<text id=00he0912><title>Hitting the Sources of Fuel</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>Hitting the Sources of Fuel</hdr><body>
<p>Two days after the Normandy invasion, Spaatz had issued an order to the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces: first priority of the heavy bomber forces, from then on, was to deny fuel to the enemy. Legitimate battlefield emergencies would be dealt with as they arose, but the primary goal was the strategic objective Spaatz had long argued for.
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<p>The Eighth was to strike the synthetic fuel plants of central and eastern Germany, and to bomb the refineries near Bremen, Hamburg and Hannover. The Fifteenth was to continue to work over the Ploesti complex, along with other crude oil refineries near Vienna and Budapest. They also were assigned synthetic fuel plants in Poland, Silesia and the Sudetenland.
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<p>Harris and the RAF made a major contribution to the campaign. The RAF's 205 Group, based in Italy with the Fifteenth AF, had been quietly mining the Danube, the main transportation route for fuel from Romania. Barge after barge was blown out of the water by the RAF's work. Bomber Command continued to make night runs to the Ruhr valley, bombing synthetic fuel plants there.
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<p>Spaatz had more than 3,300 heavies to assign, and Harris about 1,100. During the summer of 1944, they sent the bombers against oil, industry, the Crossbow sites, and often a tactical target designated by a ground commander.
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<p>The Eighth flew on 78 of the 92 days of June, July and August, and dropped 154,000 tons of bombs. The Luftwaffe seldom sortied, but it posed a new threat in the form of small, streaking interceptors, the potentially deadly Me 163 rocket-powered aircraft. They were first sighted in late July in a raid on the very durable target at Merseburg-Leuna. On 16 August, half a dozen of the little jets attacked a formation of heavy bombers, doing no real damage. Their impressive performance left more than one crew badly shaken and very apprehensive about the next mission in that area.
