Can you find me some on line pictures of the bombing of the Ploestic
oil fields during WWII?  Also, any pictures of Hitler's synthetic fuel
plants, the bombing of same, etc.  I'd like non-copyrighted pix,
please!  At least, I'd like something I can reproduce in my
newsletter.  Thanks!

Hi there, jat-ga.

You pose a tough question, but I hope I can help you out with it. The
first thing to note, is that almost no written or graphical
information available, anywhere, exists without copyright. Whenever a
person creates something, the copyright belongs to them immediately,
by default.

However, if you reproduce a small part of someone's work (for
instance, a paragraph from a newspaper, or one image from a gallery of
several), it is usually permitted under the doctrine of "fair use"
(being allowed to use a small part of the whole). This is certainly
the situation in the United Kingdom and the United States of America,
though you may want to check if you don't reside in one of those.

Additionally, many of the photos seem to belong to the US Airforce
museum, who will probably be fairly happy to grant you permission to
republish, if you contact them.

On to your question!

There were a number of attacks on the Ploesti oilfields, rather than
just the one that your question suggests. As you probably know, the
attacks on these Romanian oilfields reduced the amount of oil
available to the remnants of the German armies, and perhaps even
shortened the war in Europe. Due to the target's perceived importance,
and the fact that the attacks were conducted at low level, there is a
fairly good photographic record of the attacks.

All of the links below contain pictures of the several Ploesti raids.
To discuss copyright arrangements, you could email the site owners
(try webmaster@thesite.com. For instance, webmaster@463rd.com).
Alternatively, if your newsletter is of a fairly small circulation,
you could just try getting away with it and not asking. But be
careful!

Ploesti raid photos:

http://www.463rd.com/ploesti.JPG

http://users.rlc.net/catfish/liberatorcrew/06_B-24/USAF%20Museum/Ploesti.jpg

http://www.danshistory.com/ww2/oilraid.jpg

http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/~jaf/caf/pictures/ploesti1_640.gif
http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/~jaf/caf/pictures/ploesti2_640.gif
http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/~jaf/caf/pictures/ploesti3_640.gif

http://www.456thbombgroup.org/images/ploesti2.jpg
http://www.456thbombgroup.org/images/ploesti4.jpg
http://www.456thbombgroup.org/images/ploesti3.jpg
http://www.456thbombgroup.org/images/ploesti5.jpg

http://users.rlc.net/catfish/liberatorcrew/06_B-24/USAF%20Museum/Ploesti2.jpg

http://history.acusd.edu/cdr2/WW2Pics2/82638c.jpg

The German word for synthetic is "ersatz". This will help you on any
future searches on this topic.

The Nazis' main ersatz oil refinery was near the Auschwitz
concentration camp. US bombers precision bombed it a number of times,
and in the process, some bombs did miss and kill prisoners in the
camp, and those arriving by train. Perhaps because of this tragedy, I
can find no photos of the raid online. The USAF may hold some in their
archives, but not online.

Good luck with your newsletter; if there's anything I can clarify for
you then feel free to ask!

--

Search strategy: Searched for ploesti raid, nazi ersatz oil on both
Google, and Google Image Search.

---

Clarification of Answer by seizer-ga on 13 Aug 2002 11:21 PDT

I have just found an image of the IG Farben ersatz oil plant being
attacked. Note that "Oswiecim" is how the Polish spell Auschwitz.

http://www.mazal.org/Auschwitz%20Aerial/Bomb-09-13-44.jpg