16mm Movie - Air Force - Target Ploesti

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16mm Movie - Air Force - Target Ploesti This is a reel of 16mm sound film from the United States Air Force. The title of the movie is Target Ploesti . The movie does not have a leader. It does start before the titles though. This is a sound film, so if you have a 16mm projector with sound this would be a great movie to watch. The reel measures about 12" across, so you could probably estimate how long the movie would be. I believe this might be the Airpower production from 1957.Ploesti When Hitler began his blitzkrieg in Europe the small nation of Romania found itself precariously perched between German advances in Poland and Hungary, and Soviet advances from the Ukraine. The small country, not even as large as the state of Oregon, found itself besieged on two fronts despite attempts at neutrality.By ultimatum notes, on June 26 and 28, 1940, the Soviet Union forced Romania to cede Bessarbia, which had shaken off the Russian yoke in 1918, as well as Northern Bucovina (which had never belonged to Russia). Under the Vienna Diktat of August 30 that same year and after a German-Italia ultimatum, Romania was forced to give Hungary the north-western part of Transylvania. Under the Treaty of Craiova on September 7, 1940, Romania surrendered the southern part of Dobrudja. The loss of about one-third of the country's area and population caused a serious crisis which resulted in the abdication of King Carol II in favor of his son Mihai and the subsequent rise to power of General Ion Antonescu.In June 1941 Romania abandoned neutrality and joined the Axis, primarily in hopes of regaining Basarabia and Northern Bucovina. Ironically, Romania had been allied AGAINST Germany in the First World War. In desperation now, she joined the Axis for reasons of self-preservation. Britain declared war on Romania (along with Finland and Hungary) on December 5, 1941.The United States left its own initial policy of non-belligerency in the European war on December 11, 1941, four days after Pearl Harbor and three days after declaring war on Japan. It was not however, until June 5, 1942, that the United States expanded that declaration of war on Germany and Italy to include Romania (along with Hungary and Bulgaria.) It was fateful timing, with Halpro impatiently awaiting new orders after the loss of its primary mission. When that order came it was almost as unbelievable as the circumstances that had brought Hurry-Up Harry Halverson's airmen to this point. Halpro's new orders were:"Bomb Ploesti!"Ploesti was an oil boom city in the plains below the Transylvanian Alps in the North, and the Romanian capitol of Bucharest in the south. Commercial refinement of oil began in Ploesti in 1857, making it the first city in the world to tap the riches of the earth that would become critical to feeding advancing technology including automobiles and then aircraft. By 1942 the refineries at Ploesti were producing nearly a million tons of oil a month, accounting for 40 per cent of Romania's total exports. Most of that oil, as well as the highest-quality 90-octane aviation fuel in Europe, went to the Axis war effort. Ploesti provided nearly a third of the petrol that fueled Hitler's tanks, battleships, submarines, and aircraft. In return, Germany occupied Romania and protected her natural resources--more specifically, German gunners guarded the multiple refining and storage plants that ringed Ploesti.Unlike the sequel to the first mission over Ploesti, an August 1943 raid that was planned for nearly a year and practiced for months, Halpro's mission was a target of opportunity raid afforded by the week-old declaration of war on Romania. The pre-mission briefing was short, simple, and laid out an impossible task. Halverson's B-24s were to fly out of Egypt in the dark of night, cross the Mediterranean to a point on the Turkish coast, and then circle that neutral nation to come in over German occupied Greece. "You are not--I repeat not," advised the mission briefing officer from the R.A.F., "... read more

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