Bombing raids paralyze German fuel oil plant.

Bombing raids paralyze German fuel oil plant. This is a blasted cracking plant of the bombed-out "Eurotank-Hamburg" fuel oil plant, which once supplied Hamburg's power system with fuel oil. It was paralyzed by Eighth U.S. Air Force and British RAF planes which dropped high explosive and incendiaries and stopped its daily output of 1,500 tons of refined crude oil. Located at Harburg, near Hamburg, the Eurotank works employed 200 persons who operated the stills and the 300,000-ton-tank farm. The first three Eighth Air Force raids reduced the plant's storage capacity to 25,000 tons. Three bombs dropped in a raid June 15, 1944, did this damage to the cracking plant. Eurotank produced 60-octane gasoline (20 per cent of refined products), kerosene (15 per cent), diesel oil (15 per cent), fuel oil and byproducts (50 per cent). In the foreground is Walter Schmidt, German works engineer at Eurotankl for 10 years. The destruction was so complete that Schmidt made no attempt to restore production in the cracking plant but salvaged pumps and furnaces and stored them at Luneberg for future use.