The Allied Oil Campaign of World War II bombed facilities supplying Nazi Germany with petroleum, oil, and lubrication (POL) products; striking targets in Germany and "Axis Europe"; including refineries for natural oil, plants producing synthetic oil, storage depots, and other POL chemical works. Notable attacks included the opening raid of the campaign in 1940 (the first raid on the German "backcountry"), Operation Tidal Wave against Ploiesti Romania in 1943 (5 US Medals of Honor), and the "last major strategic raid" (on a refinery in Norway in April 1945).

Campaign strategy

The RAF viewed German oil as a "vital center", and in February 1941, the British Air Staff expected that RAF Bomber Command destruction of half of a list of 17 targets would reduce German oil production capacity by 80%. Although the Butt Report identified the RAF bombings were inaccurate, the subsequent Casablanca Conference maintained "the great importance of oil targets in Germany" (Arthur Harris). The first US bombing of a European target was of the Ploesti refineries on June 12, 1942 and the Oil Campaign continued at a lower priority until 1944.

The Ministry of Economic Warfare agreed with the March 1944 "Plan for Completion of Combined Bomber Offensive", which was both a "statement of the enemy oil position" and a "proposed attack on the fourteen synthetic plants and thirteen refineries" of Nazi Germany.

(in same folder of Box 48)

(in same folder of Box 48) The plan estimated German oil production could be reduced 50% by bombing—33% below the amount Nazi Germany needed—but also included 4 additional priorities: first oil, then fighter and ball bearing production, rubber production, and bomber output. The damage caused by the May 12 & 28 trial bombings of oil targets, as well as the confirmation of the oil facilities' importance and vulnerability from ULTRA intercepts and other intelligence reports, resulted in the oil targets becoming the highest priority on September 3, 1944.

In late summer 1944 the Allies began using reconnaissance photo information to time bombing with the resumption of production at a facility. Even with the weather limitiations: "This was the big breakthrough…a plant would be wounded…by successive attacks on its electrical grid—its nervous system—and on its gas and water mains." (author Donald Miller). However, due to bad fall and winter weather, a "far greater tonnage" was bombed on Transportation Plan targets than oil targets. In January 1945, the priority of oil targets was lowered after the Luftwaffe began to produce "jets of such superior performance and such numbers as to challenge our aerial supremacy over not only Germany but all of Western Europe" (Carl Spaatz).

Post-war

Despite the RAF and Harris claims regarding the "great importance" of oil targets, Harris had opposed assigning the highest priority to oil targets, but acknowledged post-war that the campaign was "a complete success" with the qualifier: "I still do not think that it was reasonable, at that time, to expect that the [oil] campaign would succeed; what the Allied strategists did was to bet on an outsider, and it happened to win the race" (Arthur Harris).

Joint Chiefs of Staff Directive 1067 prohibited German post-war production of oil through July 1947, and the United States Army made post-war provisions to rehabilitate and use petroleum installations where needed, as well as to dispose of unneeded captured equipment. After inspections of various plants by the "European technology mission" (Plan for Examination of Oil Industry of Axis Europe) and a report in March 1946, the United States Bureau of Mines employed seven Operation Paperclip synthetic fuel scientists in a Fischer-Tropsch chemical plant in Louisiana, Missouri. In October 1975, Texas A&M University began The German Document Retrieval Project and completed a report on April 28, 1977. The report identified final investigations of the German plants and interrogations of German scientists by the British Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee, the US Field Information Agency (Technical), and the Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee.

References

1. : May-June 1940 (Battle of France), January-April 1941, May-August 1941