Ploești raiders battle enemy at tree heights
Romanians in fields, streets wave encouragement; one plane caught in own bomb blast
Cairo, Egypt (UP) –
U.S. Liberator bombers flew through a sky filled with enemy fighter planes over the Romanian oil fields in a spectacular battle so close to the earth that a wing of Brig. Gen. Uzal G. Ent’s plane once dipped “into the middle of a tree.”
Returning pilots described the raid Sunday on the Ploești fields as one of the most sensational of the war, with aircraft of both sides diving in all directions and bombs exploding so violently that a ground blast destroyed one Liberator.
They said that people in nearby fields and city streets waved and appeared to shout encouragement to the bombers flying at housetop level and that they saw little evidence of panic.
Fired on by haystack
A pilot reported:
One bomber flew so low that its direct hit on a boiler house caused such a violent explosion that it destroyed the Liberator.
The bomber Reggie Ann, carrying Gen. Ent, flew so low that its wing flicked through the middle of a tree. Sgt. Robert T. Stoddard of Kansas City, Missouri, top turret gunner of the bomber Lorraine, said:
We were looking down gun barrels all afternoon. It was the first time I was ever fired on by a haystack.
The haystack was used to conceal an anti-aircraft gun.
Lt. Dan B. Lear of Houston, Texas, said:
We saw one of our boys on fire just a few seconds before he reached the target. The plane came on in anyway, through a crossfire of flak and machine-gun bullets, and directed its bombs just as briefed. The pilot couldn’t pull up. He tried to make a crash landing on a field but clipped a wing on a cart and was flaming when he stopped.
Little civilian harm
Several flights missed the target on their first run but turned and flew back through the terrific ground fire to drop their bombs.
Others plowed through a smokescreen to find their targets.
The civilian population suffered a minimum of harm from the raid, officials said. The pilots saw civilians in swimming pools, at the lakes and strolling about the city of Ploești, but they did not seem to be afraid of the bombers.
The crews said farmers and small children in Romania and Greece waved wildly at the planes.
Maj. Norman C. Appold of Detroit, pilot of the bomber Queenie, said that:
Civilians in the streets waved at us while gunners on the housetops shot at us. It was the darndest thing I ever saw.
Lesson in street fighting
Maj. Harry T. Bauer of St. Louis said:
The boys took a lesson in street fighting on this mission. There were many bitter personal battles between gunners and batteries in the fields, on roads and on rooftops.
Lt. Dale Sisson of Phoenix, Arizona said his plane, Desert Madness, scored hits on the Câmpina refinery and “they won’t put out any oil for a while. Our group murdered the place.”
Capt. Emery N. Ward of Salina, Oklahoma, said all the women in the fields and streets “wore red skirts.” He said his plane was tossed high in the air by the terrific heat caused by the fires when they got over the target, and that his gunners mowed down four men who were operating an anti-aircraft battery.