About a week ago I received a huge dump of contemporary (original) Romanian and German documents related to TIDAL WAVE. All these docs are in the Romanian or German language, and since I don’t speak either language, I’ve been working 15-16 hour days since the pile arrived to get them translated.
Not to overstate the situation, but this document dump is proving to sort of like the “Wikileaks” of the Axis side TIDAL WAVE. Very, very good stuff.
Before this hoped-for-but-not-really-expected treasure trove arrived, I’d been racing to get everything finished and on the street before 1 August 2013, the 70th anniversary of the Ploesti attack. It’s obviously far more important to get all this new material processed and incorporated. I need to get this wrapped up, however, so at this point I’m shooting for an early September release.
Hi, I’m curious if any of the new Axis material presents conflicting information from what you have already researched or if it alters your analysis of the mission.
Yes, and no (seriously). What I’ve already learned shines a considerably different light on TIDAL WAVE than the “conventional” story. Remember that Stewart & Dugan wrote their deeply researched book in 1959-61, when Romania was still a Communist country and their archives closed. Second, considerable information in the US National Archives and Air Force history had not yet been declassified when they did their research. The third element was that in 1960 many of the primary actors on the American side were still on active duty in the Air Force. All books published since then are essentially rehashes of Stewart & Dugan (one rather well-known book plagiarized entire pages from D&S).
On the other hand, the story told by contemporary records in the National Archives and AF history is consistent with what I’m finding in Romanian & German documentation, although of course the Romanian/German stuff clarifies their side of the event. In all,this story is considerably different in many respects from what’s been told before, so my findings will be controversial, to say the least. That’s one of the things that’s causing this project to take so long–I have to be able to justify every one of my conclusions with contemporary documentation.
Dave
We’ve waited this long it, what’s another month ?,I’m sure that it’s worth the wait,it’s important that you get as much information as possible,if it’s anything like the B-24 maintenance DVD, I just finished watching, we’re in for a real treat, love it. You can’t rush perfection 🙂
Hi Sean
Thanks much for your kind comments. I’m off to the US Army’s War College at Carlyle Barracks, PA, on Monday as I’ve just located another treasure trove of material in their collection.
Dave
Dave,
Along with many documents that hadn’t seen the light of day, did you find additional “in action” pictures taken during the flight that showed various planes at their respective targets?
Hi Bob
Well, sort of, depending on how much you’ve already seen. At this point I have excellent copies of all the hundreds of surviving strike photos. Some of them have been published previously, although often in a very low quality version. I was lucky to get originals, so the quality is outstanding.
One extremely instructive exercise I already went through was to put the photos in sequential order by individual aircraft (from which the photos were taken). This was quite helpful in many respects.
I haven’t had time to write an article on this yet, but the long series of photos of 389th BG Medal of Honor earner Lloyd (Pete) Hughes are clear enough that you can just barely make out what is most likely nose art on the aircraft, which was named Ole’ Kickapoo. The ship was reputed to “not” have nose art, but the photos seem to show that it did–or least the name in large letters. Unfortunately the pics aren’t clear enough to determine exactly what the art looked like. Some people will argue that what’s shown on the prints is not nose art, which is fine by me.
Another important issue that I’ve not seen addressed elsewhere is the very high attack altitude of many of the 98th BG ships. Photos clearly show at least a handful of aircraft at 700-800 feet, or even higher, over the target. This would certainly have made them excellent targets for the AA.
It does not seem occur to many how quickly the individual aircraft at the briefed 200-300′ altitude passed over the target, and therefore over the flak area. From the viewpoint of the flak gunners, an individual aircraft passing over at 200′ would only be in sight/range for around a minute–not much time to aim and fire. On the other hand, so many AA guns were firing that the general barrage created a deadly curtain of lead that brought down many ships, especially when they were hit in the bomb bay fuel tanks, as many or most of the ships lost in the target area were.
I’ve found quite a few excellent photos of downed B-24s in Romania. Some have been published before, but some are new. Some of the photos are quite graphic and it takes a strong stomach to look at them.
Dave
Truly an amazing piece of work is coming our way. Take your time in preparing as your mentioned. Keep up the great work.
I am curious as to how you are putting this to written form. More a documentary style or a historical non-fiction with the know conversations written out and any undocumented communication left out.
Hi Lance
Thanks for your kind comments. My first products will be a film documentary released on DVD in two forms. The basic version will include a 70-90 minute version of the basic story, based on the information I’ve uncovered. The second product, released at the same time, will be the Deluxe version, which includes the basic DVD plus a second DVD with a bunch of individual movies going into MUCH greater detail on specific aspects of the TIDAL WAVE story. For example, Genera Ent’s early turn at Targoviste is a complex subject and far too complicated to go into in great detail in the basic DVD. You need to see maps, landmarks, photos, etc., to truly understand what really happened there.
I’ve been under a lot of pressure to produce a book covering this same material. Frankly, some things are better covered in a “motion picture” format, while other important information tends to be more textual and difficult to convey in a movie-type format.
Dave