This book is Mike Croissant’s first publication. Bombing Hitler’s Hometown: The Untold Story of the Last Mass Bomber Raid of World War II in Europe was published last March. It is the 29th book I completed reading in 2024.

Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own! Due to some scenes of combat violence, I categorize this book as PG.

This book is the story of the 15th Air Force and their April 25, 1945 raid on Linz, Austria. Adolf Hitler considered Linz as his hometown. It was where he had planned to build the massive museum to house the many art treasures stolen from across Europe. But that was not the reason for the attack. In 1945, Linz was one of the few remaining communications centers of the Reich. Its rail yards filled with rolling stock carrying material destined for Nazi forces. The bomber raid consisted of 360 B-24s and 168 B-17s, with 200 fighters in escort. It was the last mass Allied bombing raid of WWII in Europe.

The author addresses this raid from the point of view of the men of the 15th, as well as from some of those on the ground in the target area. He gives the backgrounds of several crews and follows them through this mission. He tells many vignettes about individuals and crews.

I enjoyed the 9.5+ hours I spent reading this 463-page WWII-era history. The author invested years of his time investigating those involved in this bombing raid. He sought to understand what his uncle, the navigator on a B-24 in the raid, had experienced. I give this book a rating of 4.6 (rounded to 5) out of 5.

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It was just at the end of the war (April 25 1945), and turned out to be the last big bombing in Europe. With hundreds of planes (B 17s and B 24s) from the Fifteenth Air Force involved, the railyards at Linz Austria were to be bombed. Hitler had planned to turn Linz into a monument to himself and Nazism, but the war would be over in two weeks.

Linz had to be bombed for two reasons, it was the last remaining transport center that could send military material up to Berlin and northern Germany. The factories in Linz and the surrounding area were still operating and by blowing up the railyards would starve the Nazi war machine of additional planes and tanks.

In addition, by destroying the transport center at Linz, it would prevent the remaining German Armies from turning Bavaria and western Austria into a final redoubt from where they could continue to fight the war.

Though the Luftwaffe had been swept from the skies, there were still some of the new jet fighters available to trouble the bombers. In addition, the veteran Air Men were to state after the mission that it was the heaviest flack they encountered during the war. This is the story of the pilots and crews who made this bombing run and those who died and bailed out and survived landing in Austria.

A very well-done look at the last bombing mission from Italy in WW2. The author tells the stories of many of the crews involved as well as the civilians. The stories are inspiring and heartbreaking to see what those involved had to endure as well as the issues and trauma after the war. Overall, I highly recommend this book. A great read!

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Fascinating account of the last major air mission of WWII. What our airmen endured is unimaginable for those who haven’t participated in such a war. Schweinfurt–Regensburg was the worst bombing mission; what made Linz so tragic was the war was nearly over. The airmen anticipated going home and instead, Linz.

"Bombing Hitler's Hometown: The Untold Story of the Last Mass Bomber Raid of World War II in Europe" by Mike Croissant and published by Kensington Books is a book designed to shed some light on the nuts and bolts of strategic bombing as it was practiced in the European Theater of War during World War II by examining, from a number of perspectives, the last significant raid on Linz, Austria made in May of 1945. I am working from an ARC graciously provided to me by the publisher. The strength and greatest virtue of the book is in its examination of what a "typical mass raid" over the Reich might have looked like to the men participating and precisely what had brought those men to volunteer for the AAF. Note that by this point in the war, the Luftwaffe exercised a mostly nuisance role in interfering with the whole, highly structured, methodology painstakingly developed over the course of the war. Not as graphic as some accounts but more rounded in the sense that the text examines the raid from beginning to end and then extends beyond that to the fate of individual crewmembers who did not make it back in the conventional way (in many ways this is one of the most curiously interesting features of the book). Some ended up as prisoners of the Soviets, some actually baled out and landed in a concentration camp, and others were saved by Tito's partisans in Yugoslavia. The author does make some, very limited, reference to the impact on the enemy combatants and non-combatants, but that is clearly not his major interest here, and this should not be thought of as being intended as a comprehensive and well rounded approach. The author's writing style is accessible and anecdotal making this a peculiarly useful kind of introduction to the war in the air for readers not well versed in the subject. There is a place for this in general collections as well as specialized libraries. It is useful and worth the read..