PLOESTI /OTOPENI/BOUCHAREST BOMBING PHOTOS, Missing Aircraft & Unidentified Crews

also this B-24 breaks apart and explodes over Ploesti or the outskirts by mid 1944, no survivors were found and no track record on the crew or aircraft.....can anyone help entangle the mistery?

Al

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B-24's lined up for a bombing mission to Roumania, mid 1944

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Mytzu, be careful that the structures marked "? building" in your first and third photos are not one and the same. The one in the first photo has some built-up structures and a narrow moat "above" (at about 10-12 o'clock), while the one in the third photo has a rather broad moat and no structures.

I have previously asked whether those are the old forts around Bucharest, but unfortunately got no reply.

The region where the aerial photos were taken are very familiar to me since I live in the area.
What I cannot understand what is the large building ,that looks like a fort, and I cannot find anything in the region....

Carol - it is the same building, I checked that out by simplmy comparing the river near the airfields, the roads and other things around - and it checks out good.I am also puzzled about that structure, it might be a fort as you said.I will ask someone about this maybe he knows better.

Well, there are several more things that do not match, besides the "fort". In the first photo (as well as the second one), the "Otopeni" airfield seems to have two runways making an angle of about 60 degrees. In the third photo, the two runways are clearly at 90 degrees.

Furthermore, in the first photo (and the second one) there seems to be a road between "Otopeni" and the "? building" running roughly on the 2 o'clock-8 o'clock direction. But in the third photo there is no such road. There are however many houses which did not appear in the previous two photos.

Carol, mind to tell me what equipment was stationed at Baneasa on that bombing day eventually period, were there also Luftwaffe planes involved ? Were was the Luftwaffe Ops. Center and Hdq accomodate in WWII ? ( mainly operations)

Alex

Carol I think you are right, I noticed there is a road missing betwen the fort and the airfield and the angle also seemed slightly different, but I thought it is because of the distance from which the pictures was taken and the bombs exploding on the ground that prevented me to see better.After looking and comparing all photos, I must say you are right about this: the pic with the concrete airfield does not match the other ones.I will post here the pics lined up after the fort (the arrow of the fort pointing downwards), as you will see all pics except the one with conrete airfield will match:













This post has been edited by D13-th_Mytzu on December 14, 2004 07:40 pm

I just talked to Dragos Stinghe,and he promised to came and see the aerial photos,and put some light on them.
..........I don't understand why the Americans bombed the hipodrom in Buc!!!!

Thanks C2 ! That would help I am particulary interested in airfields around Bucharest - I am learning (trying to) about them now for my project and these pics are just great, now I only need to find out what airfields they were

Sorry, but I have no information about this.

Thank you.

An even better system would be to use the geographical directions. On the photo below you have very clearly marked the orientation of the North direction.



If you place the image right you will notice that the fort points towards North-West. Bearing in mind that the fort points away from Bucharest, it can thus be concluded that photo (and hence the airfield) is somewhere north-west of Bucharest. I hope this helps.

Even the photo below is easy to position right: in the header it is mentioned that the axis of the photo is at 130 degrees from the north direction. Hence...

I don't think they were targeting the hippodrome. In fact most of the explosions were north of the hippodrome. Furthermore, the header of the photo states the objective of the mission: "Mogoşoaia Oil Stores".

The "fort" close to Otopeni still exists today. Take a look at the satellite photo below (taken on 13 June 2004) and look just south of the airport. Pay a visit there if possible and you will find out what it is.