Midwest Chick's Place

 From the National Museum of the United States Air Force:

On August 1, 1943, the USAAF staged Operation Tidalwave—a daring, surprise low-level B-24 raid against the Axis’ critical source of fuel, the oil fields in Ploesti, Romania. 

During the unescorted 1,000 mile flight from Libya, clouds broke the formation into two groups and a wrong turn caused even more confusion.  The B-24s arrived over the heavily-defended target area disorganized and without the planned element of surprise.  

Of 178 bombers and 1,726 men on the mission, 54 aircraft and nearly 500 men failed to return (310 killed and 186 captured).  Five Airmen received the Medal of Honor for their heroism during the raid—Lt Col Addison Baker (posthumous), Maj John Jerstad (posthumous), Lt Lloyd Hughes (posthumous), Col Leon Johnson, and Col John “Killer” Kane.

There were actually several waves during this raid with one going to the north to hit the refineries at Campania.  

Check out this site for more information.   Here’s an excerpt:

Captain Philip Ardery was a pilot in the 389th Bombardment Group, led by Colonel Jack Wood. The “Sky Scorpions” were new to combat, having arrived in England only weeks before being sent to North Africa. Ardery’s B-24 was in the third flight of ships headed for Red Target, the air over which was studded with black puffs of flak:

“We were very close behind the second flight of three ships,” Ardery said. “As their bombs were dropping, we began our run in. In the center of the target area was the big boiler house, just as in the briefing pictures. We could see them flying through a mass of ground fire as thick as hail. The first ships dropped their bombs squarely on the boiler house and immediately boilers were blowing up and fires touching off the volatile gases of the cracking plant. The roof of the building blew up above the tall chimneys.

Here’s some more information on the 389th BG.