Episode 88: The Bombing of Ploiești, Romania

The world's first oil refinery
The most notable accomplishment of Wallachia's industrial revolution was the building of the World's first industrial oil refinery in 1856-1857.

Situated at Râfov, near Ploiești, the refinery had a processing capacity of 7.5 tons per day.

Wallachia (and from 1858, Romania) became the first country in the world with an officially recorded crude oil production, 275 tons.

Also in 1857, Bucharest became the first city in the world to use lamp oil for public illumination.

😀😀. US Air Force lost almoust all the planes. Ploiesti was not damaged, nor the rafineries

My great great uncle Zelwood Gravlin was a gunner on a B-24 and was in one of the planes that was shot down. His remains never came home until yesterday. We got a phone call last week that someone was digging up a mass grave site in Romania and found a large percentage of his remains. My grandmother died searching for him, she always wanted to find him but never did. She did a ton of research and saved it all for me. I have news paper articles, government documents, etc. He wrote two letters home and his mom got word he is MIA, she received the letters days later. She never opened them, someone else in my family did and I have them laminated now. He can now RIP with the rest of his family.
I also found info on other men from that raid that ended up in Russian gulags after the war ended. So awful!!

Ok Ploiești was a industrial target BUT WHY DID U BOMB BUCHAREST KILLING 5000 CIVILIANS?