Ploesti oilfields
Romania’s Ploesti oilfields were Germany’s most important source of fuel. Consequently, by 1943, they had become a key objective for American strategic bombing raids.
As recounted by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver in his book Bloody Skies, XV Fighter Command Against all Odds, by late May 1944, it had become clear that the main difficulty facing the Ploiești campaign was that large formations of heavy bombers flying at 25,000 feet were detected early by German radar. They were spotted far enough out for the refinery smoke generators to be activated, so that by the time the bombers arrived, the target area was so heavily obscured that accurate bombing became very difficult and often impossible.
To address this problem, planners devised another low‑altitude strike that would deny the enemy enough warning time to hide the target. This time, the attackers would be US Army Air Forces (USAAF) P‑38 Lightnings, assigned to hit the Româna Americana refinery, the main producer of high‑octane aviation fuel for the Luftwaffe. The 82nd Fighter Group would carry out a dive‑bombing attack on the refinery, covered by the P‑38s of the 1st Fighter Group.
At dawn on June 10, 1944, 46 P‑38 Lightnings of the 82nd Fighter Group’s 95th, 96th, and 97th Fighter Squadrons took off, each loaded with a 1,000‑pound bomb on the right wing shackle and a 310‑gallon ferry tank on the left, under the command of 96th Squadron CO Lieutenant Colonel William Litton.
At the same moment, 48 P‑38s from the 1st Fighter Group’s 27th, 71st, and 94th Squadrons, under mission leader First Lieutenant Armour Miller, took off from their base at Salsola. The Lightning formations then rendezvoused over Manfredonia, Italy, at an altitude of 1,500 feet.
As low as possible
The pilots hugged the terrain as closely as they could while crossing the mountains into Romania. Even so, German air-defense radar detected the fighters over Yugoslavia before they reached Romanian airspace, costing them the element of surprise.
As the American formation approached, all serviceable IAR-80 fighters of FARR (Fortele Aeriene Regale Romane, the Royal Romanian Air Force) Grupul 6—commanded by leading ace Capitan Aviator Dan Vizante, with 15 victories to his credit—took off and began climbing for altitude.
As the 1st Group formation passed over Popesti-Leordeni airfield, pilots from the 27th Squadron spotted four Do 217 bombers trying to land. Three fighters from the 71st Squadron broke away from the main formation to attack them, shooting down all four bombers. This left them isolated just as 20 Romanian Air Force IAR-80s—mistakenly identified as Fw 190s—dived on them. Four P-38s were lost in the initial pass while the remaining pilots tried to turn with their attackers. All the advantages the heavy P-38 had over the lighter IAR-80 at high altitude were canceled out in dogfights waged at altitudes between 100 and 300 feet.
The battle took place in a shallow valley crowded with more than 40 aircraft. Planes from both sides maneuvered erratically, attacking while simultaneously trying to avoid each other and the ground. Two P-38s crashed after their wingtips struck the ground—an indication of how intense the fighting had become—while two IAR-80s collided in midair, and several others were hit by their own side’s ground fire.
Romanian IAR 80 fighters shooting down 23 USAAF P-38s
During the four‑minute engagement, the 23 Romanian pilots who intercepted the Americans claimed to have shot down 23 P‑38s, at the cost of two of their own fighters. The 71st Squadron lost nine of its 16 Lightnings. Second Lieutenant Herbert “Stub” Hatch Jr.—element leader of Cragmore Green Flight—succeeded in destroying five IAR‑80s.
His success made Hatch one of the few P-38 “aces in a day.” He later recalled the battle: “At the end of the little shoot-down over the enemy airfield, as we pulled up slightly of the airfield to turn back north again, somebody hollered, ‘Cragmore, break left for Chrissake.’ I instinctively looked off to my left, and there was a whole flock of what appeared to be Fw-190s headed in from 2 o’clock high to my position. (I later learned they were Romanian IAR-80s.)”
The entire 27th Squadron broke to the left. As Hatch continued around, an IAR-80 flashed past and pulled right across in front of him. “He was so close—fifty to seventy-five yards away—that all I could see in my ring sight was the belly of his fuselage and the wing roots. I opened fire with all four of my .50-caliber machine guns and the 20mm cannon, and I damn near blew him in half. I blew a two-foot hole in his fuselage directly beneath the cockpit.”
Bloody Skies, XV Fighter Command Against all Odds is published by Osprey Publishing and is available to order here.
Photo credit: Planck and Umeyou via Wikipedia and U.S. Air Force
