Bloody Skies

Filled with personal account of the action, this book details the operations of the USAAF’s 15th Air Force during the strategic bombing campaign against the Romanian oil fields at Ploesti, World War II.

Formed in the fall of 1943 from the strategic bomber forces of the Ninth and Twelfth Air Forces that saw action in North Africa and Sicily, the Fifteenth Air Force was sold to the Air Force high command as a strategic force that would take advantage of the better weather in Italy and southern Europe to bring increased pressure on Germany. However, "Sunny Italy" was only slightly less cloudy than "Foggy England," while the Fifteenth Air Force rapidly became known as "The Forgotten Fifteenth," as its war and achievements were overshadowed by the air war fought over Germany by the Eighth Air Force.

Nevertheless, the Fifteenth Air Force’s contribution to Allied victory was crucial. Between April and July 1944, the B-17s and B-24s and their escorting fighter groups took on the campaign against the Romanian oil fields at Ploesti. The campaign was bloody and brutal as the Germans threw everything they could into the defence of their sole remaining source of oil. The loss of Ploesti in July, combined with the attack on the synthetic oil industry in Germany by the Eighth Air Force, was the body blow that ended any chance for the German armed forces to do more than delay the inevitable.

The fighter force that escorted the Fifteenth’s B-24s and B-17s included the famous Red Tails – the Tuskegee Airmen – as well as the P-38s of the 82nd Fighter Group and the P-51s of the 325th’s "Checkertail Clan". The story of the Fifteenth’s air war is told through first-person accounts from such famous units as the Red Tails, the Tuskegee Airmen, the 82nd Fighter Group, and the 325th’s "Checkertail Clan", along with Thomas McKelvey Cleaver’s ability to place wartime events in their greater context.