In July 1943 a young B-24 crew drew the worst second mission in the war. Their target was the Ploesti oil refineries in Romania, the place the Allies called Hitler's gas station. The plan was to fly 180 bombers from Libya and come in at treetop level. Co-pilot Ernie Poulson's crew had flown exactly one mission. Adam Makos tells their story in 'Tidal Wave,' reviewed in the Journal by Jonathan W. Jordan.
The trouble started before Romania. Clouds hid the Pindus mountains in northern Greece, and the flight commander ordered a climb. Some planes hadn't filled their oxygen tanks. They'd been told the mountains were the highest they'd fly that day. Poulson's group stayed with them and flew level into the clouds. They made it through, then flew into a refinery already turned to fire by the lead plane's bombs. Antiaircraft fire brought Poulson's plane down in a field, and hostile locals closed in.
Then the story turns. Princess Ecaterina Caradja, 50, an antifascist with real pull, stepped in to keep the Americans out of German hands. The prisoners ended up at a resort hotel in the foothills of the Carpathians. They had valets, cooks, a radio and pocket money. Pilot Bob O'Reilly, from Missouri, still schemed to tunnel out. The princess's cousin, Capt. Constantin 'Buzz' Cantacuzino, was a fighter ace flying for Romania. His sympathies quietly sat with the Allies.
Oil was the choke point
The war in Romania turned when King Michael I had the dictator Ion Antonescu arrested as the Red Army closed in. German payback put Romanians and their prisoners at risk. Lt. Col. James Gunn squeezed into the fuselage of Cantacuzino's single-seat fighter and flew to Italy at 20,000 feet to pinpoint the prisoners for a rescue. After the war a barge captain hid the princess in a water tank, sealed and nearly full, and floated her past the communist guards. Jordan calls it an epic of 'Great Escape' proportions. Its refrain is four words. 'Being enemies is a choice.'
Our read
We read this one as an Investments/Risk (IN04) story with a long memory. The Allies sent 180 bombers in at treetop level because fuel decided who could keep fighting. That hasn't changed. The same weekend paper has the Strait of Hormuz in its news pages and record refining quarters at Exxon and Chevron inside. Oil is still what gets fought over. It's also a hedge that often holds up when other corners of the market sell off. Last week the chip and AI names fell, and the paper's sector box shows energy stocks up 1% for the week. That's why the model books hold energy next to the growth names. Chevron (CVX) is held at weight in 37 books, Exxon Mobil (XOM) in 34. Nothing was added last week.
The check for this week is simple. Pull up your biggest fund, the one your 401(k) leans on, and open its sector breakdown. Find the energy line. In most broad index funds it's a small slice, and it shrank for years while tech grew. Ask whether that slice is big enough to steady the account on a week like the one just past. You don't need a princess to show up once the plane is down. You need to have placed the help before the mission. A review is where we do that together.