Robert N. McLean, Jr. Mission on July 9, 1944

July 9, 1944 – Sunday

“Vague at Vega”

Mission #26,27 – target – Vega oil refinery at Ploesti Romania.  Takeoff 0540 Landing 1400 (0820) Total combat hours (133:25) Load 5000 lbs.  Remarks:

1)     The importance of Ploesti to Germany’s oil need is quite apparent.  The target was extremely well smoked over.  The Nazis had also added 200 more guns to Ploesti’s already saturated defense.  This now became one of the toughest and one of the best defended targets in Europe.

2)     The flak was extremely intense and accurate to a fair degree.  It was the heaviest concentration of ack-ack we have seen to date.  We were in flak for 10 minutes

3)     Hard to say if target was hit or not, but I is doubtful

4)     No fighters encountered

5)     No casualties

6)     Statistics – total bomb tonnage (89,800)(44.9 tons)