Cseh Valentin szerk.: „70 éve alakult a MAORT” – tanulmányok egy bányavállalat történetéből (2009)

Valentin Cseh: Allied Air-strikes against MAORT's Facilities in 1944

Annex no, 4, Report on the bombing of Szőny on August 28,1944 On the morning of the 28th, at the almost usual hour during the morning, some 80 bombers coming from the west carried out the carpet bombing of the Molaj refinery's grounds near Szőny, in 3 waves that followed one another rapidly, over hardly four minutes. The refinery's premises were evacuated - as always - to the last man. According to feelings and estimates, they dropped approximately the same number of bombs during the four minutes as over the course of the 24 minute night time bombing the week before. /1000/ The dispersion of the bombing was substantially less than that during the night time, and despite the fact that the areas surrounding Molaj still got quite a lot of bombs even so, none hit either Szőny or the colony lying directly adjacent to it. According to accounts, 2 bombs also fell on Mocsa, located 5 km away, as well as on Izsa, on the other bank of the Danube River. There were no human casualties at the refinery, but one victim each was reported from the two more distant locations. As concerns the damage that the industrial compound sustained, the minor damage in relation to the scale of the raid was understandable during the night time attack due to large dispersion, yet in the case of the much more intensive daytime strike it is indeed a particular stroke of fortune that the most significant sections of the plant remained intact. One crater comes after the other all over the grounds. Three fires were ignited. One of the transit product tanks, an oil spill, and the warehouse building burned for a couple of hours. The laboratory building across from the entrance, and the right-hand side entrance building was completely ruined. Even' one of the loading units were wrecked. The water mains and the sewerage system was destroyed all over the premises for all intents and purposes, along with all of the pipelines. As opposed to this, the power plant, the tube still with the distillation column, and the transformer house remained fully intact. /The oil pump compound was already destroyed during the night raid./ Since our warehouse materials were decentralised to some four locations in the vicinity, this can be restored to operational readiness in four to six weeks according to estimates. The aerial photo taken in the last few days from an altitude of 5000 metres shows what remained intact, the power station above all else, in addition to clearly illustrating the destruction caused by the scores of bombs. Perhaps because of this, two boilers are being disassembled for erection at a secret location. This time around another 20 bombs fell on the MAORT refinery's grounds. Good luck! GA/GE Antal Gaál