Bombing Runs, pt 2 - B 24 08.jpg (1/1)

"DAN" wrote in message ...

B-24s low altitude bombing of refineries at Ploesti, Romania
op Tidal Wave 1943-08-01

Black Sunday: 2nd-worst loss on a single USAAF mission: 660 aircrew.
178 B-24s took off, only 88 made it back to Libya.
All for "no result" in curtailing output.

RIP to the brave men.

In our squadron on Guam in 1973 there was an old MSgt who had once been a
B-24 waist gunner. He made it clear that there was no love lost between him
and that aircraft. When compared to a B-17, he said it was like "comparing a
station wagon to a Mack truck," that it was exhausting for crews to fly and
difficult to keep in formation, and its fuel system, running through the
fuselage, often meant that enemy fire would quickly turn it into a torch...