“He who owns the oil will own the world.”
French diplomat Victor Henry Berenger, 1924.
Seventy years ago this month, as Gen. Dwight Eisenhower launched the greatest invasion in history on Normandy’s beaches, a largely forgotten group of American warriors waged an aerial campaign on the southern flank of Europe. Their target was the oil fields of Ploesti, Romania, perhaps the most heavily guarded real estate on earth..
In the spring and summer of 1944 the fighters, bombers, and reconnaissance planes of the U.S. Fifteenth Army Air Force accomplished their vital mission: they choked off the major petroleum supply to Hitler’s war machine. That December, when the Panzers ran out of fuel in the Battle of the Bulge, in large part the hard-pressed Allies could thank the “Forgotten Fifteenth.”
Everybody who knows anything about World War II aviation knows of “The Mighty Eighth” Air Force that flew from England from 1942 to 1945. Hardly anyone can name any of the bomber, fighter, recon, or special operations groups of the Fifteenth that conducted the southern half of the Allied bombing offensive, besides the Tuskegee Airmen of the 332nd Fighter Group.
