Escape From Hell to Heaven

On August 1, 1943, 178 B-24 Liberators left Benghazi Air Base in northern Africa on a mission to bomb the oil refineries near Ploesti, Romania. Operation Tidal Wave, a daring, low-level raid, cost the lives of over 300 crewmen and the loss of 58 aircraft. The raid reduced the total refining capacity of the six targets by forty-six percent. The defending forces, unfortunately, were alerted in advance and were waiting for the approaching bombers.

On the ground, in the little village of Snagov, about 29 miles from the capital of Bucharest and about 13 miles from Ploesti, lived a small boy, the son of the foreman of the automotive fleet of the Concordia-Vega Refinery, one of the targets assigned to the 93rd Bomb Group. It sustained minor damage that day but left the boy with vivid memories of standing on the roof of his house watching planes, explosions, fires, and dense black smoke cover the area.

Because of the strategic importance of cutting Germany's oil supply, the allies hit Ploesti many times during the war. That small boy, Cornell Iliescu, still remembers another bombing raid that occurred many months later. Here is his story.