According to a December 2004 posting by his nephew Robert Rushton, Arthur D. Johnson had been radio operator on #42-30730 earlier in 1943. He was shot down later, on 29 July 1943 in B-17 #42-5426 'Fightin' Bitin'. Prisoner of War (POW).



From the Logan Daily News, Logan, Ohio 27 July 1945:

How a German railroad engineer deliberately rammed his locomotive into two carloads of wounded American prisoners of war was told here today by S/Sgt. Arthur D. Johnson of Salem, Ohio, a patient at the AAF regional and convalescent hospital. “The Germans called it an accident,” the gunner recalled. Captured after he bailed out of a stricken B-17 over Kiel, the young gunner, his right leg broken, was being taken with other wounded prisoners from a hospital to a prisoner of war camp when the collision occurred. "We were switched onto a siding,” Johnson said. “Then the German engineer uncoupled the locomotive and moved away, down the tracks. He opened his throttle and came back fast, ramming the cars we were in. “My leg had healed and I was able to walk with a cane, but it was broken again in the crash. Many other Americans were hurt too.”



Arthur Johnson was repatriated afterward in a Prisoner Exchange Program for treatment in the US.