Bomber Observer

Born: 1916 or 1917, Talpas, jud. Dolj

Units:

• 22 June 1941 - 12 May 1945*: 5th Bomber Group

* from October 1944, the 5th Bomber Group was reduced to only a few airplanes, which were joined with the 2nd Long Range Recon Squadron and formed the Mixed Bomber-Recon Squadron

Combat missions: 218

Victories: N/A

Decorations:

• Virtutea Aeronautica Order Knight class with two bars
• Eiserne Kreuz 1st class

War episode:

From the over 200 successful missions that lt. av. Gheorghe Georgescu executed, the one on 13 January 1945 stands out. The remaining four operational Romanian Ju-88A-4s took off to bomb one of the bridges over the Danube in Budapest. He was the commander of the mission, being the most experienced officer taking part (even though not the highest ranking). On the way to the city one of the bombers had some technical problems and had to turn back. They were flying at 5000 m. The powerful German and Hungarian AAA started firing. Lt. av. Georgescu gave the signal to prepare for the dive. The bomb bay opened, the bombs were armed. Then he gave the second signal and the formation entered the dive. They did not use the dive breaks, confusing the enemy AA gunners, who were always firing behind them. At 1500 m the bombs were released and the pilots pulled the sticks as hard as they could. The formation turned to the left to observe the effect of their bombing. At least two 250 kg bombs had hit the "Chain Bridge", destroying a portion of it. The Ju-88s escaped to the southeast and came back to the base.

He is presently living in Talpas