The Strategic Oil Bombing Campaign

The US Air Force bombed a local underground fuel storage facility, one of the biggest in Germany at the time, with quite a lot of heavy bombers in April 1945 with mixed success - only three days before finally capturing the facility with the US Army. At that time, the tanks were already almost empty, as the existing (significant) reserves were used for weeks to fuel the last heavy vehicles and tanks.

The fuel storage facilities were mainly used to mix the fuel the Luftwaffe needed - they got almost all of their fuel from them.

Always wondered what made the allies wait for so long or why it apparently wasn't a high priority target - they had to know that it was there, there were two railway connections and large amounts of visible tank cars (which they did attack a few times with smaller planes) just a few hundred metres away, with a major military airfield close, and it was a (mostly) unpopulated area. There were bomber formations flying overhead for months at that point, as a big German city was just a few miles away.

Anyone who is interested in this may enjoy the book "Black Thursday" by Martin Caidin: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Thursday-Story-Schweinfurt-Raid...

I find it interesting reading old intelligence reports and court opinions. While it comes across as more articulate, and in these times we complain that people can’t write well. The older writing, while seeming very polite uses so many unnecessary words. There is so much filler. Which seems odd since transporting the messages was more costly.