Air raids on Ploiesti

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B-24 Liberator bomber flying low over Ploieşti, August 1943

The air raids on Ploiesti the Allied powers in World War II took place between 13 July 1941 and 19 August 1944th In the area around the city of Ploieşti in the Kingdom of Romania there were oil production facilities controlled by the German Reich . The air strikes , carried out using different tactics, were intended to destroy the eleven local oil refineries and thus prevent or at least impair the production of essential war goods such as fuel. These were of strategic military importance for the “ Third Reich ” .

After initial Allied successes, a strong Romanian-German anti-aircraft defense system was established in Ploiesti, which gave the city the nickname fortress Ploiesti . Operation Tidal Wave, carried out in 1943, proved to be a major failure for the Allies. It was only in 1944 following bombing of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) and the Royal Air Force (RAF) damaged the oil installations at times heavy and reduced the total production capacity significantly. Both warring parties suffered heavy losses from the air raids. The Romanian civilian population also suffered many victims. The last air raid took place on August 19, 1944.

On August 23, 1944, the royal coup in Romania ended the military dictatorship of Marshal Ion Antonescu and the military alliance with the German Reich. The next day the oil facilities were taken by the Red Army , whereupon the German troops left the country.

Together with the attacks on Leuna and other hydrogenation plants in Germany in 1944, the fuel supply of the Axis powers and especially the supply of aviation fuel was decisively weakened. As a reaction to this, the mineral oil security plan , the so-called Geilenberg program , was created in 1944 , which was intended to stabilize the weakest point of the German armaments industry, which ultimately failed.

history

Political situation

Ion Antonescu and Adolf Hitler in Munich, June 10, 1941

Ploieşti has been known for its oil fields since the 19th century. With American participation, the first Romanian and third worldwide oil refinery was built in nearby Rîfov between 1856 and 1857. Ploieşti was one of the most important sources of crude oil for the German Reich during World War II. The city's oil industry developed into a war industry under German rule, which mainly served to supply the Wehrmacht with fuel .

German Empire

For the four-year plan of 1936, the Wehrmacht and the Reich Office for Economic Development presented comprehensive memoranda in which they described the procurement of oil as a war goal:

  1. Mastery of the Romanian oil fields and thus of the entire Danube region.
  2. Implementation of the occupation with due consideration of the preservation and operability of the Romanian oil industry.
  3. Protection of transport routes, oil plants, refineries and tank farms.

The head of the Reich Office, Carl Krauch , at the same time military economic leader and chairman of the supervisory board of IG Farben , stated that Romania and all of Southeast Europe was an " armed forces to secure area" whose oil had to be "politically and militarily secured" for Germany only. He already quantified the material requirements for a pipeline of around 2000 kilometers from Ploieşti to Regensburg .

Adolf Hitler said on his visit to the allied Finland in June 1942:

“ If the Russian had occupied Romania in the autumn of 1940 and had taken possession of the Romanian oil wells, then in 1941 we would have been helpless. [...] We have a large German production facility; but what the Luftwaffe alone devours, what our armored divisions devour, that is something really enormous. It is a consumption that goes beyond belief. [...] Without at least four to five million tons of Romanian petroleum we would not have been able to and should not have waged war. "

American estimate of the crude oil distillation capacity of the Ploieşti refineries in 1943
refinery Capacity in
thousands of tons
Astra Română 1750
Concordia Vega 1450
Româno-Americană 1170
Unirea Orion 730
Columbia Aquila 535
Petrol block 485
Unirea Speranța 440
Xenia 290
Petrolmina 150
Dacia Româna 120
Noris 60
American estimate of European oil and refinery production in 1943
Figures in thousands of tons, the contents in brackets show the yield of crude oil through refining in percent.
country Crude oil production
Crude oil processed in refineries		 petrol Kerosene and diesel lubricant Heavy fuel oil Refinery Use
and Loss
Romania 5067 5067 2102 (41.5) 1064 (21) 152 (3) 1166 (23) 583 (11.5)
Austria 1000 500 60 (12) 135 (27) 125 (25) 135 (27) 45 (9)
Germany 993 993 223 (22.5) 153 (15.4) 212 (21.4) 338 (34.0) 67 (6.7)
Hungary 800 600 144 (24) 270 (45) 24 (4) 108 (18) 54 (9)
Poland 400 400 80 (20) 138 (34.3) 48 (12) 108 (27) 26 (6.7)
Estonia 95 95 10 (11) 38 (40) 0 (0) 42 (44) 5 (5)
France and others 95 95 22 (23) 25 (26) 21 (22) 22 (23) 5 (6)
Italy and Albania 77 (11 + 66) 177 41 (23) 75 (42) 9 (5) 37 (21) 15 (9)
Yugoslavia 49 49 12 (24) 22 (45) 2 (4) 9 (18) 4 (9)
Czechoslovakia 32 632 63 (10) 202 (31) 127 (20) 183 (29) 57 (9)
total 8608 8608 2757 2122 720 2148 861
  1. ↑ a b Coal was used to operate the German and Polish refineries.
Resources in Romania as of 1970
Romania, 1941-1944

The protection of Romania's oil resources played a strategically important role in the course of the Second World War . From the perspective of the German Reich, the British involvement in Greece threatened these resources, as it brought them into the range of action of British bombers. As a military base, Crete in particular gave Great Britain the opportunity to control access to the Aegean Sea and to bomb the oil fields in Romania. These considerations led, among other things, in the course of the Balkan campaign in 1941 to the capture of Greece and the airborne battle over Crete . The island remained under German occupation until 1945.

According to Heinz Guderian's memories , on August 23, 1941, during the discussion in the “ Wolfsschanze ” about the decision for the battle for Kiev , Adolf Hitler again pointed out the importance of the Crimea , which was “ as an aircraft carrier of the Soviet Union in the fight against the Romanian oil fields ” must be switched off. In this context, Hitler said: “ My generals understand nothing about the war economy. "

Romania

The former ally France played no political and military role for the time being after the Armistice of Compiègne (1940) .

As agreed in the secret additional protocols of the German-Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939, the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia , (northern) Bukovina and the Herța area took place . In 1940 Romania saw the National Socialist German Reich, despite the Second Vienna Arbitration Award (1940), as the only European power that could help the country to hold together the remaining territory and to regain the lost territory . The Romanian "leader" Marshal Ion Antonescu , who established a fascist regime , outlined his policy with the words:

“ I am the Reich's ally against Russia. I am neutral between Great Britain and Germany. I am for the Americans against the Japanese. "

After initial neutrality , Romania joined the Alliance of Axis Powers on November 23, 1940 and, on the side of the German Reich in June 1941, provided the strongest non-German troop contingent in the German-Soviet war that began with Operation Barbarossa and was initially successful Greater Romanian territories lost to the Soviet Union could be recaptured. From December 1941, Romania was at war with the United Kingdom and from June 1942 with the United States . Military successes became rarer now; finally, at the end of 1942, significant parts of the Romanian army were involved in the battle of Stalingrad . From 1943 the Romanian units - like the German Wehrmacht - were mostly in retreat, whereupon Romania reduced its commitment as an ally. By November 1943 the country had suffered losses of around 250,000 soldiers. The war, which was unfavorable for the Axis powers on the Eastern Front , led both the Romanian leadership and its opposition to consider changing allies at the beginning of 1944.

The German allies were often perceived by the Romanian population as arrogant and cruel. In relation to the Soviet Union, there was a fear of the “ Red Danger ”, which the Romanian government propaganda also referred to as the “ Jewish-Bolshevik plague”. The former allies from the First World War France and Great Britain, however, deserved sympathy, and the civilian population of Ploiesti and the Romanian military treated American prisoners with respect despite the air strikes.

Ploieşti

Location of Ploieşti (red square)
Oil production near Moreni around 1920. In 1691, in the place located 28 kilometers west of Ploieşti, oil was produced for the first time in Romania .
Map of the refineries in the immediate vicinity of Ploiesti around 1940
A leaflet dropped by the RAF calls on Romanians to end the alliance with the German Reich and thus to shorten the war.
  • city

In the early days of oil production in the Prahova Valley ( Valea Prahova in Romanian ), the city had a large influx of people from rural areas. Strategies geared towards industrial development transformed the region into one of the largest oil production centers. Production in Romania was in second place on the list of oil producing countries in Europe in the interwar period . Only the Soviet Union produced more. Romania was in sixth place in the world rankings with a share of 2.2 percent. Numerous refineries for further processing settled in the area, which was in contrast to the agricultural economy in large parts of the country. The good connection to the road and rail network gave the city a convenient location. The Danube is also an efficient waterway to the Black Sea .

The urban structure of Ploieşti differed from that of most German cities. The inner city consisted of two- or three-story administrative buildings, the rest of the city of single-story small houses usually surrounded by gardens. In contrast to the inner cities of Germany, which are often at risk of fire due to their structural structure, phosphorus bombs could hardly develop their potential due to the lack of combustible material in the architecture given here, but they could in the oil plants.

  • population

The total number of inhabitants of the city was 77,341 in 1930, around 90,000 in 1941 and 96,229 in 1948, so Ploieşti temporarily had the largest population growth in the country. In 1940 almost 18,500 people worked in the oil industry, and they were often instructed in the German language. Many people worked in the paper and printing sectors, in commerce, in agriculture, in transportation and in manufacturing companies. Metal processing companies (for example Concordia ) also produced war materials such as cannons and ammunition as well as hangars for the Romanian air force.

Around five percent of the population belonged to minorities, including Magyars , Romanian Germans and Roma . 34 percent of the city's Jews, who made up five percent of the population, were engaged in trade. The remainder worked in the liberal professions or in banking, medical or industry. The Jews were considered an important segment of the city's middle class. The anti-Semitic reprisals reached their climax with the evacuation of many Jews from Ploiesti because of the " danger of sabotage ".

  • Oil industry

Of the capital invested in the city's industry, 26 percent came from Romania and 20 percent from Britain, 16 percent from Anglo-Dutch, 10 percent from American, 6 percent from Belgian, 3 percent Italian, and less than one percent from German and other investors.

The successful conclusion of the western campaign against France enabled the German Reich to influence the capital positions of the western powers in the Romanian oil industry. On May 23, 1940, the Reich Ministry of Economics announced the objective "to secure the holdings of securities in the Netherlands and Belgium in order, especially in the case of holding companies, to gain influence on the controlled companies (e.g. oil companies based in Romania) beyond this ownership ".

The German bank was negotiating with the French and Belgian shareholders of refineries Concordia , Columbia and Steaua Româna . The Reich Ministry of Economics authorized them “ to fill those foreign positions during the war, especially in the southeast region, which (...) are of particular importance to us ” and to bring the shares of the companies mentioned into German ownership. The negotiations in Brussels and Paris were led by the board members Hermann Josef Abs , Karl Kimmich and Kurt Weigelt , who were in contact with the German ministries and with occupation officials in France. Paris and Brussels banks with shares in the oil companies were forced to sell by means of toggle contracts and prices that were significantly below market value, in the case of the Columbia works at a sixth of the price of 100 million Reichsmarks demanded by the French shareholders (the demand corresponds in values ​​of 2011 about four billion US dollars).

With the title of ownership, the administration at Concordia, Columbia, after Antonescu took office as Prime Minister of Romania on September 4, 1940, also at Astra Română and Steaua Româna and Unirea by IG Farben . The share of the German Reich in Romanian crude oil production was now 47 percent. The circumstances have been recognized by enactment in Romania. In May 1940 the government in Bucharest had signed the oil-arms pact ; the German Reich imported the raw material from the south-east European country, in return Romania received arms deliveries.

The oil production in Ploieşti was largely under the control of the American Standard Oil Company until 1941 . On March 5, 1941, Ion Antonescu and Hermann Göring met in Vienna to discuss securing the strategic use of Standard Oil's Romanian oil fields in the event that the USA entered the war. Shortly afterwards, Antonescu and Hermann Schmitz (CEO of IG Farben) agreed with William Stamps Farish II (CEO of Standard Oil) that the German Reich would in any case exploit the oil reserves. For this use, the German Reich compensated the Standard Oil Company with eleven million US dollars (165 million US dollars in 2011 values) in interest-bearing securities . The German Reich declared war on the USA on December 11, 1941; Japan had declared war on the USA three days earlier (details here ).

Objectives of the Allied air warfare in Romania

The air war concept of the American and British armed forces in Romania was essentially intended on the one hand to prevent the German Reich from having access to raw materials essential to the war effort; in the case of Ploieștis, petroleum and refined end products . On the other hand, it had the destruction of the transport infrastructure in mind. In addition to the transport network around the industrial area Ploieşti and the local oil production facilities with eleven refineries, Bucharest as the economic heart and the largest transport hub of the country, the shipyard in Giurgiu , the aircraft factory Întreprinderea Aeronautică Română (IAR) in Braşov and the most important port in the country on the Black Sea, Constanța , on the Allied target lists.

Some Romanian historians, referring to the Area Bombing Directive, believe that another goal of the Allied air war strategy in Romania was to break the morale of civilians and industrial workers in order to induce them to turn away from the Antonescu regime . Discarded propaganda leaflets called for rebellion. Until the summer of 1944, however, the German Reich under Adolf Hitler had the military means to avert any mutiny.

Air defense

  • Messerschmitt Bf 109

  • Messerschmitt Bf 110

  • IAR-80

  • Ploieşti, flak and shot down bombers, 1943

During the defense of Ploieşti, the Romanian leadership focused on the one hand on protecting the refineries and the workers employed there, and on the other hand on protecting the city and its residents. Both of these employed a large part of the city's available workforce.

The refineries were considered particularly vulnerable to air attacks because of the high fire risk associated with the products. Numerous air raid shelters for the workers employed there were set up on the industrial complex that encompasses the refineries . Oil pipes, oil stores and other components of the refineries were protected by concrete walls or ran underground. From 1942 the construction of underground oil tanks with capacities between 1,300 and 15,000 m³ began. However, these could only be partially completed by additional workers from Ploieşti.

The Romanian leadership had planned the construction of four dummy cities in the Wallachian Plain , but only one of them was built. These were intended to cause confusion among Allied pilots and distract them from their real goals. Although these circumstances were known to the Allies, bombs were dropped several times during air raids over this dummy city.

To protect the city against the consequences of attacks from the air, the authorities strengthened the fire brigades and had additional extinguishing water tanks built. In 1943 a plan was drawn up for the rapid evacuation of the civilian population. The working hours in production were also taken into account in the defense plans: According to an ordinance issued in 1941, working hours lost due to air raids had to be made up later, with a limit of 60 hours per week. Another ordinance from 1943 provided for the punishment of offenses such as sabotage with death .

To avoid downtime in production during the day, air raids were divided into two stages. In the event of attacks by one to three enemy aircraft, the population should leave the squares and streets of the city, but work in production was not allowed to be interrupted. In the event of attacks by four or more enemy aircraft, the population and workers were allowed to go to the designated shelters. Only then did production and road traffic cease.

In August 1943, the Air Force presented ( Romanian Forţele Aeriene shelves ale României ) of the Romanian Army ( Romanian Armata Română ) five air squadrons with IAR-80 - fighter planes to defend the triangle Bucharest-Ploiesti-Mizil ready. The Air Force brought under the Fighter Leader Romania parts of four squadrons a consisting of 52 Messerschmitt-Bf-109 -Jagdflugzeugen and Messerschmitt-Bf-110 - destroyers .

In 1943, 21 Romanian and 31 German anti-aircraft batteries were deployed between Ploieşti and Câmpina . Their total number rose to 80 (35 Romanian and 45 German batteries) in 1944. So 40 percent of the Romanian anti-aircraft guns were concentrated in this area, consisting of several hundred guns of heavy flak (8.8 and 10.5 centimeters) as well as numerous batteries of medium and light flak (3.7 and 2 centimeters), which were driven by haystacks, railroad cars and building dummies were camouflaged. Another 20 battalions looked after searchlights and fog throwers .

Major General Alfred Gerstenberg (from September 1943 Lieutenant General ) held the position of Commanding General and Commander of the German Air Force in Romania from February 15, 1942 to August 27, 1944 . There were about 36,000 soldiers under Gerstenberg's command; of which around 25,000 were stationed in Ploiesti and around 11,000 near Bucharest. Gerstenberg submitted far-reaching plans to strengthen the air defense to Antonescu, but the Romanian leadership rejected his proposals for the large-scale distribution of the industrial facilities as unrealistic due to time and cost reasons.

Air strikes

Soviet air raids

The first air raids on Ploieşti itself came on July 13 and 14, 1941 by six bomber planes of the Soviet air forces . This affected the Astra Română, Lumina and especially Orion refineries. From a height of 2000 meters, a refinery was badly damaged, ten oil tanks set on fire and twelve tankers destroyed. The following repairs took two to four months to complete. Five people died and thirteen were wounded in the attacks. As a result, the military leadership withdrew Romanian fighters from the Eastern Front from July 15 to protect the city of Ploiesti.

From 10 to 13 August 1941, the railway bridge at Cernavodă , which connected Ploieşti with the port of Constanța, was attacked several times and finally destroyed. The Soviets also deployed some Tupolev TB-3 bombers of the 63rd BAB (Bombing Brigade), each with two Polikarpow I-16 fighters of the 32nd IAP ( Fighter Regiment ) under the wings of the Evpatoria airfield for precise bombing (cf. Project Sweno ). Each I-16 carried the load of two 250-kilogram bombs.

The Soviet Union carried out other smaller attacks, but the attackers were mostly unable to find their targets under the camouflage, so the military and economic damage caused was rather minor. Operation Barbarossa pushed the front from Bessarabia further east, putting Ploieşti out of reach of the Soviet air forces.

Anglo-American air strikes

First air raid in 1942

In January 1942 began under the leadership of Colonel Harry A. Halverson in Washington, DC as part of the Halverson Project (HALPRO) the planning for an air strike on Ploiesti, which also found the interest of President Franklin Roosevelt . During this time, the German armed forces advanced victoriously into the Soviet Union. The Allies wanted to send a clear signal on the southern flank of the Axis powers. In addition, high-ranking American military took the view that a single strike on Ploieşti with strategic bombers could decisively influence the outcome of the war.

B-24 Liberator

On June 6, 1942, the United States declared war on Romania, which resulted in approval to carry out the plan. In this operation - the USAAF's first mission in Europe since the beginning of the war - thirteen B-24 Liberators flew into Romania on June 12, 1942 from a British air base in Fayid ( Egypt ) and dropped their bombs from a height of 4,000 meters in the field of refineries in Ploieşti. However, they only hit the Astra Română facilities , as some aircraft had missed their target due to heavy cloud cover. The dropping ammunition instead fell to the rural southern Romania. On the return flight, four of the thirteen Liberators landed on the designated air base in Iraq , three on other bases in Iraq, two landed in Syria , and four were interned in neutral Turkey . Although the American leadership viewed the attack as a failure, both the Romanian and German leadership recognized the threat posed by air strikes on Ploiesti. By 1943 there was a comprehensive reinforcement of the air defense around the city with a large number of anti-aircraft cannons of all calibres, machine guns, blocking balloons and anti-aircraft squadrons.

The weak resistance of the German-Romanian air defense at the first attack strengthened the American leadership in their view that the oil plants in Ploiesti could be successfully approached from a low altitude and destroyed. Since the Wehrmacht could not achieve the goal of the southern offensive in the German-Soviet war in 1942, namely the conquest and exploitation of the most important Soviet oil wells in Maikop , Grozny and Baku , the oil fields and refineries in Ploieşti remained in addition to the German oil production of 800,000 tons in 1942 the only significant oil reserves of the German Reich. A third of the oil products went straight there.

Between November 1942 and May 1943, the military situation in Africa changed after the defeat of the Axis powers at El Alamein , the landing of Allied troops in Morocco and Algeria ( Operation Torch ), and the retreat of German and Italian units to Tunisia . Furthermore, the general offensive of the Red Army on the eastern front was imminent. Against this background, the Allies began building an air base for heavy bombers in Benghazi, Libya, and planned new air raids on Ploiesti from here.

Operation Tidal Wave 1943

→ Main article: Operation Tidal Wave

A B-24 bomber flying over a burning refinery, Ploieşti, August 1, 1943
B-24 bombers attacking the Astra Română refinery , Ploieşti, August 1, 1943
B-24 bombers in flak fire on departure from Ploieşti, August 1, 1943
Columbia Aquila refinery oil tanks burn after Operation Tidal Wave on August 1, 1943
The listed market halls Halele Centrale in the center of Ploieşti were destroyed in the attack on May 31, 1944 (photo from 1936)
Columbia Aquila Refinery , 1943

In Operation Tidal Wave under General Lewis H. Brereton of the USAAF, the element of surprise should be the decisive advantage for dropping a bomb load of over 300 tons; American expectations were high. In order to shut down the refineries in Ploieşti with ground troops, Brereton assumed the need for a massive invasion that could last up to a year. An air strike, on the other hand, could “do the job in one day” with fewer resources. Although Winston Churchill supported this initiative, RAF military experts viewed the planned approach at low altitude rather critically and predicted heavy losses in the operation due to the known fortification of Ploiestis.

After 178 bombers of the US 9th Air Fleet took off on August 1, 1943 ( Black Sunday , as it was later called), one aircraft was lost and ten more had to return with their engines damaged. A second plane crashed over the Adriatic Sea for unknown reasons, another was looking for survivors and was then unable to join the main group. After crossing the cloud-shrouded Pindos Mountains at an altitude of around 3350 meters, parts of the association had lost their originally carefully planned synchronized flight formation . In the further course of the operation, some of the aircraft fell back about 100 kilometers.

The German side has already located the bombers several times during their approach to Romania. By triggering general air alarms throughout Romania, the surprise effect hoped for by the Americans no longer came to fruition. In addition, two of the attack groups accidentally flew in the direction of Bucharest and only later resumed the approach to Ploiesti. Around 1:45 p.m., the three now disjointed American units bombed their targets in waves instead of the one planned coordinated attack. In the relatively short but extremely violent air battle with 69 German interceptors and the air defense, 101 soldiers were killed on the side of the defenders and 97 others were wounded. There were 101 dead and 238 wounded among the civilian population. The Allies lost 54 planes, 446 men, 133 were wounded, and 108 soldiers were captured. Only 88 aircraft returned to Benghazi, two thirds of them with severe damage. The Allies recorded the heaviest casualties in air raids of the war to date. The air defense shot down 44 planes on their return flight, one crashed over the Mediterranean Sea, and some landed in neutral Turkey (where another 78 crew members were interned) or in Cyprus . A B-24 bomber landed in Libya with 365 bullet holes fourteen hours after departure.

Some of the targets could not be hit during the attack. The distillation capacity of the refineries sank to 40 percent after the air raids, but the Romanian workers and around 10,000 forced laborers were able to repair the plants by August 18 so that production could rise to 80 percent of the level before the attack, The use of previously idle capacities also contributed to this. Despite the destruction of 52,537 tons of oil stocks, 121,265 tons were saved. The total financial damage was six billion lei ($ 26.4 million worth in 1942, about $ 360 million worth in 2011).

In the wake of Operation Tidal Wave , the head of the Wehrmacht High Command Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel repeatedly gave instructions on measures to minimize the effects of Allied bombings. The German presence in Ploiesti increased by an additional fighter squadron and another unit of heavy anti-aircraft guns (10.5 to 12.8 centimeters), a camouflage brigade for the production of artificial fog and some radar stations .

The American Army Intelligence Service assessed the effectiveness of Operation Tidal Wave in its first report extremely optimistically, but the result had to be "reinterpreted" after viewing stereoscopic images of the area of ​​operation. Due to the strong defense on site and the associated high losses to be expected in attacks as well as the long and difficult to secure flight route from Africa to Romania, the Americans stopped further attacks on the Romanian oil region by April 1944.

Air raids in 1944

The American air strikes of the 15th US Air Force in 1944 were under the command of Commanding General Nathan F. Twining . The Air Force flew 5674 sorties between April 5 and August 19, dropping 13,559 tons of bombs and losing 254 aircraft.

  • April 5th

After their successes in the Italian campaign in 1944, the Allies set up an air base in Foggia , Italy , from where about 140 American aircraft took off on April 5 for another air raid on Ploiesti and the Prahova Valley. This attack damaged the Astra Română , Standard , Unirea , Orion , Columbia refineries and the Ochiuri mine in the Dâmbovița district . About 80 percent of the buildings in downtown Ploiesti, the South Railway Station ( Gara de Sud in Romanian ), the Schuller Hospital , two churches, two kindergartens and seven factories were damaged, burned down or completely destroyed. 44 roads were buried.

On April 9, the Swiss newspaper Neue Berner Zeitung wrote that the region around Ploieşti had brought Romania not only a lot of wealth but also the jealousy of other countries. The allied side was of the opinion that the loss of Ploiesti would end the war for Germany in a relatively short time.

  • April 24th

On April 24, Ploieşti was attacked again by almost 200 aircraft with an area bombardment from 7,000 to 8,000 meters. The Orion , Columbia and Astra Română refineries were hardest hit, with production having to be suspended for a period of between 60 and 90 days. The girls' school Școala Centrală de Fete was hit by the attack, the Schuller hospital was hit again and 35 streets were buried. The H2X ground surveillance radar , code-named Mickey Mouse, was used for the first time in the attacks .

  • May 5th and 6th

On May 5th and 6th, the city was attacked again by more than 200 bombers. As a result, production capacity fell to 55 percent and 25,000 tons of oil were burned as a result. Within 20 days, however, production increased back to 90 percent of what it was before the two attacks. In addition to the damage to the oil systems, around 1,000 buildings were affected by the bombing and the death toll went into the hundreds. The railway systems were also hit.

  • May 18

On May 18, there was another air raid with almost 300 aircraft from an altitude of 7,000 meters. Although the mission was deemed a failure due to lack of precision, casualties were numerous in the city center and in the eastern districts of the city. The Südbahnhof was hit again, as well as two schools, a church, the tax office, the police headquarters, and eleven streets were also buried.

  • 31. May

This mission was repeated on May 31st. Almost 600 aircraft dropped 2,582 bombs from 4,000 to 6,000 meters on Ploieşti and the surrounding oil facilities and damaged the Standard , Româno-Americană and Vega refineries , whose distillation capacity fell to 52 percent. Hundreds of civilians were killed in the attack and 1539 buildings burned down or were destroyed, including the city hall, the Halele Centrale market halls , the Boldescu hospital , the Prahova county courthouse , and school number 11 .

Between March and May, oil production fell from 385,000 tons to 192,000 tons. Since the summer of this year, the frequency of bombing has also increased. American aircraft launched in Italy were now able to continue their flight to the Soviet Union as part of Operation Frantic after their bombs had been dropped over Ploieşti, where they could be refueled and re-equipped with aerial bombs, which they could then drop over the city on the return flight to Italy .

  • 6th of June

The air strikes on Ploiesti continued on June 6th. About 200 bombers and accompanying fighter planes had the city's refineries as a primary target, along with the city's rail network as a secondary target. The damage caused by this turned out to be rather minimal.

  • June 10th

The next attack on June 10 was aimed at the Româno-Americană refinery , which was the only one still operating at full capacity at the time of the attack. This attack surprised with a new strategy. 96 Lockheed P-38s were involved, 46 of which carried a bomb weighing around 450 kilograms each, which was supposed to be brought to the target by diving flights. The attacking aircraft flew under the fog. The resulting damage to the refinery meant that production was halted for the next ten days. During this mission, however, not only military targets were hit, but also many villages, farmers working in the fields, small country railway stations, passenger trains, ambulance trains and passenger cars were attacked by machine guns from the aircraft. A total of 22 USAAF aircraft were lost during this mission. The German and Romanian defenders lost 23 planes.

In support of the Allied landing in Normandy , the following directives were issued from Washington on June 13, 1944 to the Allied Forces Headquarters in the Mediterranean region :

1. " The petrolium objectives remain the first priority for the bombings in South-Eastern Europe. If all the refineries in Ploiesti are rendered out of order, the attacks can be directed towards the refineries in Austria and Hungary. "
deutsch  In the bombings in south-eastern Europe, the oil targets still have the highest urgency. As soon as all refineries in Ploieşti are inoperable, attacks can be directed at refineries in Austria and Hungary.
2. " The secondary priority - transportation - [...] particularly in the mining of Danube in order to prevent the transportation of crude oil from Romania to refineries anywhere. "
deutsch  In second place on the list of priorities is the transport sector, [...] in particular the mining of the Danube to prevent the transport of crude oil, regardless of the destination.

On July 4, the refineries produced 997 wagons of fuel. At the beginning of July, the Creditul Minier , Orion , Columbia , Redevența , Concordia , Steaua Româna , Câmpina refineries and other smaller facilities were out of operation.

  • July 9

After an air raid by 200 American planes on July 9, the Vega , Xenia and Columbia plants had to cease production. The German-Romanian air force suffered heavy losses of man and material in this attack. The relocation of some German squadrons from the defense of Ploiesti to other sections of the front reduced the German-Romanian defense capacity and favored the efficiency of the Allied bombings.

  • July 15 and 24

On July 15 and July 24, the Americans attacked again with around 500 aircraft each and caused additional damage to the still functioning refineries. British planes attacked the Româno-Americană refinery in particular at night , but most of the night attacks on the city proved to be more or less ineffective. The Teleajenul pumping station on the Teleajen River was also hit.

  • July 28th

On July 28th, there was another heavy bombardment of the Astra Română , Standard , Unirea , Orion , Creditul Minier , and Româno-Americană refineries .

  • July 31

A large part of the bombing of the air strikes on July 31 was dropped over the center, north and west of Ploiesti, causing heavy casualties among the city's civilian population. The refineries were hardly damaged and only the Concordia ammunition factory was hit on military targets . In contrast, numerous civil buildings suffered damage, including the Sfântul Dumitru Church and the Pavel și Petru schools , number 5 and number 7 . 33 streets were buried in the attacks.

The production of the refineries was still at 70 percent of their normal capacity in July, although the Allies had attacked the Ploiestis oil plants with increased frequency that month.

The continuous losses of Romanian fighter planes caused Marshal Antonescu to issue his order to cease aerial battles against the Allies. This decision was only to apply temporarily until the delivery of new Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter aircraft to the Romanian Air Force. Contrary to this order, the German fighter section leader Romania from the Air Force Command Southeast, Lieutenant Colonel Bernhard Woldenga , sent all available forces into the defensive battle. 44 aircraft, including 27 Romanian and 17 German, fought against 800 American aircraft. Volunteers also reported for these missions, including the Romanian elite pilot Alexandru Șerbănescu , who was killed in an operation on May 17th.

  • August 9th to 19th

On August 9th, 9th, 10th, 10th, 17th, 18th and 19th, Anglo-American air forces bombed the facilities again, with operations on August 9th and 18th causing the greatest damage Vega and Româno-Americană refineries still working . The restoration of the Româno-Americană refinery took ten months.

The Red Army entering Bucharest at the end of August 1944

After the air raids

With the beginning of Operation Jassy-Kishinew in August, the Red Army marched into Romania and destroyed the newly established German 6th Army near Chișinău . After the royal coup d'état of August 23, 1944, King Michael of Romania changed fronts and Romania declared war on Germany. After the Red Army had captured the eleven refineries and the oil fields on August 24 and also marched into Bucharest on August 31, the German side had no way of destroying the still functioning parts of the Romanian refineries. The successes of the Red Army in the course of the Eastern Carpathian operation forced the Wehrmacht to withdraw from Romania.

Thousands of German soldiers were taken prisoner in Romania, including 2,000 to 3,000 men (other sources speak of 1,500, 1,900 or 15,000 soldiers) who were previously supposed to recapture strategically important points within Bucharest under the leadership of Gerstenberg and Lieutenant General Rainer Stahel . In the event of a change of sides in Romania, the responsible German authorities planned a deployment plan with the code name “Operation Margarethe II” for the occupation of the country from the end of 1943 , but this plan was not pursued further due to Hitler's assessment that the situation in Romania was stable had been. A few weeks earlier, Gerstenberg had assumed that “a single German anti-aircraft battery” would be enough to regain control of the capital in the event of unrest. After the failure of this operation, the attempt to get to Transylvania or Bulgaria failed ; the associations were forced to surrender near Ploiesti. The Soviet Union demanded the extradition of all German prisoners of war, many of whom perished in Romanian camps and on foot marches to the Soviet border.

rating

losses

Between April 4 and August 19, 1944, the alarm went off 1045 hours. Of the 43 air strikes on Romania, 30 took place in the area between Ploieşti, Câmpina , Moreni and the Prahova Valley. In this area the USAAF lost 230 of a total of 443 aircraft shot down in Romania. 1550 crew members of the aircraft fell, 1700 were taken prisoner. The RAF lost 38 of the 924 heavy bombers used in Romania and 36 crew members were taken prisoner.

After the air strikes ended, the refineries had 50 percent production capacity and the oil production capacity was 40 percent. The cost of the damage was 25 billion lei ($ 110 million worth in 1942, about $ 1.5 billion worth in 2011).

The Anglo-American attacks in Romania killed 7,693 people, most of them civilians. A total of 7,809 people were wounded and 30,000 homes and buildings were destroyed. Tens of thousands of bombs fell on Ploieşti, 800 people died here, 750 were wounded, 9,000 houses and buildings were destroyed and 23,000 people were left homeless .

Political Consequences

At the end of 1943, the Wehrmacht High Command had assured Adolf Hitler that the fuel supply for 1944 could be considered secure, unless a "fatal threat to the Romanian oil region" arises. The collapse of the Eastern Front in August 1944 led to the loss of the Romanian oil fields near Ploieşti, which had covered an important part of Germany's oil needs. German oil imports in 1943 were more than in the previous year, namely around five million tons. Of which delivered:

In Germany (excluding Austria) 4.7 million tons of oil were produced, about 80 percent of which in hydrogenation plants from the liquefaction of coal (→  German synthetic gasoline ), but also from oil production in Germany . In addition, there were 1.3 million tons of benzene and other mixed fuels not made from petroleum . In 1943 the German Reich had 11.3 million tons of oil and oil derivatives, more than in any other war year.

The after the success of the Allied " Oil Campaign " ( German  oil campaign onset) fuel shortages led not only to a significant limitation of mobility of the German armed forces. The lack of kerosene was particularly serious for the new Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter . As a result, the Luftwaffe fighter planes had to stay on the ground due to a lack of fuel. The German oil industry was thus practically unprotected. The production of the German fighter planes reached its numerical peak in the war year 1944, but because of the lack of fuel they were often no longer used.

After the successful Allied bombing raids in Germany and Romania, the Geilenberg program was created , which envisaged the underground relocation of the hydrogenation plants, which were important for the war effort, as well as the development and construction of a wide variety of new plants for fuel production in a mineral oil security plan. This was intended to stabilize the weakest point of the German war economy , which failed until the end of the war. Around 350,000 people, including around 100,000 prisoners from concentration camps, worked to achieve the goals of the mineral oil security plan .

The new bourgeois government of Romania was led by Prime Minister Constantin Sănătescu . In the battle against Germany, Romania suffered further heavy losses in Transylvania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Although Romanian units were now fighting under Soviet command, the Soviets viewed Romania as occupied territory and stationed troops across the country. The Allied Western Powers recognized this status in the Yalta Conference . The 1946 Paris Peace Conference denied Romania the rank of fellow ally. The territory of Romania shrank significantly compared to its size before the Second World War. Although the Vienna arbitration award was revised and northern Transylvania was again placed under Romanian administration, Bessarabia and northern Bukovina had to be ceded to the Soviet Union and southern Dobruja to Bulgaria.

Effect on transportation

Gara de Nord in Bucharest during the air raid on April 4, 1944

In addition to the oil industry, the Allied war strategy aimed at the transport routes.

On April 5, 1944, the southern station was damaged in attacks on Ploiesti and then hit again on May 18. In the air raid of June 10, 1944, small country stations, passenger trains, hospital trains and passenger cars in the Ploiesti area were under fire by machine guns from the aircraft.

The Bucharest North train station traffic junction , the nearest transshipment point for oil products and ammunition, was bombed several times during the air raids on Bucharest . Bombings also occurred in other parts of Romania, such as the air raids on Timișoara . There, the regional junction North Railway Station Timișoara recorded hits in several attacks.

During the war, the British secret service drew up plans to sabotage the oil facilities and incite the population to rebellion. Another plan aimed at blocking the Danube by deliberately sinking a ship. The secret services from Romania and Germany were able to intervene in the first attempts, but in the summer of 1944 the Anglo-American air forces placed water mines in the Danube, on which several German oil tankers ran aground and sank.

The air raids on the transport network at times severely impaired traffic; however, most of the damage could be repaired. When Romania changed sides, the Soviet Union gained access to the transport network and the merchant fleet, as well as to the country's oil production.

Environmental damage

Large amounts of harmful organic matter were released into the area's environment as a result of the air strikes . Pollutants such as mineral oil hydrocarbons and BTEX still pollute the soil and groundwater in Ploieşti today. This affects around 500 hectares. The Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research first gathered knowledge about the extent of the pollution in 2007. As part of the twinning project, financed by the European Union and coordinated by the Federal Environment Ministry , experiences and management plans for dealing with these contaminated sites are conveyed.

As in many target areas of Allied air strikes, a large number of duds can still be found in the ground, and unexploded ordnance is repeatedly discovered in Ploiesti and the surrounding area. With age, the risk of defusing or destroying weapons increases.

reception

In the literature of the time of the People's Republic and Socialist Republic in Romania, there was hardly any historical analysis of the air raids on Ploiesti. The events were mentioned in only a few publications, usually in macro-historical contexts. Horia Brestoius work Impact la paralela 45: Incursiune în culisele bătăliei pentru petrolul românesc. ( German  effects on the 45th parallel: a look behind the scenes in the battle for Romanian oil ) from 1986 was one of the first noteworthy treatises on the subject.

After the Romanian Revolution of 1989 , Eugen Stănescus and Gavriil Preda's standard work appeared in 1993: Războiul petrolului la Ploieşti ( German  The Oil War in Ploieşti ), then Gavriil Predas in 2001: Importanţa strategică a petrolului românesc: 1939–1947 ( German  The strategic importance of Romanian oil ) and in 2003 the treatise by Gavriil Preda, Ilie Manole, Eugen Stănescu, Museum of History and Archeology of Prahova County: Ploieşti Fortress, Vol. 1–2 . This work deals with the military-strategic side of the events, with special attention to the role of the Romanian armed forces, and with the economic effects of the bombing raids. In 2008 Marin Sorin dealt with the social consequences of the air strikes.

The historical treatises on the American side, here in particular the work of James Dugan and Carroll Steward, are largely based on the personal experience of the pilots involved in the missions and deal with the preparation and implementation of military operations and the strategic importance of Romanian oil for the war economy in focus.

Among the German historians, Dietrich Eichholtz is the author of several standard works on the subject.

Others

The Ploiesti National Petroleum Museum has an exhibition on the air strikes on the city.

literature

In German language:

In English:

  • Edward Jablonski: Airwar . tape 1 : Tragic Victories , Book II The Big League . Doubleday, New York 1979, ISBN 0-385-14279-X .
  • Duane Schultz: Into the Fire: Ploesti [sic!] , The Most Fateful Mission of World War II . Westholme Publishing, Yardley, PA 2008, ISBN 978-1-59416-077-6 .
  • Jay Stout: Fortress Ploesti: The Campaign to Destroy Hitler's Oil Supply . Casemate Pub & Book Dist, Havertown, PA 2010, ISBN 978-1-935149-39-2 .

In Romanian:

  • Eugen Stănescu, Gavriil Preda, Iulia Stănescu: Războiul petrolului la Ploiești . Editura Imprimes, Editura Printeuro 1993, ISBN 973-85636-8-2 .
  • Gavriil Preda: Importanţa strategică a petrolului românesc: 1939–1947 . Printeuro, 2001, ISBN 973-99809-8-8 .
  • Gavriil Preda, Ilie Manole, Eugen Stănescu, Muzeul Județean de Istorie și Arheologie Prahova: Fortress Ploiești . tape 1-2 . Editura Printeuro, 2003, ISBN 973-85636-7-4 .

Video material:

  • Hell ride of the Liberators - air raids against the supply lines of the Axis powers. Operation Tidal Wave. Av Medien Produktion, 2010, 4260110581677, US archive film, 60 minutes, in German and English.

Web links

Commons : Operation Tidal Wave  - collection of images, videos and audio files
  • etd.ceu.hu (PDF; 2.3 MB), Central European University , Marin Sorin: The Social Consequences of the 1944 Anglo-American Bombing of Ploiești: A Grassroots Perspective. Budapest 2008, p. 104. Retrieved March 26, 2011.
  • milhist.net , References to Ploesti, Rumania [sic!] from a USAAF WWII Chronology. (In English) Retrieved May 15, 2011.
  • furcuta.com , picture collection, Romanian Petroleum History: Prahova valley oil refineries during WW2. (In English) Retrieved May 14, 2011.

Video links:

  • youtube.com , 1943 Daily Life in Ploesti [sic!] Before the Bombing. 3:30 minutes, without comment.
  • youtube.com , The Bombing of Romanian Oil Fields in WWII. 26:32 minutes, in English.
  • vimeo.com , Drew White: Raid On Ploiesti [sic!], 8:44 minutes, without comment.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Constantin C. Giurescu, Horia C. Matei: Chronological history of Romania . Editura enciclopedică română, 1974, OCLC 956020030 , p. 191 (English).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w etd.ceu.hu (PDF; 2.3 MB), Central European University , Marin Sorin: The Social Consequences of the 1944 Anglo-American Bombing of Ploiești: A Grassroots Perspective Budapest 2008. Retrieved June 29, 2016.
  3. ↑ Dietrich Eichholtz: German politics and Romanian oil (1938-1941): a study on petroleum imperialism . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-86583-042-0 , p. 11 .
  4. ↑ a b c Dietrich Eichholtz : War for oil: an oil empire as a German war goal (1938-1943) . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2006, ISBN 3-86583-119-2 , p. 32 ff .
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  81. ↑ Gavriil Preda, Ilie Manole, Eugen Stănescu, Muzeul Județean de Istorie și Arheologie Prahova: Fortress Ploiești, Volume 1-2 . Editura Printeuro, 2003, ISBN 973-85636-7-4 , p. 394 (Romanian).
  82. ↑ Sheilah Kast, Jim Rosapepe: Dracula is dead: how Romanians survived Communism, ended it, and emerged since 1989 as the new Italy . Jim Rosapepe, 2009, ISBN 978-1-890862-65-7 , pp. 197 (English).
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