on 5 January 1945, when a mail train to Linz was bombed. Bags containing a total of about 3,800 propaganda letters were dropped at the site of the wreck, which were subsequently picked up and delivered to Germans by the postal service. Within 1944–45 twenty missions had been completed, reporting a success rate of 50%, leaving the 15th Air Force with over 320 delivered mailbags of propaganda. Aftermath A major oversight by the OSS and its task force in Rome was that the ravages of war shut down many of the cities' critical services and in some cases the postal service. While some cities continued its services of mail delivery, the allied bombing had turned many residences into piles of rubble; millions of people without a home were displaced and forced to leave and seek refuge elsewhere, in many cases with relatives. Without a physical address left to deliver the mail to, much of it was discarded. Another oversight was simply the fact that when people received mail from an unknown source they would usually destroy it, especially if the letters contained allied propaganda, either out of loyalty or fear of punishment. Fake postage stamps The British were the first to forge the Hitler head stamp in 3, 4, 6 and 8 Pfennig values from 1941 until the end of the war. These stamps were of better quality versus the Americans' attempt at forgery because the British used actual stamp production facilities whereas the Americans did not have access to quality ingredients such as paper, ink or engravers. The American forgeries focused much of their efforts on the 12 Pfennig stamp which hosted Hitler’s head and exposed skull. The postage stamps used on the envelopes were forged 6 and 12 Pfennig Hitler-head stamps intended to look identical to genuine German stamps of the era, though these forgeries were printed by the Office of Strategic Services. References American propaganda during World War II Office of Strategic Services Philatelic fakes and forgeries Propaganda techniques using information United States intelligence operations