B-24 Liberators
When the 485th Bomb Group arrived at Venosa airfield, Italy, in February 1944 to begin combat operations, it had 72 B-24 Liberator...
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Mike Croissant
- Nov 6, 2021
- 9 min
“I Wasn’t Just Scared, I Was Petrified”
Few bomber crews were closer than that with which Sergeant Raymond M. Hook flew on the 25 April 1945 mission to strike rail targets in...
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Mike Croissant
- Apr 25, 2021
- 5 min
“It Felt as Though We Were Actually Hanging in the Sky"
First Lieutenant Reed Sprinkel occupied the copilot’s seat of a B-24 named Moe’s Meteor for the 25 April 1945 mission to Linz, Austria....
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Mike Croissant
- Jan 30, 2021
- 4 min
A B-17 Navigator on the Fifteenth Air Force's One and Only Raid on Berlin
First Lieutenant Doug Lenkoski was really named Leo, but he didn’t know it until he got his acceptance letter to Harvard in the spring of...
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Mike Croissant
- Jan 16, 2021
- 7 min
“We Were Almost Like Brothers”
Staff Sergeant Bill Gorrall had already been on two raids on the city of Linz, Austria, and he knew well how tough a target it was. His...
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Mike Croissant
- Jan 1, 2021
- 4 min
Unbowed: The Story of Art Jurado
In the flak-torn skies above Linz, Austria, on 25 April 1945, Lieutenant John M. Smidl, commanding a B-24 Liberator in the 743rd Bomb...
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Mike Croissant
- Dec 19, 2020
- 4 min
"We approached each mission with solemnity, trepidation, fear, and thoughts of dying today, perhaps”
“Bombing Linz gave me great pleasure,” First Lieutenant Bob M. Barnhart wrote in his journal, because it was so near and dear to the...
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Mike Croissant
- Dec 5, 2020
- 6 min
From the Skies Over Europe in World War II to the Bay of Pigs - The Story of Stan Beerli
The Second Bomb Group brought up the rear of the first wave of B-17 Flying Fortresses to face German anti-aircraft guns over Linz,...
216 views1 comment
Mike Croissant
- Nov 28, 2020
- 6 min
Shot at and Missed - The Story of Guyon Phillips
Guyon Phillips knew privation from a young age. He lost his father at age twelve, and his widowed mother struggled to make ends meet...
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Mike Croissant
- Nov 21, 2020
- 5 min
A Rookie Bomber Crew's Baptism by Fire (Part II)
“Pilot to left waist. Hallstead, are you working the chaff chute?” Second Lieutenant Charles Pillon asked of his radioman over the...
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Mike Croissant
- Nov 11, 2020
- 6 min
A Rookie Bomber Crew's Baptism by Fire (Part I)
“First mission, huh?” the veteran ball turret gunner had needled the rookie enlisted men in the waist of a 456th Bomb Group B-24 in the...
656 views1 comment