Arad July 3,1944, 8th Air Force

Alex,
Where do you find any evidence of the importance of this objective near Mures? Is it from the US reports about the mission? Or what make you say it was a target or an important objective for the US bombers?

I found a link that can maybe help : http://www.harta3d.ro/harta-3d-arad.html

Andreas

Thanks for the map, the way that buldg.compound looks
like to be a factory of war related material or something
of that kind.....I am not sure however because the mission
was initiated based on Soviets request and primarily
to knock out the M/Y and car repair shops at and
around the railway station

BR
Alex

This post has been edited by yugit on December 19, 2011 09:08 am

I've spent all the morning trying to identify the building complex in yuggit's second picture and until now I was unable to reach any plausible result.

The only hint which might help us is the fact that, as one can clearly see in the picture's middle area, the complex seems to be right near some marshalling yard (there are just too many lines for a simple station).

I've tried to compare the picture with the actuall satelite image from Google Earth and I can't find any hint which might led me to an accurate conclusion. The river is just too close from the lines and ther buildings.

On the other hand, I've remembered and checked my sources about a hint: the same day (July 3 1944) Timisoara railway complex was also heavily bombed by US air force.

Corellating the info above with your picture, I may make a supposition (I hope I'm not very wrong): the second picture is not from Arad, but rather from Timisoara city.

Other facts which support my theory are: the position of Bega cannal, which runs very close to Timisoara station, the fact that even today the with of the actuall lines pack in the stations seems to be very close of the one in yuggit's picture and the presence of factories (which are still active today) in the neighbourhood of Timisoara main railway station.

This post has been edited by romrail on December 19, 2011 01:27 pm

Romrail

Thank you for your research. I know the issue is not simple
and if you believe is Timisoara, then maybe you can get a
hold of a photo which more or less will correlating the complex
depicted on my photo. The history books of the 15th Air Force
do not indicate as if that complex building belonged to target
folders Arad or Timisoara.

According these books , the 15th Air Force along with
8th Air Force ( over 600 planes and a large number of
escorts) attacked Rumanian targets while splitting the
formations when reached Rumania.

Bucharest oil storage, oil refinary and Locomotives repair works
( presumambly Titan oil or Mogosioaia and Malaxa works )
Timisoara M/Y and Repair Works
Arad " " " 8th and 15th Air Forces
Giurgiu Oil Storage
Turnul Severin railroad targets of opportunity
Piatra, Bridge ( do you have details of this bridge of then and now)
====================
Szeged ..Bridge
Belgrad ...Oil Storage

The Luftwaffe and AAR seems to have been caught with their
pants down as out of this massive armada, only 4 B-24's were
lost.Between them also the Lib.of Lt.William Cubbins, later on
POW in Bucharest and who wrote the famou books
" The War of the Cotton Tails ".He died few months ago due agging.

The 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts air arm fleets seems too to have
given great headaches on that day to the Germans and Rumanian
troops too, through massive IL-2 and A-20 bombings at lower
altitudes ,mainly straffing missions.

Best Regards
Alex

This post has been edited by yugit on December 19, 2011 02:32 pm

Can you share with us which books do you actually mean?

Thanks,

Gen. Dénes

But of course ,

All history books of every BG's and every FG's of the 15th AF I have available.
Many books written by the vets ,also Nathan Twining " The Air Battle of
Ploesti" dated 1945, The Poltawa Disaster and Fighting with the Soviets.

Most of the books may no longer be available and some not all as they
were printed in limited numbers .As into my 1941 -1944 VVS and VMF
histories ,many books in Russian and some in English..lately also
family of the vets through the Russian Aviation & Navy forums.


Alex

Hallo Alex,
Hallo Romrail,
As I was not certain earlier, I presented only a guess, that the river from the second foto wouldn't be Mures river but a channel, but now, with the help of Romrail guess, I am more confident that the foto is not about Arad area, more likely Timisoara... can not bet on this but I believe more in this Romrail ideea!

Hello everyone!

Searching through my railway related stuff, I've came across several pages from a book published last year, called "Pages from Arad Town-planning's History".
While reading the pages concerning Arad railway station's history, I've found a very intersting notice about the air strike from July 3 1944.

"On July 3rd 1944, during the military operation Frantic Joe II, the Allies bombed Arad city. The attack, which was carried out in two stages, had four objectives: the train station, the railway cars factory, the Gestapo's headquarters (in the lake's area) and the cavalry divison's barracks (on Aurel Vlaicu Street)."

Could the Gestapo headquarters actually be the building marked with #16 on the aerial photo from the topic's first post?

This post has been edited by romrail on March 26, 2012 09:47 pm