177 B-24 Liberator Bombers take off from their base in North Africa to bomb Hitler's Ploesti Oil Fields in WW2.

Click Here are several photographs of the disastrous first Ploesti Oil Fields bombing mission.   

A disaster for both sides.  On August 1, 1943, 177 B-24 Liberators took off from their base at Benghazi, Libya, North Africa.  Their target, the oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania.   Winston Churchill had described Ploesti as the “taproot of German might.  In January 1943, Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt approved a massive aerial attack against the Ploesti Oil Refinery believing that the raid could cut six months off of the total length of the war.  The legendary low level raid on Ploesti, Romania was made by the 376th, 93rd, 44th, 389th and 98th Bomb Groups.  Col. John Killer Kane, commander of one of the bombardment groups tasked with the raid, deemed the operation idiotic because of the unconventional-and untested-low-level bombing.  At Ploesti the B-24's encountered one of the most heavily defended targets in the world and one-third of the bombers and there crews never came back.  Yet three refineries escaped any damage and most of the refineries that were hit were quickly repaired.

9-April-2012

The raid was not a disaster.   My father flew Old Blister Butt for the 389th BG and they put the high octane refinery out of commission for the entire war! As a result, the Germans did not have a high quality aviation fuel for high altitude interception of the 8th AF when they began bombing Germany.

It is an injustice to the men who flew this courageous mission to state it was a disaster.

Don't rewrite history from the comfort of an air conditioned armchair!

Sincerely,

Philip Wright, proud son of Col. Robert Lee Wright, USAF retired after 33 years of distinguished service to this nation.

On 4/9/12, Jeff Dyrek <yellowairplane@yahoo.com> wrote:

Dear Philip,

Thank you very, very much for those comments.  I only know what I have read and what a person reads isn't always the truth. I am indeed sitting here in an arm chair and have talked to many veterans, through the YellowAirplane site,  now for fifteen years.  I am a disabled veteran and have twelve years of  federal service and served aboard the USS Kitty Hawk. The question that I keep asking myself while I keep working on this website is, Where are all of  my friends? A lot of them never made it back from Nam, my WW2 friends are  leaving us so often that it's a shame because I miss them.  Many of the guys have had tremendous PTSD problems that didn't show up for years after their horrifying experiences.  My brother is no longer able to travel too far from home because of his time in Viet Nam, yet he looks totally fine. 

4/10/2012

Hi Jeff,

First off, thanks for your service. Secondly, thanks for having an open mind to listen to what others might have to add to a discussion. Most folks today don't want to hear anything other than their own opinions.

Ploesti is a very interesting mission from many aspects. When you consider the state of the art of navigation, it is a fantastic achievement that the men arrived over the target in mass and were able to inflict the damage they did. No GPS, satellite tracking, etc. Just good old fashioned American Ingenuity! I have my Dad's mission map that was nothing more than travel post cards, pictures, and drawings of the route so that the pilots could pick out landmarks along the way. Imagine doing something like that! Over 1000+ nautical miles with nothing more than outdated maps and tourist cards and photos to navigate once the ships were down low and line of sight was no longer helpful. Oh well, I could go on for hours, have you read the book Ploesti "the great land air battle"? Many vets were interviewed and give first hand accounts of the mission. I remember the authors visiting our home on Maxwell AFB, Alabama and interviewing my Dad. Bomber Pilot by Philip Audrey is another great book. It covers the 389th BG and their participation as well as their tours in Europe. My Dad's name is Lt. Robert Lee Wright from Austin, TX in the books. You can find them on amazone.com for a reasonable . HTH

Philip