The Oreshets in question is village located 4 km east of Belogradchik. The only USAAF claim fitting with this loss was submitted by 1/Lt Ralph Peterson of 52nd FG. All other claims were submitted over and around Ploiesti. Although he identified that the combat occurred near Bela Palanka in Serbia, which is some 50 km southwest of Oreshets, this isn't much keeping in mind the length of flights from Italy and back and I've seen even greater omissions in orientation by USAAF airmen in many instances. The Varba is the Vrba/Radomir airfield mentioned by Larry. Bulk of II./JG 51 was stationed there at the time and scrambled at 10.10 to intercept the bombers.
Cheers,
Boris
PS still waiting for the reply
