Talk:Operation Tidal Wave

Heading text
"...a panacea target..."

"In multiple raids, the 15th dropped an additional 10,000-pounds of bombs on the refineries, "

Even given the distance and a light bomb load, 10,000 pounds doesn't seem like the correct amount if there were multiple raids. Driftwood87 (talk) 01:05, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm with you, Driftwood; if a B-24 could carry 8,800 pounds of bombs, 10,000 pounds seems like way too low for a running total.Terry J. Carter (talk) 03:27, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

(1) "Clean-up; (2) sources
I took it upon myself to do some editing, largely grammatical. Among other things, I replaced the term "way point" with "check point," and eliminated the term "mission force."

I once wrote a newspaper column on this subject (it had local connections) and used James Dugan and Carroll Stewart's book, Ploesti [sic]. I got two e-mails attacking their version of the loss of Wingo-Wango. The more I get into the "dispute," the more it seems to me that it isn't the facts that are questioned, but the interpretation. I was given the title of another book, and I have to try to hunt up a copy.

It's called Black Sunday: Ploesti. [sic] P.S. When did we start spelled "Ploiesti" with the 'i' in the middle?

Terry J. Carter (talk) 03:35, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Rewrote first sentence
I just rewrote the first sentence, from "Operation Tidal Wave was a 2,400-mile round trip strategic bombing mission from Libya to put 9 Romanian oil refineries "out of action" in 6 months." to "Operation Tidal Wave was a strategic bombing mission by the US Air Force during World War II to put 9 Romanian oil refineries "out of action" in 6 months." I think this gives a better summary -- details such as the distance and origin of the mission are easily found by reading the relevant sections. Even if these should be included, it is vital that it is mentioned as soon as possible who the actual mission was carried out by - it took me a while to figure out from the rest of the article. --Joth (talk) 08:39, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Medal of Honor List
For this Operation only - another 2 were awarded for different raid

Major John L. Jerstad - Post humorously* Colonel Leon W. Johnson Colonel John R. Kane 2nd Lieutenant Lloyd Herbert Hughes - Post humorously*

list from Wiki's page on recipient of the medal

bankrobber70 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.135.38.247 (talk) 09:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Mission plan - return journey
Does anyone have a source for the planned return route - it would make an useful addition to the article. I've calculated the outward route over Corfu and Albania as being about 1050 miles, so using the same route back would have been around 2100 miles in total. A direct route back to Benghazi would have been over Greece and measured around 100 miles less. The fact that several planes landed in Turkey suggests that they were trying to reach Cyprus, which would have saved around 250 miles. Incidentally, I used http://www.daftlogic.com/projects-google-maps-distance-calculator.htm to map and measure the routes. Scartboy (talk) 14:26, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Barbarossa
"one view considers it as an indirect tactical victory for the Allies under the assumption that it bought the Soviets time against the invading German forces" Barbarossa was in 1941. This action was in 1943. 109.144.201.26 (talk) 20:49, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

SNAFU
If memory serves, and at 70, it's serving less and less, there was a program on the History Channel a number of years ago about this raid. One aspect, that is touched upon only briefly here, deserves more detailed treatment, if only for the bizarre aspects. The HC program used maps and graphics to demonstrate how things can go terribly wrong in the fog of war. According to the program, the navigational errors mentioned in this article resulted in two flights of bombers arriving over the target areas at right angles (!) to each other. Of course this was totally accidental, but observers on the ground were astounded by the precision flying of the attackers, as they narrowly avoided each other. I don't know the HC producers source for this information, but I believe addition of those facts would contribute greatly to this article.

Anyone willing to do further research and editing? Or did it even happen?

Stevewaclo — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stevewaclo (talk • contribs) 22:16, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Range and combat range
Range: 2,100 mi (1,800 nautical miles (3,300 kilometres))

I just try to check out the Range because of the bombardment of Ploesti Oil Fields in Autumn 1943, shortly after occupying Sicily (and Malta?) in Operation Husky. This made air raids on the most important German oil source possible, but it was at this stage quite limited. In German Wikipedia I see for B-17 a Range of:

2.897 km mit normaler Beladung, 1.760 km mit maximaler Beladung (first with usual bombs/machine gun ammo etc, second with maximum, and I guess also with maximum fuel, maybe even already drop-tanks? In English Wiki we only have:

Range: 2,000 mi (1,738 nmi, 3,219 km) with 2,700 kg (6,000 lb) bombload (but this is not Combat Range and you can not just take 50/50... because of different flights, flight to the target is much heavier, more fuel, the bombload, while the flight back, was much less fuel consuming since most of the fuel already has been used and the bombs were off, so some tons of weight were no more needed to carry by the 4 x ~1,200 horsepower turboprop,

This info here:

''Bombs: Short range missions (<400 mi): 8,000 lb (3,600 kg) Long range missions (≈800 mi): 4,500 lb (2,000 kg) Overload: 17,600 lb (7,800 kg)'' (sounds strange to me, 2000kg and 7800kg?!)

Okay with Overload we can forget in any case, even from Englands most south-eastern point to West-Germany, that is maybe really for less than 250 miles Combat Radius. I think to Ploesti they even flew with less than the "Long range missions" bombs to save fuel to land somehow maybe on soviet territory in the worst case, mission was to damage the oil plants at all costs, so if there would be 400 instead of 200 needed to do it with save fuel, than for sure they did get the planes from the bombing squads which were attacking Germany and Austria etc, the escorts also had a quite short range (no wonder with many caliber .50 guns on the sides, in the nose another gun, and damn much ammo belts (a single round is around 110 metric gram! for these side guns, and of course crew members...), they also started a bit after the bombers because they were much faster and than I think over Albania/Greece or early Bulgaria they had to turn around, and after this the FlaK heavy belts to save Ploesti began, together with some desperate efforts from the Romanians "Airforce" (if you want to call it like that), and some German fighters, while they were using modern fighters since the Oil shortened the war because German Army in 1945 was complete out of fuel... Battle of the Bulge were the last reserves, and even they were so small (and tanks thirsty) that they ran out of fuel since US troops withdrawing learned something and burned their own oil...

Any infos?! Does not have to be THAT detailled ;) Yes Aircraft carrier would have helped a lot and would make even the whole Husky stuff not needed, but I think all carriers were on the Pacific front? Very much were built in early 1943 or even in middle or late 1942... but also the US lost some battleships, cruisers, destroyers and so on at least, about carriers I do not know, but I know Philippines was the largest number of us troops which surrendered and navy was lost much too, also in the early fights, even the Midway-Trap was a success, there were still casualties, so a carrier for Romania... also Gibraltar seems almost unimpossible to pass without being such a nice target for U-Boats, and Sues Canal... I do not know if this was possible back than, would need a very very very large passage (no nuclear carriers back than, means many many replenishment oilers and escort ships, mostly destroyers against German Submarines, would be needed, very much ressources for a single attack, even though a complete destruction of Ploesti in 1942 would have made the war ended in Europe in 1944 for sure...

Greetings Kilon22 (talk) 19:58, 6 June 2016 (UTC)

Casualty figures
The text of the article refers to lots of women prisoners killed when a bomber crashed on the prison, why are they not counted in the casualty figures? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.155.111.25 (talk) 15:35, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Mission plan
'For political reasons, the Allied planners decided to avoid the city of Ploiești, so that it would not be bombed by accident.'

Does that mean that they chose not to send aircraft over it, or that they decided not to bomb it?

Notreallydavid (talk) 06:09, 2 May 2024 (UTC)


 * The cited source only mentions "The target was NOT Ploesti, a city inhabited by 100,000 Romanian citizens... The challenge then was to strike the refineries across a five-mile circumference without errant bombs falling on the civilian population" and I couldn't find any other mention about flying over the city being prohibited. I guess that part could be rephrased to better match with that the source says? Alin2808 (talk) 15:47, 16 June 2024 (UTC)