8/1/1943 - Attempting to put a serious hurt on the Axis oil fields of Romania, the United States Army Air Forces' (USAAF) Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bombers based in Libya launch Operation Tidal Wave (the operation's third and final title after originally being called Operation Statesman and then Operation Soapsuds) on seven oil refineries around the town of Ploesti, a city of 100,000 souls 30 miles north of Bucharest (the region is dubbed, "Hitler's Gas Station!"). A bloodbath in the sky referred to as "Bloody Sunday" by the Air Force (the most costly Allied air raid of the war with fifty-four aircraft and six-hundred-and-sixty men lost during a single day of aerial combat, when first briefed on the mission, Colonel John "Killer" Kane will ask, "What idiot armchair lawyer from Washington planned this one?"), the operation will sadly result in "no curtailment of overall product output," but will become one of the most "heroic missions of all time" with the awarding of five Congressional Medals of Honor, fifty-six Distinguished Service Crosses, and numerous other awards for the American aircrews involved
Ploesti
Ordered by English Prime Minister Winston Churchill and United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the January 1943 war council at Casablanca, seemingly doomed from the start (later, the air groups involved and the mission itself will form the skeleton of the novel, Catch 22), the raid to destroy the oil fueling much of the German war machine (and all the fuel used by the Nazi air arm, the Luftwaffe) is planned by Colonel Jacob E. Smart (a 1931 West Point graduate from South Carolina and officer with limited flight time in the B-24, having gone up in the bomber for the first time only three weeks prior to the mission's fly date), based on the Axis defenses in play during a previous small attack on the area in June of 1942 (not wanting to give away its future plans, no air reconnaissance is done in the Ploesti area after the first raid), and doesn't take into account the installation of several hundred heavy duty 88mm guns around the refineries (along with a host of smaller anti-aircraft caliber weapons), the fighter planes from Germany, Romania, and Bulgaria commanded by Luftwaffe Colonel Alfred Gerstenberg protecting the area, smoke generators on the ground, a camouflaged train full of anti-aircraft guns that can travel parallel to the expected flight paths of attacking aircraft, and the skies over the targets being full of barrage balloons held in place by steel cables ... upgrades that after Berlin and Vienna, make the Ploesti area the third most defended target of the Third Reich Too many moving parts, Smart's plan calls for five different bombing groups in two different commands (the Eighth and Ninth U.S. Air Forces consisting of 178 bombers) to travel from multiple bases over a thousand miles to their targets (much of it low level and over the waters of the Meditterean and Adriatic to avoid enemy radar ... and of course, the return trip, a day of over 2,000 miles in the air), arriving from southwestern Romania simultaneously over various targets in a series of surprise attacks, that allow for little reaction time for the Germans or Romanians, and for the high accuracy it takes to destroy the specific structures required to shutdown a refinery (boiler houses, stills, powerhouses, and cracking towers), bombs are to be dropped at low speeds from heights of only two-hundred to eight-hundred feet. Preparing, the aircraft selected for the raid practice individual and group low level attacks, spend hours studying models of the area and it's targets, and bomb the crap out of a scale-model mock-up of some of the targets built in the desert.
Gerstenberg
The punch for Smart's plan will come from the 500-pound and 1,000 pound fragmentation bombs and incendiary devices (the bombers on the raid will bring over 500 tons of ouch to the target area). Transportation of said ordinance involves specially modified heavy Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers (nicknamed "The Flying Boxcar") with extra bomb bay fuel tanks (the bomber groups the aircraft come from are Colonel Keith Compton's 376th "Liberandos," assigned to strike the Romana-Americana refinery designated WHITE 1, Colonel John "Killer" Kane's 98th "Pyramiders," given the task of taking out the Astra-Romana refinery designated WHITE 4, Colonel Leon Johnson's 44th "Eight Balls," that gets the twin assignments of going after the Credtul Minier refinery and the Columbia-Aquila refinery, designated TARGET BLUE and WHITE 5 respectively, Colonel Addison Baker's 93rd "Ted Timberlake's Traveling Circus," with bombers set to attack Concordia Vega and Standard Petrol Block Unirea Speranta, WHITE 2 and WHITE 3 respectively, and Colonel Jack Wood's 389th "Sky Scorpions" given the mission of obliterating Steava-Romana Campina known as TARGET RED), increasing the range of the aircraft by 3,100 gallons of aviation fuel per plane. The "D" variant of the design (the plane will hold the world record as the most produced bomber, the most produced heavy bomber, the most produced multi-engine plane, and the most produced American military aircraft) the B-24s on the raid carry ten man crews that consist of a pilot, co-pilot, a bombardier, a navigator, a radio/radar operator, a flight engineer, and four gunners. Carrying 8,800 pounds of bombs in two bomb bays, with a wingspan of 110 feet (the wing is a high aspect ratio airfoil designed by aeronautical engineer, David Richard Davis Jr., that allows the B-24 a high cruise speed and long range married to an ability to carry heavy loads of ordinance), a length of 63 feet and 9 inches, and a height of 18 feet and 8 inches, the Liberator is capable of a maximum speed of 313 mph (powered by four 1,200 horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-1830-41 engines, has a service ceiling of 34,000 feet, is stabilized by a structure of two large ovals of metal attached to the ends of a rectangular horizontal tail piece, has a combat range of 2,100 miles, has tricycle landing gear, and carries at least six .30-caliber machine guns ... one in the nose, one in an upper turret forward of the wing and behind the cockpit, one at the tail, and two waist positions on each side of the aircraft.
Consolidated B-24 Liberator Heavy Bomber
B-24 Cockpit
Bad Landing
Besides a complement of German, Bulgarian, and Romanian pilots flying Messerschmitt Bf 109, Messerschmitt Bf 110, IAR 80 fighters to cut up the attackers as they enter and then attempt to leave the area, the most feared defensive weapons protecting the refineries of Ploesti are German 88 mm artillery guns the ring the region. Originally produced by Krupp as an anti-tank gun for Tiger tanks, early in the war it is discovered that shot into the sky, the shell bursts from the cannon are excellent at destroying bomber formations and blowing apart individual aircraft with both hits and near misses. Putting FLAK up in the sky (the generic term for creating anti-aircraft explosions, comes from a contraction of the German word Flugabwehrkanone, for aircraft-defense weapon ... and the term "ack-ack" for anti-aircraft fire also comes from the dreaded cannon as the German number for 88, acht-acht gets a dusting of American slang). Guns manned by teams of ten individuals, the formidable weapon can fire 15-20 shells per minute at a muzzle velocity of 2,690 feet per second and can hit targets at a maximum ceiling of 32,500 feet (though performance and hits fall of above 26,000 feet). At Ploesti, the guns will be firing on bombers dropping their payloads at less than maximum speed and at heights that can be measured in football fields of 100 yards!
Mobile 88
FLAK Peppered Tail
Taking off from bases around Benghazi (the 376th first, then the 93rd, 98th, 44th, and 389th), in the early morning darkness of August 1, 1943, the five bomber groups take off (178 bombers with 1,764 Americans aboard, along with one Englishman, gunnery observer, RAF Squadron Leader George C. Barwell) and form a bomber stream almost twenty miles in length as they head towards Romania ... and problems begin almost immediately. Engines clogged with desert dust and sand, one bomber is knocked from the mission by issues with its props and is the first B24 to be subtracted from Operation Tidal Wave. Another ten planes turn back after launch for a variety of issues. Flying in boxes of six aircraft each positioned into two "V" formations, the B24s pass the island of Corfu at low altitude, and then beginning climbing to cross over Albania's Pindus Mountains and avoid a stormfront. As the climbs begin, the attack loses two more aircraft when "Wongo Wongo," piloted by First Lt. Brian Flavelle of Essex County, New Jersey, suddenly begins to fly erratically, falls away to the left, and spins down into the sea, causing an explosion that sends a cloud of smoke 200 feet into the air and kills the ship's crew instantly, including First Lt. Robert F. Wilson, the bombing mission's lead navigator. Breaking protocol, First Lt. Guy Iovine, pilot of the "Desert Lily" and Flavelle personal friend, breaks formation to see if he can assist the "Wongo Wongo" (the move almost causes a mid-air collision with "Brewery Wagon," piloted by First Lt. John Palm), but with no survivors, all the move does is put the heavily laden bomber at an altitude where it can't climb back to the rest of the attack force in time to avoid the mountains and heads back to Africa, also taking the deputy mission navigator back to Benghazi. Group integrity already compromised, more distance is put between the attack elements as they climb over and then descend from the mountains at different power settings. And the navigating issues of the mission are further compromised when the leader of the "Liberandoes," Colonel Keith K. Compton in the "Teggie Ann" (with mission commander, Brigadier General Uzal G. Ent riding shotgun in the cockpit) takes over the duty of leading the group to it's target from the bomber's navigator, Captain Harold Wicklund. Not his forte, Compton reads his charts and the ground wrong and makes a wrong turn at a railroad line between the towns of Targoviste and Floresti that his group obediently follows (as do members of Lt. Colonel Addison E. Baker's bombers of "Ted Timberlake's Traveling Circus") that leads his portion of the bombers towards Bucharest, instead of Ploesti (there are three IPs, or Initial Points on the journey for the bombers to turn at ... the railroad line Compton uses is not one of them). And no one breaks ordered radio silence to tell him of his error until it is too late and Compton recognizes the mistake and heads back for Ploesti (as the guns of Bucharest get an unexpected first crack at the aerial raiders).
Flavelle
"Wongo Wongo"
Just Back From The Mission - L To R - Ninth Air Force Commander
Major General Lewis Brereton Greets Brigadier General Uzal Ent
And Colonel Keith K. Compton
Element of surprise gone (the mission has been tracked since the bombers took off from Benghazi and crossed the Mediterranean). groups scattered to different locations and altitudes, and already bloodied by their journey to their targets, the B24s arrive at the Ploesti refineries and fly into a nightmare world of explosions, tracer bullets, huge clouds of black smoke (in some instances, for seconds of time, the attackers fly through pitch black darkness), fireballs, anti-aircraft fire compared to "hail" and a curtain of steel," horrible air chop that makes the flying seem like being bounced around on a carnival rollercoaster, and heavy bombers everywhere falling out of the sky. Unaware that the Americans' plans have completely fallen apart, German and Romanian defenders are amazed that the attack is being made by bombers flying in various directions and heights (while at the same time, Ent radios the "Liberandoes" to break off their attacks on the refineries around Ploesti, and because it is too heavily defended, seek other targets of opportunity for the group's bombs. Too late, a handful of pilots immediately, but discreetly, drop their bombs and turn for home, but most continue on to their assigned targets (wanting a victory on his combat resume, Compton shortly after radios Benghazi "MS," mission successful, though the attacks have barely started). A charge of the light brigade in the sky, attacking RED TARGET, all 29 Sky Scorpions drop their bombs on Steava-Romana (four will be lost), damaging the refinery so badly that the facility will never reopen during WWII, dismayed to discover his target is already being attacked by bomber's of Colonel Baker's 93rd Bomber Group, Colonel Kane's group of 45 bombers in five waves drop their ordinance on WHITE 2, losing 22 planes (of which eight are brought down by blasts from Ploesti's infamous FLAK train), assaulting BLUE TARGET, Colonel Johnson loses 11 Liberators, out of his attack group of 37 Eight Balls bombers (supporting the efforts against BLUE TARGET, Lt. Colonel James T. Posey will lead 21 bombers of the 44th's "Eight Balls" against the Creditul Minier refinery without losing a plane, winning a Distinguished Service Cross for his actions), the 93rd of Colonel Baker break away from Compton's lead and attack targets at WHITE 2, WHITE 3, and WHITE 4, losing 27 aircraft in the process (one of which, "Hell's Wench," Baker is flying), and Compton has his group go after WHITE 1 and WHITE 2 after they turn away from Bucharest (and completing his "hands on" approach, it is Compton that triggers the release of his B24's explosives).
Coming In Low
Train 88s
Ploesti
Posey
Homeward Bound
Heroism everywhere with survival measured in mad seconds, the men who attack the Ploesti refineries become legends of the sky despite hundreds of their stories of bravery are lost forever because the witnesses who might have told them perish with their planes (of the sixteen Army airmen sent aloft to photographically document the attack, only Tech. Sgt. Jerry Jostwick manages to return to base). Concentrating on hitting their targets successfully, some bombers make the approach to their targets at an elevation of only ten feet, tree branches and barbed wire take a ride in the bombers' bomb bays, along with churned up grass painting some radio antennas. Some moments however are remembered beyond the end of the war. Leadership on display, making up for his mistake in following Compton's group towards Bucharest, Lt. Colonel Addison Earl Baker (36), and his co-pilot, Major John Louis "Jack" Jerstad (25), guide the bombers of "Ted Timberlake's Traveling Circus" into Ploesti's slaughterhouse of guns despite "Hell's Wench" receiving crippling damage as it begins it's bomb run (the pair unload their bombs ahead of their target just to keep their plane in the air). Holding steady with it's ordinance gone until their run can be completed, after passing over the drop area the pair begins to pull up in an attempt to get high enough so the crew can use their parachutes, but their Liberator suddenly disintegrates, killing everyone aboard. For their actions leading the attacking 93rd into it's targets and for their efforts to save the crew, both Baker and Jerstad are awarded posthumous Congressional Medals of Honor. Given the okay to abort their mission and hit targets that aren't as heavily defended, Colonel John Riley Kane (36) of the "Pyramiders" and Colonel Leon William Johnson (39) of the "Eight Balls" receive Medals of Honor for leading their men to their group's original targets ... and live to wear the medals (though Kane eventually lands with 20 hits to his plane and one of the aircraft's engines dead, where he discovers that the hair on his left arm has been singed away while Kane was resting it on the pilot's open window during his bomb run).
Baker
Jerstad
"Hell's Wench"
Kane
Johnson Medal Ceremony In England
A fifth Congressional Medal of Honor is awarded to the San Antonio, Texas family of 2nd Lt. Lloyd Herbert "Pete" Hughes Jr. (22) for the leadership he shows guiding the last flight of his B24, "Ole Kickapoo." Part of the last element "Sky Scorpions" attacking the RED TARGET Steau-Romana refinery nine miles north of Ploesti at the town of Campina (the second largest refinery in the country, it has the ability to produce 1.75 million tons of crude oil per year in 1943), Hughes bomber is hit as it makes it's approach and begins leaking fuel out of it's left wing (the leak is so large that it blinds the view of the left waist gunner). Maximum fire pouring up at the tail-end attackers, flames reaching into the air higher than the bombers are flying at, Hughes makes the decision to not break up the formation by aborting his bombing run. Locked on, "Ole Kickapoo" drops it's bombs from a height of only thirty feet, and pulls up from its assault, now on fire. Gaining altitude so that the crew can parachute to safety or to give himself enough time to find a place to crash land, Hughes reduces his plane's speed from 225 miles an hour to 100 mph and is about to come down in a dry portion of the Prahova River when the B24 suddenly loses it's left wing and does a flaming cartwheel along the river bed, killing six men instantly (including Hughes), two more the next day from their wounds, while two more men are wounded, recover, and spend the rest of the war as POWs.. For his bravery over Ploesti, Hughes is awarded a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor. Indictive of the heroism of other men that don't quite qualify for the Medal of Honor, Staff Sgt. Zerrill Jackson "Todd" Steen's busy day as a gunner on Lt. Robert Horton's bomber, "Sand Witch" is typical of the warriors that attack Ploesti. Bomber making its run into it's target, Steen his twin .50-calber machine gun at enemy ground positions, but is suddenly on the ground himself when the plane crashes into the ground, Everybody aboard dead in the crash except Steen, the battling sergeant fights a solitary battle from the wreckage of "Sand Witch," firing on a flak tower that brought the bomber down until his gun runs out of ammo. For his actions, Steen spends the rest of the war in captivity as a POW, a POW awarded a Distinguished Service Cross for his fight aboard the "Sand Witch." One tale of heroism out of hundreds, or thousands, of similar stories.
Hughes
The Doomed "Ole Kickapoo" And It's Crew
"Sand Witch" Wreckage
Final Rest
One of the epic missions of the war, over 2,000 miles of flight, much of it over water, and sixteen hours in the air (the last B24 back to Benghazi, "Liberty Lake" lands at its base after nearly eighteen hours in the air), fighters, FLAK, fires, explosions and twenty low-level hellish minutes over the target, the attack on the Ploesti refineries is both the costliest mission of the conflict, and the most celebrated with medals and ribbons seemingly for all involved, the mission chalks up 5 Congressional Medals of Honor, 841 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 16 Distinguished Service Crosses, 10 Silver Stars, 1 Soldier's Medal, and a Presidential Unit Citation for each of the five bombing groups (upon arrival back at their bases, many of the airmen are so exhausted by their long day that they have to carried off their planes by ground personnel). Despite the extensive heroism though, Operation Tidal Wave is a horrible failure. Fifty-four heavy bombers lost in a single day of combat (92 bombers make it back to base, but after being examined, only 50 are deemed worthy of further air time (365 strikes are found on one B24 before her ground crew stops counting, nearly a third of the 1,700 men sent to Romania are dead, 300 more Americans are wounded, and a hundred aviators become POW captives for the rest of the global conflict (in something of a lucky break for the bad luck bombers, many downed airmen will remain in Romania instead of being sent to German POW camps, chiefly due to the efforts of Princess Caterina Caradja of Romania after one of the raiders crash lands on the grounds of her country estate. And the Americans aren't the only folks that take casualties on 8/1/1943. Beginning its target run, the B24, "Jose Carioca" (piloted by 1st Lt. Nicholas Stampolis), finds itself attacked by an Romanian IAR 80 fighter which half rolls to an upside-down position beneath the bomber where it rakes the belly of the Liberator with its two 20mm nose cannons and four wing-mounted Browning machine guns. Destroyed in the burst of destruction (all members of the crew are killed in action by the crash), the bomber wreckage sadly crashes into a nearby three-story, women's prison building, creating a malevolent fireball which kills a hundred civilians and injures another 200 souls.
"Jose Carioca"
Missing Some Wing
Low Level
IAR 80
Blood and treasure spent, the results of the mission are a 42% reduction in the refining capacity of the Ploesti oil fields. A mirage, just two weeks later a massive clean-up, repairs (thousands of forced laborers work 24/7 repairing the raid's damages) and adjustments have taken place around Ploesti (the fighter defenses of the city are doubled and there are more anti-aircraft positions everywhere, one that results in the net output of Ploesti fuel increasing (the Germans had not been running the various refineries at full capacity). Still a target requiring the Allies attention, and easier to get to when Italy's southern boot is taken and bases are moved from North Africa forward to the continent (and the area falls when range of long-distance American P51 Mustang fighters), raids on the Ploesti region will continue, but as over much of Europe, the bomb runs take place at tens of thousands of feet of elevation, and becomes a tag-team affair with American bombs falling during the day, and those of the Royal Air Force falling at night ... and still the losses over the target are heavy and the oil keeps flowing (in all, 223 bombers and 36 fighters are lost during the war attacking Ploesti, in addition to the loss of 1,1706 airmen killed, and another 1,123 captured). Only once during the war do the Allies try something else. Flying from bases near Foggia, Italy, on the morning of 6/10, 1944, 46 specially modified twin-engine P38 Lightning fighters (and 48 more flying protection and support), each carrying a 300 gallon drop tank and a single 1,000 pound bomb, take off for the Romanian oil fields. Attacking at low-level again, surprise is achieved, but then quickly lost. Much like the 8/1/1943 raid, 30% of the oil refining is lost (but quickly repaired) at a cost of 24 Lightnings. Finally the Ploesti oil spigot is turned off on 8/20/1944, when two Russian Army groups take Romania out of the war and 23-year-old King Michael I leads a successful revolt against the dictatorial rule of Marshal Ion Antonescu (arrested in 1945, Antonescu will be tried for war crimes, found guilty, and is executed by a firing squad on 6/1/1946 at the age of 63.
P38 Lightning
A type of combat made extinct after the end of WWII, the final words on the 1943 Ploesti raid are left to hero aviator and Congressional Medal of Honor winner, Colonel John Riley "Killer " Kane: "To the Fallen of Ploesti ... To you who fly on forever I send that part of me which cannot be separated, and is bound to you for all time. I send to you those of our dreams that never quite came true, the joyous laughter of our boyhood, the marvelous mysteries of our adolescence, the glorious strengths and tragic illusions of our young manhood, all of these that were and perhaps would have been, I leave in your care, out there in the blue." Amen!
8/1/1943
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