The Most Dramatic Aerial Attacks That Changed Military History

This Raid Did Not Go According to Plan

Various hiccups plagued and doomed Operation Tidal Wave before the bombers reached their target. A navigation error took some bombers directly above a German position, and thus gave the enemy a heads up. A lead navigator’s bomber crashed, and bomber groups that had relied upon him arrived over the target staggered instead of simultaneously. A bomb group leader, who saw that all formation was hopelessly lost, broke radio silence to order the scattered B-24s to make their way to Ploesti individually and bomb as best they could. Thus, when the B-24s arrived at Ploesti, they did not catch the Germans off guard and hit them with a concentrated and well-coordinated blow, as planners had hoped. Instead, the American heavy bombers arrived in separate groups, and were met by alert defenders who’d had time to prepare a warm welcome.

Hundreds of antiaircraft guns, heavy machineguns, and a specially designed flak train whose cars’ sides dropped to reveal flak guns, opened up on the bombers, while fighter airplanes fell upon them. The low-flying B-24s also had to contend with smoke stacks that suddenly loomed in their path amid the billowing smoke. Of 177 B-24s that took off that day, 162 reached Ploesti. Of those, 53 were shot down. 660 crewmen were lost. Of the 109 surviving Liberators that reached an Allied airbase, 58 were damaged beyond repair. The damage to Ploesti was quickly repaired. Within weeks, the oil complex was producing even more oil products than it had before the raid.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Air Force Magazine, March 1^st, 2006 – Magic and Lightning

Bowman, Martin W. – The Reich Intruders: RAF Light Bomber Raids in World War II (2005)

Burke, Davis – Get Yamamoto (1969)

Claire, Rodger William – Raid on the Sun: Inside Israel’s Secret Campaign that Denied Saddam the Bomb (2004)

Coffey, Thomas M. – Decision Over Schweinfurt: The US 8^th Air Force Battle for Daylight Bombing (1977)

Coffey, Thomas M. – Iron Eagle: The Turbulent Life of General Curtis LeMay (1987)

Fishman, Jack – And the Walls Came Tumbling Down (1983)

Gailey, Harry A. – The War in the Pacific: From Pearl Harbor to Tokyo Bay (1997)

Glines, Carroll V. – Jimmy Doolittle: Daredevil Aviator and Scientist (1972)

Groom, Winston – The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, and the Epic Age of Flight (2013)