Customer Reviews

Ploesti: The Great Ground-Air Battle of 1 August 1943, Revised Edition (Brassey's Aviation Classics)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was surprised to find this book back in print; the last time I read it was around 1970. I wanted a copy of the book because my father, John V. Hogan (not John B. as listed in the book) in featured in the chapter "Zero Raiders" (pages 47-49). Since the book arrived shortly before X-Mass, I have read this book from cover to cover three times. It is a remarkable history which allows the reader to feel the excitement and terror that the crews of the B-24-D's must have experienced. In someways it reminded me of Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" (which was published at least a decade later), in that it features one hero's air war (Norman Appold) throughout the story to provide a backdrop to this great, though tragic battle. Well written and detailed by men who knew the combatants, it is a very real history. As a child I grew up hearing about Norm Appold, General Ent, Killer Kane and K.K. Compton. Reading this book made me wish that my father was still alive to tell me more. Someone should send this book to Steven Speilberg suggesting it as a powerful follow-up to "Saving Pvt. Ryan". Highly recommeded to anyone looking for a better understanding of the people who fought against incredible odds to win WWll.

I first read this book in 1964 when I was fifteen & never forgot
its description of the battle which one squadron of B-24s (flying so low that at least one plane returned with corn stalks stuck in its rear wheel well) fought at machine gun range with a Nazi armored flak train traveling in the same direction as the overtaking bombers -- to Ploesti. A mix-up caused three groups to approach the target simultaneously from three different directions at three different altitudes, stunning the German flak commander with what he thought was incredible American air tactics. I re-read it fifteen years ago & would like to read it again but find it is almost impossible to find at a reasonable price in its original edition -- so many libraries have ditched it due to wear or lack of interest. A great shame because it is one of the best accounts of a bombing mission I have ever read. My own dad was a teenage engine mechanic (fresh out of Aviation H.S. in NYC) of a B-29 -- 'Bengal Lancer' -- in India and on Tinian Island in the Pacific.

I am overjoyed that this great book is once again in print. Dugan and Stewart, both of whom served with the Army Air Forces in World War II and knew many of the participants, were in a unique position that later writers are not. While they were somewhat handicapped in that some of the documents related to World War II were still classified when they were writing, their information was based on knowledge provided by the participants when they were still young men, with the memories fresh in their minds, and less convulted by the effects of the distance of years and their own personal aging. I bought and read the original while on my way to US Air Force basic training in the summer of 1963 and it is still one of favorite books. Although modern enthusiasts attempt to pick it apart, it will always remain the most important book on the Ploesti campaigns.

Sam McGowan, Author "The Cave", a novel of the Vietnam War

The first time I read this book I was twelve or thirteen years old and I read all about my own father who flew in that mission. I was never prouder of him and all the brave men who went up in the sky to fight and some die that day . To this day I am even more proud of my father even tho he has passed away and I will never forget what they did for us and the rest of this great country.

Definitely not the best book available about the low level mission;this is an entertaining book which is full of errors,notably the statement that Wongo Wongo {which crashed into the sea}was the lead plane.The lead plane was always Teggie Ann,a fact which can be verified by talking to members of the 376th bomb group.Still of some interest as long as the book is read with a skeptical eye.Black Sunday is better,though still flawed.

I'm sure there are errors in this story, copyrighted in 1962, less than twenty years after the event itself. But the errors are probably in the details rather than the overall configuration of things. What I mean is that, okay, the wrong airplane was identified as having done something, but the authors -- James Dugan and Carroll Stewart -- got the most important details right. They didn't describe a flawlessly planned and executed massive raid that crippled Germany's oil supply for the rest of the war.

You have to admire works like this because of their honesty and their willingness to tackle a controversial operation without spinning it one way or another. The Doolittle raid on Japan in 1942 had little practical effect, yet it was carried out successfully despite a couple of serious road bumps and the loss of all airplanes. That's why he see and hear constant references to it in movies, books, and other media channels. It's why we see movies with a title like "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" but no "Thirty Seconds Over Ploesti."

In the Ploesti raid, Murphy's law applied. Despite the best efforts of brave and intelligent men, if something could go wrong, it went wrong. Let me mention just three examples of bad luck or error. (1) The planners assumed an element of surprise, when in fact the ships were tracked by the enemy from the moment they left the ground. (2) It was a terribly long and tortuous flight, and over the Mediterranean the airplane carrying the lead navigator nosed up, stalled, and spun into the sea with no survivors. The plane carrying the DEPUTY lead navigator dropped out of the formation against orders and circled the wreck searching for survivors until so much fuel had been used that it turned back for Benghazi. This one incident deprived the flight of perhaps its two most critical members. (3) The terrain near the target was extremely confusing and in a snap decision General Ent took the wrong turn -- not towards Ploesti but towards the city of Bucharest. Some planes followed him, knowing it was a mistake, but others kept to the planned route. Ent himself corrected his error before reach Bucharest but the result was disordered gangs of bombs flying in at housetop level from all direction, unable to identify their designated targets. The German gunners below stared in amazement at three flights roaring simultaneously overhead at different altitudes and in different directions. The gunners thought it was all part of a precise design instead of improvised chaos.

The blood and bursting bombs and flak notwithstanding, Dugan and Carroll manage to work in some ironic humor. Here's General Brereton giving one of those pompous pep talks before the mission.

"The roar of your engines in the heart of the enemy's conquest will sound in the ears of the Romanians -- and, yes, the whole world! -- long after the blasts of your bombs and fires have died away. . . . When you get on your bomb run, bombardiers, I want you to go in like --" Before he could point his simile, a dust devil blew him off the platform into the crowd. The general picked himself up and shouted, "I want you to go in like that!"

I admire too the blunt honesty of the authors in describing the treatment of American prisoners in Romania. Many of them were brought to the castle and spacious grounds of the marginalzed queen, a straight-talking woman who hosted them as if they were royalty. The POWs never had it so good. Had the authors quit there, the story of the American POWs would have had a neat dramatic structure -- but that's not how it happened. Since the massive raid had had only a small and temporary effect on oil production, many later waves went in to bomb the target. The number of POWs on the royal estate built up geometrically and their hostess grew tired of too many guests, so later arrivals were less welcome. That's no longer dramatically tight but it's very human, isn't it?

The book is written in plain English and doesn't make many demands on the technological or military capacities of the reader. There's not a lot of stuff on higher echelon intrigues or strategic considerations. The emphasis is on the airplanes and the men who flew them. In a way, that's a problem, because there were about four or five units that were separated from one another before the target was reached. OVER the target, it was really confusing, to participant and reader alike. I couldn't keep the location and activities of some of the gangs straight. Not just small groups huddled together for protection, but whole units -- The Eight Balls, the Liberandos, and so forth. I wonder if some maps might have helped. Possibly it's just a personal weakness.

I'm trying to think of who might most appreciate a book like this. I think I'd recommend it to someone whose interest in the air war of World War II was about mid-level, say 9,000 feet. Not a perfectionist who wants all the details spelled out accurately, and not a military historian who wants to know all about the minds behind the decision to mount the mission, and not someone looking for a tabloid blood-and-guts approach to battle with the good guys always coming away with the wreaths.

When I was in the Coast Guard, I flew in a naval version of the B-24, called a Privateer, modified for search and rescue. I sat in the plexiglass bubble where the tail gunner's position would have been, and tried to imagine what it was like sailing over the treetops of Middle Europe, being shot at, being hit, and I couldn't do it.

I am pleased to find this book again after many years. My grandfather is featured in this book, with quotes from the journal he kept during his time of capture.

I was priveleged to meet several of the POW's at a bi-annual reunion when I was a senior in high school.

This is a terrific book and extremely interesting. It will make you want to learn more about this period in our history.

The book was well done and accurate as far as I know from the stories of the Tidal wave as told to me by my father who is featured in the book. I was somewhat disappointed by the fewer pictures in this edition. The earlier edditions had more pictures. (ie more pictures of my father JD Palm who was the brave soul that led the first wave to the proper turn point and was the only one of the first wave to turn at the proper place and consequently was the first one in the target area. According to him was able to salvo his bombs in the target in spite of being wounded and on fire. He crash landed and saved all of the crew that was not killed by the initial Direct hit. It took real guts to continue to the target area alone and do the right thing) His exploits were accurately reported in the book with this omission that he salvoed his bombs ON Target and the first to do so! A well written and detailed account with the mention of many brave airmen by name.

Fifty years since "Ploesti" was published, this aviation classic still stands head and shoulders above the many other books on the low-level attack by five American bomber groups against the Romanian oil refineries on August 1, 1943.

The authors, who both served in the Eighth Air Force during World War II, devoted several years to gathering materials. They interviewed 164 of the men who flew the mission, and they drew on 128 accounts, diaries, and recollections, most unpublished. They met German, Romanian, and Bulgarian defenders.

"Ploesti" thus combines the documentary and photographic records with first-hand accounts of those who flew the mission. (If you have a choice, buy the Brassey's 2002 edition, with more photos.) The reader sees the battle from the attack and from the defense. All this gives the book real authenticity. Dugan and Stewart, moreover, use a bold and lively prose.

Separate chapters on the attacks by the five bomber groups flesh out the story in satisfying detail. There are good maps and six dozen photos. The mission planning, the unraveling of the plan on the way to the target, the fatal early turn, the battle between the B-24s and the ground defenses, the terror of the bomb runs, air combat, the ragged return, and the experience of those who became POWs are well and thoroughly told. Some colorful stories -- the British gunner George Barwell, the flak train, the Catholic priest who had been drafted into the Luftwaffe who gave the last rites to dying Americans -- are told better here than in any other account.

There are more recent and more analytical histories of the raid. Dugan and Stewart overestimated the results of the mission. But anyone studying the attack must read "Ploesti." More recent books are footnotes to Dugan and Stewart.

-30-

When I was kid, I borrowed this book from my civic library almost continuously for a number of years. The book they had was hardcover, thick as a bible, and worn from kids before me doing the same. This is a classic WWII battle book: all the background, all the players, all the problems, all the individual struggles of the day, and all the fallout afterwards. Anyone interested in a gory, dangerous mission, especially a true one, will appreciate all the details in this volume. Several photo sections show all aspects of the people and battles. Maps further detail each separate wave of flights. The paperback version has the same content, only about ten pounds lighter than the issue I carried everywhere. Highly recommended.