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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dissection Of A Single Mission, January 27, 2008
"Into The Fire" by Duane Schultz Subtitled:" Ploesti: The Most Fateful Mission Of World War II. Westholme Publishing, Yardley, Pennsylvania, 2007. This is a well written dissection of the famous B-24 Liberator raid on the oil fields in Ploesti, Rumania, in August 1943. Many details can be found in this fine book. With the exception of the first chapter, this book is in the chronological order of the mission, from conception, to practice drills, to the actual implementation on 1 August 1943. The book's first chapter describes the recovery of the remains, in 1994, of the B-24 bomber know as "Hadley's Harem", including the body of the pilot, 1st Lieutenant Gilbert B. Hadley. It seems that Lieutenant Hadley was a bit flamboyant, tending to wear cowboy boots and carry pearl-handled pistols; they were recovered with his body. And this is how the author handles the story: he names the B-24 involved, tells about the pilot and crew, and describes if and how the bomber survived the attack on Ploesti. He begins with the "matte black" B-24, "Commando", which carried Prime Minister Winston Church to his January 1943 meeting with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Out of that meeting and out of the fertile mind of Churchill, the plan to bomb and destroy the oil fields in Ploesti, to deny Hitler his main oil supply, was developed. The writer, Duane Schultz, shows that most of the people involved, from the highest ranking down to the crew sergeants, were convinced that the raid on Ploesti was a suicide mission. Fifty-three Liberators were shot down on this low level raid; the Nazi anti-aircraft defense was waiting for them. In Part III, "The Raid", Schultz gives the names of many of B-24 bombers that were destroyed by the effective enemy ground fire and by enemy aircraft. At times, the B-24 Liberators were so low that the anti-aircraft guns were shooting DOWN at the bombers from the hills surrounding the refinery. Also, some fifty-five B-24 Liberators were so badly damaged that many had to be scrapped. See Part IV, "The Return", for descriptions of badly damaged bombers landing in neutral Turkey or going down in the Mediterranean Sea since they could not make it back to their field in Africa. An interesting section is Part V, "The Prisoners", where the airmen who survived were taken into captivity, at first, by the Germans and then by the Rumanians. There is a poignant story of the Rumanian Princess, Ecaternia Caradja, who did so much to help the downed airmen. The actual damage to the oil fields of Rumania, the reluctant ally of Nazi Germany, was not sufficient to deny Hitler his major oil supply. The stoppage of this oil supply did not happen until near the end of the war, when Soviet troops began the re-conquest of Eastern Europe. If the raid had destroyed the refineries at Ploesti, the title, "Most Fateful Mission" would have been earned. But, in my humble opinion, that title belongs either to Doolittle's April 1942 raid on Tokyo or to the dropping of the A-bomb by the "Enola Gay" on Hiroshima in August 1945. ,
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Operation Soapsuds becomes Operation Big Duds in a Tidal Wave of Errors, November 17, 2007
This is a very good retelling of what could have been a turning point in World War II, the destruction of the oilfields in Ploesti, Romania, that was the primary source of oil for Hitler's war machine. The attack on the oil fields sounded good in theory: Crippling Hitler's ability to obtain fuel would cripple Hitler's ability to wage war. The decision to attack the oilfields was approved by a multitude of higher-ups from the ultimate arbiters of power, Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt, to the supreme military commanders, George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower, and on down. These otherwise generally magnificent leaders and sound strategists only saw one little problem: The name of the operation was too wimpy. The name of the plan, originally called "Operation Soapsuds", was consequently changed at Churchill's insistence to the more fearsome sounding "Operation Tidal Wave". There were a few noted military tacticians, notably Maj. Gen. Lewis Brereton, commander of the Ninth Air Force (which would provide the staging ground for the over 175 B-24 Liberator bombers involved in the raid), who saw major flaws in the plan but they were effectively silenced by a chain of authority that viewed protests as weakness and rewarded the objector by relieving him of his command. Consequently, the operation lurched forward to its fateful conclusion. One major weakness of the operation was that reconnaissance flights over the oilfields were banned so as not to alert the Germans that the Allies had any interest in the target. Unfortunately, this left the planners in the dark as to the actual defenses of the oilfields. An earlier raid the year before had found the oilfields only lightly protected but the raid was too small (only 12 B-24s were involved), did not do significant damage, and was itself a bungled operation. This led the planners to believe (or hope) that the oilfields would still be lightly defended the next time around. The earlier raid, however, shocked the Germans and they rapidly intensified the defenses around the oilfields, including, e.g., the emplacement of numerous flak batteries and an improved air defense system. The B-24 Liberators were thus met with an unexpected hailstorm of fire when they reached the oilfields. In addition, some bomber groups went off-course on their lengthy flight from Benghazi, Libya on the North coast of Africa to the refineries in Romania. These groups did eventually reach the destination but from the wrong direction and did not hit their primary targets. Moreover, because the planes came in at tree-top level to avoid recognition by radar, at one refinery in Campina the attacking planes were shot at with devastating results by anti-aircraft defenses in the hills above them. These courageous airmen fought gallantly that dreadful first day of August in 1943 and five Congressional Medals of Honor were awarded (three posthumously) as a result of their bravery. Still, the end result was not worth it. One-third of the airmen were shot down in the raid and killed or captured. Another one quarter made it back safely but were injured. In other words, more than half of the men on the mission were killed, captured, or wounded. Their planes suffered a similar fate: one-third were shot down, many had forced landings before or after the raid, and 60 planes, two-thirds of the bombers that made it back, were damaged beyond repair. In addition, several refineries were not even damaged by the raid and those that were damaged (despite being bombed more than once in the chaos) were fully operational again within just a few weeks, so the raid did little or no overall damage to the Nazi war effort. In the end, this is a good book about a bad idea with terrible results. The story, despite its gruesome outcome (including the bombing and killing of almost 3,000 civilians and injuring another 2,000) is told in an engaging way from the planning of the operation to not just the horrors of the operation itself but also events after the operation such as the rescue of some of the downed airmen and even military funerals with full honors provided by the Germans to fallen Americans.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book, tragic mission, February 6, 2008
I read about this book on the Ace of Spades blog and decided to give it a whirl. Glad I did! It is pretty well paced and opens with the sobering account of the burial of the recently-recovered remains of one of the raid's more flamboyant casualties that is extremely well done and serves as a moving tribute to all of the pilots and airmen who participated. There are many reviews about this book that go into great detail about the raid itself but suffice to say- as a tanker and treadhead, I found the book eminently readable and quite detailed without being overly ponderous or dry. I liked it so much, I passed it to our Air Liaison Officer (ALO) who flies F-16s when he's not manning a desk and he gave it a resounding two thumbs up as well (although he felt some of the book went into excruciating detail about some of the wounds and injuries suffered by those involved). He and I disagree on that- I feel it just underscores the human cost of the raid- at least from an American military perspective. In any case- recommend this book if for no other reason that the Liberator crews of the bombing groups involved deserve that their legacy be known. Baghdad 02-06-08
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