Identity Liberator loss near Salcioara on 5 April 1944?

[Theo Boiten]

Dear all,

Who could help me in identifying the matching Liberator loss to the following claim on the 5 April 1944 Ploesti raid:

Oblt. Karl Furchmann: 1 11./NJG6 B-24 near Salcioara (SM 1): 4.600 m. 15.27

Cheers and thanks, Theo

[researcher111]

Theo

On the date in question 9 Libs were lost by 15th AF and few more Forts . Salcioara
is NW of Chisinau way off course for any of the 15th AF bombers unless we talk
about Salcioara NW of Bucharest . If the last applies then out of the 9 Libs this
may be the aircraft of Lt.Lael recepient of DSC .

Single thing that does not add up are the Night Fighters , coze in '44 they were active
mainly at night eventhough the Libs were in range of these fighters. Slightly to the
NE of Lael's Lib , Lt Marpe's & Lt.Edwards aircrafts were next Luftwaffe's ftrs victims .

In fact few more Lib's on Ploesti and Bucharest perimeters were attacked by
fighters at least 63 ME-109's along with Romanian IAR-80's which also engaged their escorts.

At this point in time with no other details available , I may not be able to help further .

Alex K

[Theo Boiten]

Hello Alex,

Thanks for these details -I believe that Salcioara NW of Bucharest is the place mentioned in the German Abschussmeldung. On 5.4.44, IV./NJG6 employed eight Bf110s from Otopeni (near Bucharest) against the Ploesti raid.

Do you have the serial number/BS/BG details of the Liberator flown by Lt.Lael, and did this B-24 in fact crash at Salcioara?

Cheers, Theo

[researcher111]

Theo

Lael flew 42-78199 and yes the IV./NJG6 were based at that time at Otopeni, At least 4 Libs gone down near NW and SW of Salcioara, that's all I know . Rest you need to research yourself

[Rainer]

Hi Theo

The details for this claim are slighty different in the lists of Tony Wood:
Oblt. Karl Furchmann 12./NJG 6 B-17 SM-1 bei Sâlcioara: 4.600 m 15.27 Film C.2032/I Anerk: Nr.3

Anyway, the grid mentioned refers to trapez SM-1, presumably in grid 24 Ost N, where Salcioara in Dambovita County, Romania is located.

5 April 1944, 15th AF: 136 B-24s (98BG, 376BG, 449BG, 450BG, 451 BG), followed by 94 B-17s (2BG, 97BG, 99BG, 301BG) bomb the marshalling yards at Ploesti, Romania. 10 B-24s and 3 B-17s are lost to fighters and flak:
MACR4080 B-24H-1-FO 42-7720 451BG/727BS (Stenning) at 1420 attacked by fighters, crew later bailed out over Moreni, Romania
MACR4081 B-24H-5-CF 42-64442 451BG/727BS (Brownell) at 1420 attacked by Fw190s, crew bailed out over Slatina, Romania
MACR3951 B-24G-10-NT 42-78185 450BG/720BS (Marpe) at 1425 attacked by fighters, crashed near Vacaresti, southeast of Targoviste, Romania
MACR3965 B-24H-20-FO 42-94950 450BG/720BS (Wagner) at 1425 attacked by Me109s, crew bailed out over Topoloveni, east of Pitesti, Romania
MACR3885 B-24J-85-CO 42-100252 450BG/722BS (Beene) at 1425 attacked by fighters, bombed target but left formation at 1450 near Baltita, Romania to crash land
MACR3960 B-24G-10-NT 42-78199 450BG/723BS (Lael) at 1426 attacked by fighters, crashed at Calinesti, east of Pitesti, Romania
MACR4082 B-24H-5-FO 42-52081 451BG/727BS (Williams) at 1427 attacked by fighters, crashed at Calinesti, east of Pitesti, Romania
MACR4032 B-24H-5-FO 42-52103 451BG/727BS (McAllister) at 1435 attacked by fighters, crew bailed out over Ocnita, northeast of Targoviste, Romania
MACR3918 B-24H-15-FO 42-52474 451BG/724BS (Stone) hit by flak during target run, at 1441 crew bailed out after dropping bombs on target
MACR3953 B-24H-15-DT 41-28757 450BG/720BS (Edwards) attacked by fighters, bombed target but left formation at 1450 near Gaesti, Romania
MACR3966 B-17F-35-VE 42-5938 97BG/414BS (Howard) at 1430 left formation over Turnu Severin, Romania with feathered #1 engine, later crashed near Zajecar, Serbia
MACR3882 B-17G-5-BO 42-31182 301BG/419BS (Coppedge) at 1530 last seen under attack by six fighters and later crashed north of Plovdiv, Bulgaria
MACR3695 B-17G-30-DL 42-38207 99BG/346BS (Currie) damaged by flak on first mission, crashed near Caracal, Romania

Judging from the time of Karl Furchmann's claim he did not attack the B-24s which were heavily engaged by enemy fighters for 40 minutes before dropping their bombs at 1437. He flew probably one of the few fighters that engaged the B-17s which attacked the same target shortly thereafter and only encountered light fighter opposition.

[researcher111]

Who is Tony Wood ? also ,Stenning's plane S/N was 42 and not a 43

[kaki3152]

Tony Wood is the person who placed the German Luftwaffe Abschuss list on the web.

[Kutscha]

Originally Posted by kaki3152

Tony Wood is the person who placed the German Luftwaffe Abschuss list on the web.

https://web.archive.org/web/20130928...s/tonywood.htm

[researcher111]

Kaki / Kutscha thanks for the update, I saw the stuff in the past and I forgot
who the publisher was and for a good reason , as far as my area of research
is concerned the stuff is not accurate and some events contain basic errors as
into the rest of his stuff, I can't speak .

It's good starter kit but not at all a tool for historical accuracy. Citting an other example
Currie acft wreckage fell NNE of Mirosi ( 10-26 Km ) and not Caracal , the distance between
both is not huge but not that close either . All this may apply to the rest of the
claims posted in there including those of Luftwaffe / AAR , Oblt Furchmann's and sofort.

Suggest reading Mr Roba's publications one of which covers German day & night
fighters over Romania .


BR
Alex

[Rainer]

I'm aware of the limited accuracy of the lists Tony Wood published, but they give a good starting point for further research. I just wonder why Furchmann's claim is listed there as B-17 while Theo states that it was for a B-24.

The rest of the information is my own research based on primary USAAF sources. This of course means that the locations given are those mentioned in the MACR which can differ from the actual crash place of the aircraft itself - a bomber left by its crew could fly a considerable distance before crashing.

The crash places of 42-78199 and 42-52081 are confirmed by the Romanian Red Cross as Calinesti in their MACR. The only MACR I could not locate yet was the MACR for Currie's B-17, thanks to Alex we now know that the crew bailed out near Mirosi. The question is if there are Romanian sources that contain the actual crash places and possibly crash times of the listed aircraft.