8. Cascade of Small Mistakes Brings Well-Planned Air Raid to Grief
In 1943, American air commanders planned a raid on the Ploesti oilfields and complex in Romania, which furnished the Nazis with a third of their fuel. B-24 Liberator heavy bombers, without fighter escort, would head on a 2000-mile trip north from Libya across the Mediterranean, then turn northeast towards Ploesti upon reaching the Greek coast. On August 1, 1943, known as “Black Sunday”, 177 Liberators took off from Libyan airfields. Maintaining radio silence and flying at 50 feet or lower to avoid German radar, they skimmed over the Mediterranean, then flew at treetop level upon reaching land. Alerted, the Germans took control and the raid came to grief because of a cascade of mishaps. First, a navigation error took some bombers directly above a German position. Then, a lead navigator crashed, and the bombers following him arrived over the target staggered, instead of simultaneously.
A bomb group leader, seeing all formation hopelessly lost, broke radio silence to order the scattered B-24s to make their way to Ploesti individually and bomb as best they could. Alert defenders met The Liberators. Hundreds of antiaircraft guns, heavy machineguns, and a specially designed train whose cars’ sides dropped to reveal flak guns, opened up on the bombers, while fighter aircraft savaged them. The low-flying B-24s also contended with industrial chimneys suddenly looming in their path amid the billowing smoke. 177 B-24s took off that day, 162 reached Ploesti. Of those, 53 were shot down, for the loss of 660 crewmen. Only 109 Liberators made it back, 58 completely beyond repair. They quickly repaired the damage to Ploesti, and within weeks, the oil complex’s production rose higher than before the raid.
