Carroll Stewart

Ploesti is the history of the 1 August 1943 ground-air battle in the skies over the Romanian oil fields. Both of the authors were involved with the units that took place in the battle at the time it occurred. Dugan was with the 8th Air Force Photo & Newsreel Section and Stewart was a public relations officer with the Traveling Circus. Both men knew many of the individuals who flew that day and in the years following the action they circulated questionnaires written in English and German as well as conducted hundreds of personal interviews with the survivors. The end result is a book that does an excellent job of conveying to the reader an understanding of the battle from the abstract level of the planning to the assembly and training of the units designated to execute to raid to the actions of single planes and the personnel who manned and cared for them.

The book traces the origin of the idea of the raid from the first attempts of the Halverson mission in 1942 (a thirteen plane raid – 12 made the target – none lost – damage minor) to the concept of a single large strike to destroy the refineries and deny oil to the Reich. After describing the tactical situation the book shifts its focus to the low level training (repeated practice runs with wooden bombs on a plat of the refinery complex laid out on a plateau in the desert south of Benghazi). An entire chapter is devoted to the preparations immediately before and leading up to the day of battle.

The chapters that follow describe the unit-by-unit liftoff, the inbound flight, the loss of the lead navigator in the bomber “Wongo Wongo” , landfall, the wrong turn at Targoviste, and then a chapter describing each of the separate attacks on the various refineries in the Ploesti area. The chapters following the attack details unit and individual plane/personnel experiences on the return flight and the plight and misadventures of those raiders who became POW’s. The next to last chapter gives a brief description of the multiple high level raids against Ploesti that commenced in 1944 and the last chapter describes the liberation of the POW’s from the 1943 raid.

I think the book has stood the test of time and, for me, it reads as well today as it did when I first read it back in 1962. It is worth noting that it was the spark that ignited author Michael Hill’s interest in the battle. That interest found expression in his two books – The Desert Rats: The 98th Bomb Group and the August 1943 Ploesti Raid and Black Sunday Ploesti. (Hill makes specific reference to this book in the forward to Black Sunday Ploesti).

If you have any interest in the history of aerial combat I think you will find this book a worthwhile read.… (mehr)