Despite its small size and distance from Britain, the Allies had Romania squarely in their sights. The only patch of Romanian soil of strategic importance was the relatively puny few square miles of the Ploesti oil fields and refineries. From the very beginning of the war, it was well known that Germany’s war machine ran on Romania’s oil. The Allies were now cranking out thousands of long-range bombers like so many murderous Fords and Chevys. Carl Spaatz, the head of the U.S. air forces in Europe, had a particular jones for the Ploesti fields and couldn’t wait to unleash his air armada on them.
After the Allies secured their position in North Africa in 1942, they prepared to hit the Romanians. The first attack was a slight affair, a jab and a slap but with symbolic importance. In all, twelve B-24 bombers made the run from Egypt to the oil fields, the first strategic bombing attack by the United States in Europe. They caused minimal damage and no planes were lost. It simply proved that the bombers could reach their target. Unfortunately, for future bomber crews, it also alerted the Germans that the Allies were eyeing Ploesti. They instantly beefed up their antiaircraft strength and deployed fighters to the area.
It took over a year before Spaatz could orchestrate another raid. This was one for the ages, perhaps the most spectacular bombing attack of the entire war. On August 1, 1943, from a base in Benghazi, Libya, 177 planes, mostly B-24s, flew at rooftop level for a point-blank attack on Hitler’s oil. The mission was the largest U.S. air attack of the war, to date. So important was the destruction of the fields that the Allies green-lighted the mission even though some of the planners expected half the planes never to return. The planes faced German and Romanian fighters, mechanical troubles, getting lost, intense flak, and at such low altitude, even rifle fire. Handling the massive bombers like fighters, the planes braved the strong defenses to strafe the oil fields with tons of bombs. Fires raged as gas tanks exploded, bombers weaved through plumes of oily smoke, and stricken planes plunged to the ground. Despite the spectacular pyrotechnics, the raid caused only temporary damage to the huge oil complex, which soon began producing more oil than ever. The raid cost the Americans heavily as fifty-four bombers were shot down, a 30 percent kill rate. Spaatz knew more attacks would have to be mounted, but never again from such a low altitude.
On the ground things were faring even better for Romania. During the spring and summer of 1942 they blitzed along, riding the coattails of the Germans to the gates of the city of Stalingrad. While the Germans penetrated the city, the under-equipped and under-supplied Romanians guarded the flanks. With the Germans poised for victory the Russians counterattacked in November 1942, slicing through the crumbling Romanians whose collapse allowed the German Sixth Army to become surrounded. After two more months of brutal fighting, the Germans and Romanians surrendered. It was perhaps the bloodiest battle in history and marked a major turning point in the war. From that point on, the Germans and the Romanians fought on the defensive.
As 1944 started, the war had turned decidedly against Romania. The Allies were preparing for the European invasion; their bombing force had grown considerably and was raining death on the Axis countries, and the Russians were on the march west. But loyal Ion still saw Adolf through rose-colored glasses.
Spaatz, from his headquarters in Great Britain, upped the ante and pushed for the “Big Oil” plan that would unleash the full strength of his bomber force onto Romania. After the Allies landed in Normandy on June 6, Spaatz was freed to pursue his plan. Just two days after the invasion, on June 8, 1944, Spaatz giddily declared that the strategic air forces’ primary mission was destroying Hitler’s oil supply. The largest bomber force ever created was now focused on Romania.
Spaatz led off with a dive-bombing attack featuring his long-range P-38 fighters, equipped with extra fuel tanks. Then he turned to the heavy bombers. For two months his Fifteenth Air Force flew bomber run after bomber run at the facility from its base in Italy. Defenses started to crumble, destruction began to surpass the ability to repair it, and oil production declined. Soon the German and Romanian fighters, now badly outnumbered by the hundreds of Allied bombers and their fighter escorts, hid in the skies far away from their enemy.
Even the British got into the action. They attacked Ploesti four times in 1944, lighting up the dark sky and adding to the slow devastation of the oil fields. Spaatz’s plan was working. Oil production was cut in half from March to April 1944, and halved again by June.
The attacks culminated with the nearly seven-hundred-plane raid on July 15. By this time Ploesti was getting plastered once or twice a week. The German army was frequently abandoning their beloved Panzers and trucks for lack of fuel. Big Oil was having big impact.
Finally, the last bomber dropped its load on August 19 to rattle the dust a little more. Ploesti was dead. When the Russians captured the area on August 30, they told the Americans the place had been totally destroyed. In all, the Allies ran twenty-four missions against Ploesti involving almost 6,000 bombers. While it cost the Americans 230 bombers and their crews, the results were spectacular. The Germans completely ran out of oil in late 1944. The dividend paid off during the Battle of the Bulge that December, when the Germans abandoned their Panzers with empty gas tanks and walked away.
Too slowly it had dawned on Antonescu that he was losing. While spending the majority of his time conducating the retreat on the Russian front and pretending to be an effective general, the Germans were running his country while fighting off the growing storm of bombers over Ploesti. Ion had installed the baby-faced son of King Carol, Mihai, as a symbolic ruler in 1940 when he had thrown King Carol out. From his palace in Bucharest, Mihai knew the end was near and teamed up with officers loyal to him and political leaders who opposed Ion to overthrow the Conducător.
Mihai’s plan was to quit the war and ask the British and Americans to occupy key parts of the country to prevent Russian occupation. Mihai realized that the Russians might be somewhat miffed at Romania’s role in the devastating invasion, but he believed the Allies would want to help keep the Russians at bay. The small problem with the plan was that the Allies had no intention of occupying Romania and had already slotted Hitler’s Stalingrad buddy into the Soviet sphere of control.
Mihai’s plan was further complicated by the fact that the German troops in Bucharest were actually running the country and could easily eliminate the few Romanian soldiers stationed in the capital.
On August 23, Antonescu came to Bucharest and agreed to swing by for a visit to the young Mihai, who was now determined to act. Ion, undoubtedly surprised that the useless young king was suddenly stepping forward to vent his completely irrelevant feelings, walked into the meeting blindly confident and without a weapon or guards. King Mihai demanded he quit. Ion laughed him off. Then King Mihai simply arrested Ion and proceeded to take command of the country, appointing his fellow conspirators to lead the government.
Once word got out, the Germans never flinched but simply added Romania to their growing target list. The ever-practical Germans used the same air bases they shared with the Romanians in attacking the Russians to now attack the Romanians. The Romanians and Germans suddenly found themselves fighting each other from the same air base. It was like a time-share for air forces. The Germans pounded Bucharest without the slightest hint of nostalgia for their former ally. Meanwhile, the Russians watched all of this with glee. In a horrifically clumsy diplomatic sleight of hand, Romania had turned a friend into an enemy but neglected to turn an enemy into a friend. The Germans conducted a fighting retreat to the west while the Russians swept in from the east. Romania had managed to briefly turn World War II into a three-way affair: the Allies and the Axis versus Romania.