Vaughn Steele, Mission June 24, 1944

Ploesti Romania

One I remember real well.

On leaving base, we climbed to 17,000 ft to get above the overcast.  We were on oxygen for 6 hours.  Flak was heavy and accurate over target.  Did 360 deg turn between Ploesti and Bucharest to wait for other section to drop bombs.  9 enemy fighters attacked us there but all passes were low and I didn’t get a shot.  On the way back we flew around a bit trying to find plane #27. (He was low on fuel.)

We were low on gas when we reached the Adriatic.  We threw out all loose equipment.  Just barely made it back to the base.  7hr 55 min

My note on this.  That was one mission I think about the most.  My flight engineer when transferring fuel from the wing tanks does it by minutes.  Not realizing by transferring at a higher altitude, you will be transferring less fuel – final result we had 150 gallons of gas in the wing tanks when we landed.