Knights of the Sky Air War Over Romania

Date: Mon Jan 04 2021 ; Tags: Romania »»»» Oil War »»»» World War 2 »»»» Air War

A key prize for Nazi Germany in World War 2 was Romania's oil fields. Romania was one of the first countries in the world with commercial oil production. The lack of oil fields in Europe meant that Germany desperately needed that oil to power its war machine. Conveniently Romanians have a historical feud with the Slavic people, and when Germany took over Romania the Romanian military joined the fight against Russia. Which meant that American and Allied forces needed to conduct bombing missions on Romania as soon as possible.

One of the first things Nazi Germany did before WWII was to make a deal with Romania where Romania joined the Axis powers, and became a major source for oil to power Germany’s war machine. Romania was one of the first countries in the world to commercialize oil production, in Ploiesti in the mid-1800’s. Those oil fields were a prize enabling Germany to run their tanks and other war machines, and conquer most of Europe.

Prior to WWII, Romania and the USA were close friends. Following WWII that friendship resumed, even though Romania was under Communist rule and somewhat within the Soviet sphere of influence. (Romania was never a Soviet Socialist Republic, however) Despite that long friendship between USA and Romania, during WWII the two countries faced each other in battle because the Allied powers had to deny Germany access to Romania’s oil fields.

That led to an Air War over Romania – American bombers and fighter plans running bombing missions, primarily intent on destroying the oil fields and refineries around Ploiesti.

The documentary was filmed by an American of Romanian descent who told the story from both sides of the battle. He gained access to Romanian Military video of the effects on the ground of the bombing campaign, as well as American video from inside bombers and other footage relating to the air campaign.

In my mind this documentary is important not just for the bravery and heroism, but to demonstrate the long-standing war over access to crude oil.

This war over crude oil is hard to detect, but it’s there nonetheless and has been raging for decades. The second Iraq War (launched in March 2003) is perhaps the more obvious aspect of that oil war – because that war had nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with redefining access to Iraq’s war.

Whether it’s battles meant to deny access to oil, as is the case in this documentary, or to gain access to oil, like for the Iraq War, it’s all warfare fought in the name of access to crude oil. That’s the value of this toxic fluid – that we fight wars over it.