Historical Documents

A Fifteenth Air Force intelligence assessment identifies more than 2,000 train cars present in the Linz rail system, making it "the largest store of supplies behind the southeastern front." The report declares Linz "one of Germany's last great communications centers" and states that it will be defended by 164 anti-aircraft guns. By contrast, air crews had faced 110 guns on an earlier raid.

The missing-in-action telegram delivered to the parents of First Lieutenant John Greenman, pilot of the 455th Bomb Group's "Roger the Lodger" crew, who was shot down with his crew mates over Linz and captured by the Germans. Though the men's families wouldn’t know it until later, the crew was already back in US custody by the time the telegrams had been delivered.

The 459th Bomb Group's bombing assessment for the Linz raid declares that First Lieutenant Ellsworth Croissant's bomb pattern "was squarely on the aiming point with no appreciable aiming error."

In this supplemental statement to the Missing Air Crew Report filed after his B-17 "Old Folks" was shot down over Linz, First Lieutenant Richard Schwarz gives a harrowing account of his narrow escape from the damaged bomber.

Sergeant George Wood, one of only two survivors of First Lieutenant John Wilson's doomed B-17 on April 25, describes the grisly fate of his crew mate, Sergeant Johnson Roberts.

A portion of the identification card of Staff Sergeant Jack Patterson, who was "knocked around like a pea in a dice cup" at his tail gun position over Linz. The card enabled an airman who was shot down to identify himself and request assistance from friendly but non-English-speaking forces.

A military document dated May 5, 1945, notes the arrival in Odessa, Ukraine, of 11 survivors of the Linz mission, including Dale Shebilsky. Seventy mission survivors would ultimately be returned to Italy via Odessa.

The results of two aerial reconnaissance missions conclude that the Fifteenth Air Force accomplished its task of putting the Linz marshaling yards out of commission.

The telegram informing Harriet Croissant that her son, First Lieutenant Ellsworth Croissant, had been killed in a plane crash in Wisconsin. She never fully recovered from the loss.