I wish someone who knows how would give us the facts on how much oil was spilled in WWII.
There were an awful lot of tankers torpedoed. I remember tar balls washing up on the beaches from the outer banks to Myrtle Beach.
We survived that.
I would be curious as to the volume.
Enormous quantities of petroleum have also been released during warfare. Because petroleum and its refined products are critically important economic and industrial commodities, enemies have commonly targeted tankers and other petroleum-related facilities during wars. For example, during the World War II German submarines sank 42 tankers off the east coast of the United States, causing a total spillage of about 460,000 tons (417,000 metric tons) of petroleum and refined products. There were 314 attacks on oil tankers during the Iran-Iraq War of 1981–1987, 70% of them by Iraqi forces. The largest individual spill during that war occurred when Iraq damaged five tankers and three production wells at the offshore Nowruz complex, resulting in the spillage of more than 287,000 tons (260,000 metric tons) of petroleum into the Gulf of Arabia.
Read more: Oil Spills - Oil Pollution http://science.jrank.org/pages/4848/Oil-Spills-Oil-pollution.html#ixzz0oFFXpHdg