One Mission to Ploesti

Lost among the great stories of World War II was the escape and rescue of hundreds of Allied airmen shot down over German-occupied Yugoslavia. Their target had been the vital Axis oil fields at Ploesti, Romania. Robert P. Moore and his B-17 crewmates were among the first wave of high altitude bombing raids that intensified in April, 1944.

Enemy flak and engine trouble brought down their aircraft short of the target. It was Moore’s first mission, in an unfamiliar aircraft, with a crew he had met only moments before take-off. He bailed out into a completely unknown and rugged country, and was confronted by local militia carrying axes and firearms. The men were part of a larger nationalist army—Chetniks. Fiercely anti-communist, the Chetniks desperately wanted Allied help. The Chetniks guided Moore and hundreds of other airmen, traveling in rugged mountains to get them to a safe zone for rescue.

Moore’s escape and rescue is here recounted in his own words.