Cseh Valentin szerk.: „70 éve alakult a MAORT” – tanulmányok egy bányavállalat történetéből (2009)
Valentin Cseh: Allied Air-strikes against MAORT's Facilities in 1944
County on July 30, 1944.' Allied forces staged an attack against the Danube Aircraft Factory and the Tököl Airport in the vicinity of Budapest, as well as the MAORT Gasoline Compound in Bázakerettye with some 300 B-24 and B-l 7 bombers, and several P-38 and P-51 fighters. The 15th Air Force's planes took off from airfields in Southern Italy and entered Hungarian airspace at Bares, then - before attacking their designated targets - gathered above Lake Balaton, where some of them were engaged bv Hungarian and German fighters, but the air-strikes could not be averted. Despite this, Hungarian and German fighters managed to shoot down 15 American aeroplanes. The approximately 100-120 Liberators of the 98th, 376th, and 449th Bombardment Groups bombed the Bázakerettye area in four waves of 20-25 strong groups between 10.27 and 10.55 AM, from an altitude of some 4400 metres. The aircraft dropped approximately 700, 225-5(10 kg demolition bombs. Two company employees, 3 MAORT employee family members, 3 soldiers from the 3/2 guard company, and 6 Bázakerettye residents were killed in the attack. In addition, 43 people were wounded, 10 oi whom were MAORT's workers. Civilian casualties were taken to the Zalaegerszeg hospital, the wounded soldiers to the Nagykanizsa military hospital. The electric grid and telephone lines were damaged in the air-strike, the road network and the light railway's track was hit in 14 places, which caused significant transportation problems for a short while. The village of Bázakerettye, and MAORT's local compound and buildings also incurred serious damage. 14 of the oil company's houses collapsed completely, 5 of them partially, while 23 houses were damaged lightly. The objective of the attack was to cripple the Zala County oilfields, thereby impeding German war objectives. The gasoline plant located on Kopasz Hill' x was one of the centres of the air-strike, and it was bombarded by 28 aircraft from the 513th Squadron; we know that 45 bombs struck the facility from the recollections of László Kiss, the gasoline plant's air-defence observer. Fortunately the company's employees constructed a fake gasoline plant out of wood on a hill near the real one before bombing. Ernő Buda recalls in an interview that the Americans bombed this one, while the real plant only suffered minor damage. The gasoline plant incurred the following damage during the attack: the separator plant, the soft water tank, the crude gas pipeline, the engine cooling tower, the heating gas and the reinjection pipeline, the generator, boiler and compressor house were damaged, along with the pipe network leading in to and out of the plant. Fires broke out in four places, but these were successfully put out after 2 hours of effort. The warehouse - together with the office there - and the food repository incurred enormous damage; its manager, Lajos Bitskev was lucky to walk away from the bombing raid as he was able to hide in the cellar below the section of the building that remained intact during the air-strike; the machinery*, equipment, components, and groceries deposited in the warehouses, however, This is how one ot the company's employees at the time, Ernő Buda cert, mining engineer recalled this period in an interview: "We thought that original American property is going to give us protection in the course ot" the war's bombing-raids." [K( )/..\!A 1999 53.], this assumption held out in the Zala oilfields up until the very date of die attack; at which time - as Simon Papp, the company's Director General wrote later on - the Americans bombed the Budafapuszta oilfield primarily in order to decrease production. PAPP 2000 216. s MOL-Z519-26es-21 7 t. Légi Híradó Amíg csak dolgoznak... Fényképes bizonyítékok a magvar hadiipar megsemmisüléséről ('Aerial News For as long as thev just keep on working... Photographic evidence about the destruction of Hungarian arms industry'). [3.]
