Synthetic oil 77 years ago?

[pwd72s]

In doing some family research, I've been pouring over old mission reports from the 306th Bomber group. My Uncle, a B-17 pilot, was one of the planes sent to bomb a refinery near Berlin. He made a successful bombing run, got shot to hell, 3 of his crew were KIA, but managed to make it back to England where he crash landed. This was Sept. of '44.

But among these reports was one once marked "classified"..described that this refinery was making synthetic oils and fuel. The Germans used coal, hydrogen gas, and other chemicals to pull it off. 77 years ago...long before anybody heard of Amzoil or Mobil 1.

Also, mission reports from planes other than my uncles had handwritten additions: "Jets. VERY FAST" Must have been an ME-262 or two in the fray.

Fascinating stuff for me...probably boring to most here. If so, sorry...

[masraum]

Nope, probably extremely fascinating to many here.

I'm sure a bunch of folks would be excited for you to scan or post more.

[RNajarian]

Indeed! I once worked with a guy who was a B-17 pilot during the war. He mentioned he once encountered a ME-262. He wouldn’t elaborate and I knew better than to pry.

The Greatest Generation.

[pwd72s]

Here's a site I found:

306th Bomb Group Historical Association

From there I searched my uncle's name, Gordon Donkin. A list of missions came up.
Also photos...one photo actually. 1st frame the writing on the back of the photo giving crew names with notation of those KIA...the 2nd frame the photo of the crew in front of the plane. Leave it to my uncle to have his eyes closed when the shutter clicked. Notation on back of photo says 15th of 35 missions. My uncle died on an operating table back in '85. First time I ever heard my dad cry..

The mission I wrote of took place on 12 Sept. '44. Not easy reading the old photostats.
I'm going to have to use a magnifying glass and full screen later..

I found this site by using info gleaned from an old Brit historical posting board post. Glad I filed that, because I can't find it now. Stay tuned. I'll come back & edit the post in.

(edit) Here's the old Brit website post:

B-17G Flying Fortress 42-38093. 367th Bombardment Squadron, 306th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force, US Army Air Force, based at Thurleigh BedBoeingfordshire.
Pilot Lt Gordon L Donkin.

On the 12th September 1944 the 306th BG took part in a raid on the Ruhland oil refineries south of Berlin, part of a concentrated effort by the USAAF to destroy German fuel supplies.
367th BS sent nine aircraft, with Lt Donkin's 42-38093 as the lead aircraft of the lower group. North of Berlin the group came under heavy flak and fighter attack, 367 squadron losing four aircraft to fighters and 42-38093 badly shot up. In 42-38093 the tail gunner was killed, the radio operator and top turret gunner wounded and one of the engines shot up. The aircraft continued to the target and on the return flight came under renewed fighter attack with another engine and the intercom put out of action.

Escorted part of the way by P-51 Mustangs 42-38093, now with just a single engine, crossed the English Channel rapidly losing height. As soon as the English coast was crossed Donkin ordered the crew to bail out but only four had time to do so. On the final approach to Manston the last engine quit and the aircraft crash landed on a smooth area, crossed a ditch and knocked down a search light tower before coming to a halt, then catching fire, the bombardier being killed in the crash.

The crew.

Lt Gordon L Donkin: pilot. Injured in crash.
Captain Donald C MacDonald: Co-pilot. Injured in crash.
2nd Lt Gerald A Weiler: Navigator. Injured in crash.
Technical Sgt Clarence B Tuers: Flight engineer/top turret gunner. Wounded in action.
T Sgt Willard M Colvin: Radio operator. Wia.
Staff Sgt Norman Morrow: Ball turret gunner. Injured in jump.
Sgt Lawrence G Joslin: Waist gunner.
Capt Arthur S Hostettler: Bombardier. Killed in crash.
S Sgt Jack B Eppler: Tail gunner. Killed in action.

7 crew returned to duty.

http://www.kenthistoryforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=19856.0

My Uncle never talked to us "kids" about his war experience. He did talk to my dad a bit..but only a bit. Dad told me what he knew, which wasn't much. Gordon would cut the conversations off with a "Really, I just want to forget it." My memory of him is of quiet spoken & gentle man...

[otto_kretschmer]

I remember reading something about US testing the german jet engines after the war, probably the Jumo 004. We were using our non-synthetic dino oil and the engines were lasting a short time,like a half hour. Then someone found out that the oil to use was the synthetic oil the germans had developed and the engines would last the expected 6 to 8 hours.

[tadd]

The Germans were great chemists. Just before WWII they were making 39 different industrial chemicals by microbial methods. Green chemistry way before there was such a thing.

[Sooner or later]

The process goes back to 1913. Bergius

[Tobra]

Thank goodness they had such limited resources and a crazy guy in charge back then

[john70t]

Originally Posted by Sooner or later

The process goes back to 1913. Bergius

I'd read the German's acquired turbine tech from a British scientist at a scientific consortium, and the Brits had the first working jet prototype long before the war.

DaVinici conceived the helo on paper a few thousand years early. Sans tail rotor.

Curtis vs Wright Bros was a lawsuit for the first fixed wing but there were many before them.

And then there was Tesla v. Marconi over the radio, and v. Edison over modern electricity.

The scientific world is a befuddled mix of aggregate ideas put together.

[Jbabl]

You can read Antony Sutton's books to find out about Standard Oil and IG Farben, along with German General Electric and the other cartels, how they exchanged technology on Tetraethyl Lead high octane fuel in exchange for synthetic rubber, synthetic gasoline and oil from coal.
After the war, Standard oil did what most do when caught-they lied.
There was a lot of cover up and lying, and it still goes on today.
Siegfried Günter was the real designer of the MIG 15-which of course used the Rolls Royce Nene jet engine. Siegfried and his twin Walter worked and designed for Heinkel starting in 1931. Walter died in a car accident before the war. Siegfried was taken to the ussr and only returned to west Germany in 1957. About 6000 German engineers and scientists were taken to the ussr, and of course Von Braun and his team came to the US and were continuing the V2 developments at White Sands. The soviets took most of the V2s, the BMW and Junkers jet engines and a lot more-the Bear turboprop engines are gigantic BMWs, probably still the largest 'til today. The engineers were taken along with the engines, and whole factories undamaged during the war.b. Ford was making cars and trucks in England, Germany, France, ussr before during and after the war. GM already owned Opel by 1931, then during and after WWII, only sold it to the French group in 2017(if I recall correctly)
DuPont already owned GM before the war-
Igor Sikorsky escaped in 1919 and came to the US. He made the first 4 engine airplane, then the clippers/flying boats, then helicopters.
Otherwise, almost everything the soviets made were from Western Technical assistance, starting with Caterpillar, International Harvester, Ford, GE, Douglas, BMW-it's a long list.
And most people had and have no idea what was really going on with Lend-Lease.

[rfuerst911sc]

Oh great ........... a 77 year old oil thread 😁. All kidding aside that is pretty amazing for the time .

[unclebilly]

Fischer Tropps Process. Being looked at now for turning stranded natural gas (from commingled oil production) into liquid hydrocarbons on a small scale on location.

This is similar to how Pennzoil makes their Platinum synthetics.

[Jbabl]

Aside from the incredible synthetic oil and gasoline from coal, is the fact that the Mig 15s had Rolls Royce jet engines which were refined into the Klimov RD45 and VK-1- and Pratt & Witney had to make a licensed copy, the J42



I wonder what oil, viscosity, etc

WWII era octane reached 150 from what I've read. There's a lot of discussion on YouTube and some pretty incredible V12 Daimler Benz 601 and 605 engines, detailed restoration videos of heads, valve train etc.

Ferdinand Porsche was building airplane engines in 1910:

"In 1910, Ferdinand Porsche began designing and building airplane engines for the Österreichische Daimler-Motoren- Aktien-Gesellschaft (Austro-Daimler), the automotive manufacturing firm located approximately forty miles south of Vienna at Wiener-Neustadt in Austria and since 1906 independent of the Daimler Motorenwerke of Stuttgart in Germany. In 1911, Porsche built the engine from which were derived nearly all airplane engines successfully employed for the purpose of long-range, strategic bombing during the First World War":
https://www.enginehistory.org/Piston/Before1925/WW1AESB.pdf

[sc_rufctr]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

In doing some family research...

Nothing pushes innovation faster that total war!
The Germans had to do it so they found a way but they also made some lots of really costly mistakes.

If you're interested do some reading about the US production rate of ships & carriers after Pearl Harbour.

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

Nothing pushes innovation faster that total war!
The Germans had to do it so they found a way but they also made some lots of really costly mistakes.

If you're interested do some reading about the US production rate of ships & carriers after Pearl Harbour.

Even more lopsided was aircraft production, and cargo ships. We were churning out a new "Liberty" ship in a day at the peak.

[john70t]

The flying coffin. Unfortunately the https://yankeeairmuseum.org doesn't have one.

https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/expert-sets/101765
But no project captured the public's imagination like Willow Run, where Ford Motor Company built one B-24 Liberator airplane every 63 minutes.

[rusnak]

The Amzoil guys didn't claim to invent synthetic oil. Their claim is that their founder brought known WWII oil technology in synthetic oil to the automotive market. Bombers used synthetic oil because petroleum based oil would not flow in the high altitudes that the planes flew.

[sc_rufctr]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

Even more lopsided was aircraft production, and cargo ships. We were churning out a new "Liberty" ship in a day at the peak.

Certainly and WW2 setup the US to become the worlds leading manufacturer.
Imagine what it would take to build a Liberty Ship in one day today?

What I have difficulty imagining is the incredible loss of life as the US and its Allies fought their way across the Pacific islands. Battle after costly battle and yet they just kept going!

The Battle of Okinawa



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa

[Jbabl]

Ford military trucks were built in Germany, England, France and Ussr
The BMW VI engine was licensed to the Soviets as well, around 1926
Opel was already fully owned by GM(DuPont family) in 1931

During the Vietnam war, some pilots were scratching their heads when they saw Ford military trucks(soviet made) on some trails

Antony Sutton discovered all sorts of details-State Department Decimal Files with receipts at the Hoover library, Stanford University where he was a professor.

Without Tetraethyl lead additive from Standard Oil(Rockefellers), none of the supercharged and turbocharged aircraft engines would have made the amount of power they did.

[Jbabl]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZO8BuHvTBA

Not sure how to embed a YouTube video on this forum, but I posted the link-