He was shot down on his thirtieth birthday. Several Soviet veterans, interviewed separately decades later, remembered the same thing about him — not his face, but his identification card, which was passed around an airfield in Manchuria and is remembered to this day.
What is known
Capt. William D. Crone, USAF, an F-86 pilot, was shot down on 18 June 1951. It was his thirtieth birthday.
A Soviet veteran named Milaushkin told American investigators he had shot down “Willy” Crone in the summer of 1951. By his account Crone put the aircraft down in the surf and made for U.S. rescue forces on nearby islands, but the surf pushed the jet ashore and he was captured.
Two days later, Milaushkin said, Crone and three other American prisoners — one of them dark-skinned or black — were brought to his unit’s airfield at Antung, now Dandong, in China. They were under the supervision of secret police, the osobisty. Crone was about thirty, wore a leather jacket, as did one of the others; the remaining two were in tee shirts.
The identification card. Security officers showed Milaushkin Crone’s card. He remembered it being blue.
Several men, separately, and the same card
- Milaushkin — said he shot him down, saw him at Antung two days later and was shown the card.
- A veteran Milaushkin named — denied seeing an American prisoner, but admitted seeing the identification card of an American whose birthday fell on the day he was shot down.
- Nikolay Kalintsev — heard during the war that an American had been captured and interrogated on the day he turned thirty. His recollection of the month was out by one, which investigators did not think significant after so long, and they correlated it with Crone.
- A third Soviet veteran — was shown the identification card of an American officer he remembered as “Kron.”
- Senior Lt. Vladimir Roshchin — recalled seeing documents in his commanding officer’s office about a 1951 special operation to capture an F-86. A Russian media report said those documents discussed Crone.
None of these men was describing a face. They were describing a document, and the same document each time.
What remains unresolved
- How he came down. The accounts of his fate in 1951 differ: a mid-air collision, shot down, or captured alive. They cannot all be right. Soviet records credit a collision with Capt. Serafim Subbotin of the 176th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment about 18 miles southeast of Sinuiju.
- His appearance. One account describes chestnut hair, another blond. A small thing, but it is the kind of detail that decides an identification, and we record it rather than choose.
- The interrogation report. American officials asked Moscow to search Russian files for a report on Crone’s interrogation. If Moscow provided one, no evidence of it has been seen.
- The 1951 special operation. Roshchin described documents on an operation to capture an F-86 — the aircraft the Soviets wanted above all others. Whether Crone was taken as part of that effort, or simply fell into it, is unestablished.
- The other three men at Antung. Milaushkin said he saw four American prisoners, not one. The other three have never been identified.
Why the case matters
Because the evidence is not one man’s memory. Several Soviet veterans, interviewed separately and years apart, each remembered an American officer’s identification card circulating at a Manchurian airfield. Two independently attached it to a man captured on his thirtieth birthday. That is a pattern of recollection, not an anecdote.
And the object it points to is specific: an interrogation report, in Russian files, on a named American. It was asked for. Nothing came back.
Evidence and sources
- PIP research files — the Milaushkin, Kalintsev and Roshchin accounts, and the identification card.
- U.S.–Russia Joint Commission interview reporting with Soviet veterans of the 64th Fighter Aviation Corps.
- The request to Moscow for an interrogation report on Crone, and the absence of any produced response.
Request for information
Please contact us if you can help with any of the following.
- Soviet or Chinese interrogation reports or other records naming Crone in 1951, including as Kron or Крон.
- Accounts from anyone at the Antung airfield in summer 1951 of Crone and the three other American prisoners seen with him.
- What happened to the four Americans after Antung: where they were sent, and by whom.
Several Soviet veterans, interviewed separately, remembered his identification card at a Manchurian airfield, and one remembered documents on an operation to capture an F-86. Was Crone taken to the Soviet Union to be questioned about the F-86? Did he die in Chinese or Soviet custody? And who were the other three Americans with him?
Write to contact@powinvestigativeproject.org. We treat every approach in confidence.
Русский
Первый лейтенант Уильям Кроун (William Crone) — просим о помощи
Американский лётчик, сбит 18 июня 1951 года, в день своего тридцатилетия. По словам советского ветерана Милаушкина, Кроун посадил самолёт на воду у берега, но прибой вынес самолёт на берег, и лётчик попал в плен. Через два дня Кроуна и ещё троих американских пленных доставили на аэродром в Аньдуне (ныне Даньдун) под охраной особистов. Офицеры особого отдела показали Милаушкину удостоверение личности Кроуна — синего цвета. Ещё трое советских ветеранов, опрошенных отдельно, вспоминали то же удостоверение; один запомнил фамилию как «Крон». Старший лейтенант Владимир Рощин вспоминал документы об операции 1951 года по захвату истребителя F-86; по сообщению российских СМИ, в них упоминался Кроун.
Нас интересуют: протокол допроса Кроуна или любые документы 1951 года с его фамилией; материалы об операции по захвату F-86; воспоминания служивших на аэродроме в Аньдуне летом 1951 года; сведения о трёх других американских пленных, доставленных вместе с ним.
Мы не публикуем имена источников без разрешения. Напишите нам: contact@powinvestigativeproject.org