For instance, in one WW2 mission, of 178 B-24s dispatched to
bomb Ploesti, 52 were lost, and all but 35 aircraft suffered damage, one
limping home after 14 hours and holed in 365 places. Most of these
Allied bombing missions originated in and returned to airfields in North
Africa; many of the old landing strips, fuel storage, and maintenance
shops previously used by German and Italian military occupiers and
then by the Allies, were in poor condition, but they were there.
Caspian Oil Refineries
In the early 1950s, a US/NATO war with the Soviet Union would likely
include strategic air attacks against Soviet oil wells, refineries and other
industrial plants, storage facilities, and transport nets. If so, USSR
facilities in the southwest USSR (the Caspian Sea area) would have been
among high priority targets.
That being so, planning for US/NATO aircraft to return from bombing
missions over the southwest USSR included routes over-flying Turkey,
Iran, Iraq, Crete, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Israel, Egypt, and other
countries throughout the Middle East, across the length of the Med, and
along its northern and southern coasts.
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