In the early hours of August 1, 1943, a total of 177 B-24 Liberator bombers took off from Allied airfields near Benghazi, Libya, heading northeast over the Mediterranean Sea with more than 1,700 American airmen on board. Operation Tidal Wave – one of the most daring and costly raids of the Second World War – had started.
The aim of the raid was the oil refineries near Ploesti, Romania, which supplied about a third of all the oil used by Nazi Germany and the other Axis powers. Nicknamed “Hitler’s service station”, Ploesti was of great strategic importance to the Allied leaders, who hoped that its complete destruction would be a fatal blow to the German war effort.
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A dangerous bombing plan at low altitude
Until then, the Allies had relied heavily on high-altitude precision bombing missions. But to attack the heavily defended Ploesti oil refineries, war planner Colonel Jacob Smart came up with the idea of a low-level surprise attack that would help planes on the run escape German radar.
At the time, the B-24s were the only aircraft capable of covering the distance required for the mission, which totaled more than 2,000 miles round trip. Five U.S. Army Air Force B-24 groups participated in Operation Tidal Wave, including the 98th and 376th from the Ninth Air Force, and the 44th, 93rd and 389th from the 8th Air Force.
“The key was for the combat group to follow in the radio silence target, so as not to give the German batteries a chance to prepare for their arrival,” said Joe Duran, whose great-uncle, Joseph Avendano, flew in the Ploesti mission as part of the 93rd Bombing Group.
Nicknamed the “Traveling Circus”, the 93rd had already acquired a reputation for its service in Operation Torch, the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa and its exploits by bombing Axis targets there and in Italy. In July 1943, a photo of its members had even appeared on the cover of Life magazine.
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The Ploesti mission goes wrong
A plane of the 9th US Army Air Force flying over Ploesti, Romania during an air attack on gas tanks in Ploesti, Romania.
Corbis / Getty Images
The Ploesti mission would prove to be the biggest test of the 93rd. The problems started immediately after takeoff, with the crash of one of the heavily loaded B-24s. A number of other aircraft aborted the mission, and only 167 remained as the groups flew over the Balkan mountains, at an altitude of approximately 11,000 feet. When the planes started to descend lower, the groups separated, the leading groups (the 376th and 93rd) flying far ahead of the others.
To make matters worse, the leading pilot of the 376th took a wrong turn, leading the formation to Bucharest rather than Ploesti. Several planes broke the radio silence to communicate the error, and Lieutenant-Colonel Addison Baker of 93rd was able to rotate his group about 90 degrees and head for the oil refineries.
The 93rd had planned to fly over Ploesti from the north, entering behind the enemy fortifications. After the confusion, however, “they approached the target from the south, where all [German] batteries and most of the big 88 [millimeter anti-aircraft guns] have been placed, “says Duran.
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Planes face heavy German defenses
“Hell’s Wench”, a B-24 badly damaged by anti-aircraft artillery fire, led the 93rd Bombardment Group in its daring low-altitude attack on the oil refineries in Ploesti, Romania, painted by Roy Grinnell.
VCG Wilson / Corbis / Getty Images
As Baker’s plane, Hell’s Wench, and other planes on the 93rd approached Ploesti refineries, they encountered an overwhelming barrage of 88mm shells and other anti-aircraft fire. Hell’s Wench sustained heavy damage, but continued to fly, Baker and his crew dropping the bombs from the plane to stay in the air for a little longer. The plane eventually crashed into a field, leaving no survivors. Baker and his co-pilot, Lt. John Jerstad, would posthumously receive medals of honor for their bravery, two of the five that were awarded to American airmen for the mission.
The other four groups of bombs in the raid also braved heavy enemy fire as they attacked their targets, including the oil field further north in Campina. In addition, the low-flying B-24s had to deal with explosions from below, as their bombs exploded on the oil refineries and set fire to the huge fuel tanks.
“[The pilots] went down lower and lower, until they were flying over trees and actually just above the ground to go under the anti-aircraft, “says Duran. The surviving airmen “were left with branches in their bomb bay and barbed wire, which [means] they were almost flying on the ground. ”
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A “bloody Sunday” considered heroic but fruitless
A petrol refinery and storage facility used by the Nazi armed forces in flames after bombing by the 9th Army Air Force of the United States.
Corbis / Getty Images
Of the 177 original Liberators who left Benghazi for Operation Tidal Wave, only 92 returned. The Germans destroyed 54 bombers, while others were able to land at other Allied airfields. More than 300 American airmen were killed in the raid, including more than 100 captured by the Germans and nearly 80 interned in Turkey after their planes were forced to land there.
Despite the bravery exhibited during “Bloody Sunday”, as historians have dubbed it, the Ploesti mission was a strategic failure. The “Hitler service station”, although damaged, was not destroyed; oil refineries returned to full production within a few weeks. “It took many other missions, mostly from high altitudes, to finally eliminate this oil field,” said Michael Sellers, a filmmaker whose late grandfather, John L. Sullivan, served as a bomber in the 93rd.
At the end of the war, the “Traveling Circus” would carry out 396 missions, more than any other group of bombs from the Eighth Air Force. Members of the 93rd, as well as subsequent generations of their family members, met for decades during reunions in the United States as well as at Hardwick, the former air base in England where the group took up residence during the war. Vendeurs tells of the reunion in progress (the first he attended with his grandfather in 2001) and the 93rd war service in his documentary Return to Hardwick: home of the 93rd group of bombs.
Avendano, Duran’s great uncle, survived the Ploesti mission, but was killed during a test flight to England in January 1944. “It was not only to remember my uncle, but to all of the veterans who have served in the Air Force, particularly the 93rd Bomb Group, “said Duran of his research on Operation Tidal Wave, as well as his visits to Hardwick and other reunion activities. “It was our wish to keep their heritage alive.”
