Alfred Turgeon, is one of the nine Ploesti airmen accounted for so far. Mark Russell, DPAA European Mediterranean Chief of Research.ĭavid Bass’s uncle, Tech. “The FRS collection process was happening all along, with the earliest requests for FRS submitted in 2014,” said Dr. While the test cases and disinterments were happening, there was also a push by the Army Casualty Office to collect family DNA reference samples (FRS). Most of the Ploesti remains are now in the DPAA Offutt lab. The success with DNA extraction triggered 13 more disinterments in 2018, and then the bulk of the remaining Ploesti remains were disinterred between the summer of 2019 and fall of 2020. Partnering with the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System’s DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL), DNA was able to be extracted. The Ploesti Project was born.ĭPAA’s scientists weren’t sure what kind of condition the remains would be in, so these first two caskets were test cases to see if DNA could be extracted and Ploesti remains identified. In 2017, the first two caskets of remains believed to be from Operation TIDAL WAVE were disinterred and sent to DPAA’s laboratory at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska.
“I was impressed with the amount of time and commitment that was provided to these particular sets of remains that still are unidentified.” “Based on my research, it appears that the Romanian citizens were as careful as they could be with the American remains in the recovery and burial process, and that the American identification staff worked carefully and thoroughly during the efforts to identify whom they could,” said Cohn. Most of these were buried as Unknowns at what is now Ardennes American Cemetery and Memorial in Belgium, though some were buried at Henri-Chappelle American Cemetery and Memorial, also in Belgium. By 1951, 80 men were still unaccounted for from Operation TIDAL WAVE, but AGRC had 89 sets of unidentified remains thought to be from that mission. American teams disinterred the remains at Bolovan Cemetery and those they could find in the villages’ cemeteries.
#TIDAL WAVE SHOT REGISTRATION#
Most of the Airmen were buried in Bolovan Cemetery there in Ploesti, though some were buried in smaller cemeteries in villages outside the city limits.Īfter the war, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC) began recovering and accounting for these men. The German military probably recovered most of the bodies from crashes inside the tight ring around the refineries they directly controlled, but Romanian citizens collected the bodies from the many crashes outside of that ring. In total, 225 men were killed in Romania during Operation TIDAL WAVE. There were some who were captured by the Germans or Romanians and taken to POW camps after receiving medical treatment. Not all those Airmen whose aircraft were shot down were killed. It caused a hiccup in German oil production, but not the major impact the Allies wanted.
Many of the refineries were back up and running within days or weeks. Unfortunately, Operation TIDAL WAVE didn’t have the effect the Allies were hoping for.
“They bombed their targets and many did return safely. “It was deemed a success because the units completed the mission objective,” said Cohn. Overall, however, the bombers did achieve their goal. Many of the B-24s were damaged during their bombing runs and several of them crashed in Ploesti and the surrounding countryside. “It was difficult for the later waves to fly through this inferno with almost zero visibility,” said Cohn. Plus, the Germans somehow learned of the attack ahead of time, so they were prepared before the first wave showed up, filling the air with anti-aircraft fire and setting off massive smoke bombs to obscure visibility. “The mission didn’t go quite as planned, which significantly impacted the number of lives that were lost,” said Christine Cohn, a historian from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) who has spearheaded the agency research on Operation TIDAL WAVE.Ī whole wave of bombers got confused and off-course causing them to approach the targets from the wrong direction at the wrong time. However, a plan rarely survives contact with the enemy.
There was a lot of planning, and a lot of practice in the desert around Benghazi, Libya. 1 from bases in northern Africa, fly across the Mediterranean, and cripple the German military by taking out the refineries. The plan was to launch multiple large waves of B-24 Liberator bombers on Aug. The targets were the oil refineries around Ploesti, Romania. Thus, the Allies began to plan one of the first large-scale bombing operations in the European Theater, Operation TIDAL WAVE. Oil was integral to that machine, and the German-controlled oil fields in Romania were chosen as a prime target. In Europe, the Allies were looking for ways to disrupt the German war machine. World War II was raging across the world in the summer of 1943.
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