Sixty years later, It is still difficult to think of Merseberg without recalling the feelings of alarm and dread it held for crews in briefing huts of the 8th Air Force. Deep in the heart of central Germany, site of Leuna, the world's largest synthetic oil refinery, and by mid 1944, the primary producer of oil for the Third Reich. Merseberg became Hitler's most fortified stronghold in all Germany, encircled with hundreds of flak battery emplacements and numerous squadrons of Luftwaffe Messerschmitts, Focke-Wulfs, and the world's first operational jet aircraft. A plywood replica constructed four miles south of the main Leuna refinery deceived many a bombardier, as Merseberg, the major source of oil for the Nazi war machine was to be more heavily defended than the capital, Berlin.
On November 2, 1944, the 8th Air Force lost 38 B-17's in one of its many missions to Merseberg. Our bomb group, the 91st, was hit by over 100 FW-90's and Me 109's. In the ensuing aerial battle, a total of 15 of our 36 crews of the 91st were MIA, missing in action that day.
Nineteen days later, November 21, the 8th sent 421 B-17's back to Merseberg lwith our Group, the 91st leading. The weather was bad from the start, and by the time we were over Germany, we found it close to impossible to maintain formation inside massive clouds reaching higher than our altitude at 25000 feet. Our squadron commander, Major Immanuel Klette decided to lead the groups in a descent seeking to find a break in the clouds. When we finally broke through at 17000 feet,.we discovered that more than half of the Groups had left to seek secondary targets, targets of opportunity, or returned to their bases. Merseberg at 25000 feet was perilous enough, 17000 feet was madness.
Nevertheless, our Group, the 91st, bombed Merseberg from 17000 feet and miraculously lost only one ship of our 36 aircraft to flak. We discovered at interrogation that the Group behind us, the 398th, decided not to follow us, but to climb above the cloud cover. When they broke out at 31000 feet, over 50 FW-90's jumped them from out of the sun and destroyed 5 of them.
Later that evening we were amazed to learn that the ship we lost, last seen on the return home with two engines out and the third about to blow any minute. The pilot put the ship on auto-pilot before the crew bailed out.over enemy territory. The crew was captured and spent the rest of the war in a German prison camp. The empty ship flew on without any of the crew on board and landed on its own in a snow covered pasture in Belgium where it was discovered by two bewildered British soldiers.
FROM THE SUMMARY U.S. STRATEGIC BOMB SURVEY 1945
Leuna (at Merseberg) was the largest of the synthetic plants and protected by a highly effective smoke screen and the heaviest flak concentration in Europe.
Air crews viewed a mission to Leuna as the most dangerous and difficult assignment of the air war. Leuna was hit on May 12 and put out of production. However, investigation of plant records and interrogation of Leuna's officials established that a force of several thousand men had it in partial operation in about 10 days. It was again hit on May 28 but resumed partial production on June 3 and reached 75 percent of capacity in early July. It was hit again on July 7 and again shut down but production started 2 days later and reached 53 percent of capacity on July 19. An attack on July 20 shut the plant down again but only for three days; by July 27 production was back to 35 percent of capacity. Attacks on July 28 and 29 closed the plant and further attacks on August 24, September 11, September 13, September 28 and October 7 kept it closed down. However, Leuna got started again on October 14 and although production was interrupted by a small raid on November 2, it reached 28 percent of capacity by November 20. Although there were 6 more heavy attacks in November and December (largely ineffective because of adverse weather), production was brought up to 15 percent of capacity in January and was maintained at that level until nearly the end of the war. From the first attack to the end, production at Leuna averaged 9 percent of capacity. There were 22 attacks on Leuna, 20 by the Eighth Air Force and 2 by the RAF. Due to the urgency of keeping this plant out of production, many of these missions mere dispatched in difficult bombing weather. Consequently, the order of bombing accuracy on Leuna was not high as compared with other targets. To win the battle with Leuna a total of 6,552 bomber sorties were flown against the plant, 18,328 tons of bombs were dropped and an entire year was required.
"Today we have finished rebuilding the plants and tomorrow the bombers will come again." Saying attributed to German workers engaged in rebuilding synthetic oil plants. Consumption of oil exceeded production from May 1944 on. Accumulated stocks were rapidly used up, and in six months were practically exhausted. The loss of oil production was sharply felt by the armed forces. In August the final run-in-time for aircraft engines was cut from two hours to one-half hour. For lack of fuel, pilot training, previously cut down, was further curtailed. Through the summer, the movement of German Panzer Divisions in the field was hampered more and more seriously as a result of losses in combat and mounting transportation difficulties, together with the fall in fuel production. By December, according to Speer, the fuel shortage had reached catastrophic proportions. When the Germans launched their counter-offensive on December 16, 1944, their reserves of fuel were insufficient to support the operation. They counted on capturing Allied stocks. Failing in this, many panzer units were lost when they ran out of gasoline. In February and March of 1945 the Germans massed 1,200 tanks on the Baranov bridgehead at the Vistula to check the Russians. They were immobilized for lack of gasoline and overrun.
