Hell at Low Altitude

Wall Street Journal ^ | 11-13-07 | Daniel Ford

[smoothsailing]

Hell at Low Altitude

As many American soldiers died in 27 minutes in Romania as in 10 months in Iraq.

BY DANIEL FORD

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Whereas now we go into combat hoping for zero casualties and regard any loss whatever as proof of unforgivable incompetence, the history of warfare is mostly a chronicle of high casualties and terrible sacrifice. In the history of American warfare, there is little to compare, on this score, to the carnage of World War II--"worse than anything probably that ever happened in the world," in the words of Henry Stimson, the U.S. Army secretary. "Into the Fire" gives a fresh account of one particularly bloody mission from that war--an American bombing raid on Aug. 1, 1943.....

[NonValueAdded]

Ploesti bump ... thank you for posting this.

[NonValueAdded]

Click on the keyword Ploesti to access the previous posts of articles made over the years about this mission. From the responses over the years, I daresay more than one FReeper lost a relative that day.

[smoothsailing]

Thanks for that keyword, NVA. it’s good to know you understand.

[jazusamo]

Good post, Smooth. I’ve seen an hour documentary on this mission, possibly on the History channel. This piece describes it well, it was one error after another.

The critics of the war in Iraq have no clue about the sacrifices of Americans in previous wars.

[jazusamo]

Arrrgh...My post 5 should have been to you. :)

[geopyg]

ping for reading tomorrow. Not only do they not understand the sacrifices that were made, but the errors that were made as well, and that they in some sense are common to war (or anything for that matter).

I think Medved did something on our various wars (Revolutionary, WW I, and WW II) and how looking back it is easy to think that winning them was “inevitable”. But that is sooooo far from the truth. With the Revolution and WWII the little bit I know of the History is that numerous times key battles hung in the balance and were only won by our brave sacrificing their all.

Some old vet the other night said something about how he’s not a hero - all the hero’s died in battle. God bless our vets.

[smoothsailing]

I saw your post 5, your Arrgh is not necessary!!!! LOL!

[NonValueAdded]

... and I’ve been known to be smooth at one time or another :)

[dr_lew]

Well, to give the devil his due, the NYT published a graph a few years ago comparing casualties of WWII and other wars, including Iraq. It was a big full page thing with WWII towering the length of it, and Iraq a little blip along the bottom. I forget the parameters. It may have been time scaled over the length of the war. Anyway, it made the point.

[jazusamo]

LOL! Guess I better hang it up tonight, it’s past that time for me.

[jazusamo]

Thanks...Glad to hear that, they get something right once in a while.

[Westlander]

Thanks for posting. My Dad was in the first wave at Omaha beach and wound up in the Battle of the Bulge. Consider you walked. People don’t realize there were major campaigns as they fought thru Europe. 2 guys made it all the way in his platoon. Dad got 4 purple hearts from shrapnel. He never talked about WW2 much. Now goofballs mock our military in the Mid East. Sickening.

[alfa6]

A later model of the B-24 for a Polesti mission tribute

I don't have access at the moment to a "D" model pic

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[carumba]

Pithy nose art on that baby. I saw it on the ground and for some reason never forgot it.

[zipper]

But the B-24 was cheap and easy to build, and it flew faster and farther, with a greater bomb load, than the doughty B-17. It would be the plane that went to Ploesti.

I ran into a B-17 Bomb Group reunion at a hotel a couple of years ago -- asked an old guy which group it was. I can't remember which bomb group it was but he was damn proud that it was a B-17 group, bragging it was supercharged and flew higher that the B-24 that I mentioned my dad flew. True, I think, but there were more B-24s, and there were more of them. Not to take credit from the B-17 types, but it was funny to me to notice that the old bomber pilots are every bit as egomaniacal as the newer fighter jocks.

My dad was in that bomb group that flew to Ploesti -- luckily for me he didn't arrive in-theater until late '44. They took lots of casualties right up til the end of the war, even in times of air superiority and 1000-ship formations, but the odds of surviving were much better compared to '43, and the disastrous experimental low-level raids on Ploesti.

[Freedom4US]

I remember how much planning, sheer work, and maintenance it took to get 30 helicopters up in the air on one night, it was unreal. To get THAT many flying is just an amazing feat all by itself. I know a B-17 ball turret guy, he went through a bit of hell himself. Nicest guy you’d ever meet - always has a smile and something good to say.

[rmh47]

I worked with a guy in the '70s and early '80s who was a B-24 nose gunner on some of the Poesti raids. I'm not sure exactly when, but it was probably later in the war, as he told me a story about a squadron(?) of 24s (not his) that suffered enormous losses to Me-262s. I don't remember the exact numbers he recited, but it was something like 16 out of 21 bombers lost. The crews greatly feared running into the jets. He said he never saw a fighter on any of his missions. Luck of the draw, I suppose.

He retired a good while back. I assume he's dead now. He was a good man and a good toolmaker. He taught me a great deal when I was an apprentice. His name was Bill Bond.

[Leisler]

I read that within the continental US, 15,000 students and pilot trainers were lost just in training during WWII.

[metesky]

One of my uncles flew the raid, TSgt waist-gunner. Never talked about it, lots of medals. I remember when he came home in '46 when I was just a tyke. Just passed about three years ago.

We were a large extended family (he was one of nine) and we were so proud of him.