Under the Yalta Agreement, signed by the Allied powers in February 1945, Allied prisoners of war (POWs) freed from German captivity by...

When the 485th Bomb Group arrived at Venosa airfield, Italy, in February 1944 to begin combat operations, it had 72 B-24 Liberator...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

“Bombing Linz gave me great pleasure,” First Lieutenant Bob M. Barnhart wrote in his journal, because it was so near and dear to the...

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,...

Guyon Phillips knew privation from a young age. He lost his father at age twelve, and his widowed mother struggled to make ends meet...

“Pilot to left waist. Hallstead, are you working the chaff chute?” Second Lieutenant Charles Pillon asked of his radioman over the...

“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...