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

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

aeroplane, the pilot found out that l iras Hungarian, and told me about one of his encounters; he said thai be had never actually set foot on Hungary's soil, but flew over it many a time, having served as bomber crew during the war, and when they took, off from Italy in their aircraft, a bnrningflame showed them the way after ten-fifteen minutes of flying. This bnrningflame was the light of the well at Lovászi. " m Simon Papp described the political fallout of this gas eruption later on: "In the last week of October 1944, the lord-lieutenant of Zalaegerszeg, dr. Csomay, a member of the ruling fascist Arrow Cross Party, suspended technical director János Dinda without my or the Minister of Industry' knowledge, then myself - the company's vice-president and general director - because natural gas blew out in drill number 94 of the \jovaszi oilfield, and was burning like a torch. He accused us of having triggered it intentionally, because we wanted to indicate the course to Russian American - the author

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; flying night sorties to \ ugoslavia. Since this accusation was telling of obtuseness in itself and the lord-lieutenant had to revoke his accusation due to the intervention of ministerial authorities. " m The next hostile sortie came as soon as October 13, when a Liberator was taken down in the Bázakerettye vicinity. A couple of days later, on October 17, a few of the houses in the MAORT housing development in Nagykanizsa were damaged during the bombing of the town, and the pipeline also sustained damage at Fonyód, with 104000 litres of crude oil lost, but the pipeline group repaired this defect by the day after. As the military situation grew increasingly more incoherent, Anglo-American and Soviet forces conducted air-strikes at the same time on numerous occasions. The Americans were targeting the crude oil refineries around Vienna for the most part in November 1944, while noteworthy events only took place on the 20th of the month in Hungary. On that day, the Americans dropped four time-bombs at Pusztaszentlászló, these exploded with one hour delays, and one of them damaged a road near the village, at the Válicka manor. At 2.15 PM the same day, an American fighter engaged the Mihály no. 5. exploratory drilling site at Répcelak, in MAORT's 9th district, as a result of which some assets sustained damage, and a 48-hour interruption resulted in work. Another air-strike was carried out against the Zalaegerszeg railway station on December 6, presumably in an attempt to prevent the transportation of oil from Zala County to Germany. There were numerous sorties flown above Transdanubia, which was in German control, until the end of the month, but the oil industry targets in the region were no longer attacked by the Allies, nor were thev during January and February of 1945, and Anglo-American sorties and air-strikes continued to decrease thereafter. What came next, however, is a different story altogether.

.. B KOZMA 1999 53. • PAPP 2000 153.