Today in 1943 was the first raid on the Ploesti oil fields. . . 117 B-24s left bases in North Africa and when it was over only 33 returned in condition to fly again. . . out of 1720 crewmen 540 were lost.
This was a complex low level bombing mission for heavy bombers and although it did knock out the refinery it was quickly fixed and working again. It was also the target of a number of additional raids up to the end of the war which kept it from getting back to full capacity.
No comments:
Post a Comment