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On Sunday the bombers were refueled and loaded with new bombs. Each plane received eight tons of bombs along with ammunition for the thirteen machine guns on board. The night before, a long convoy of trucks and fuel tankers had trundled from the warehouses to the air base on the outskirts of Poltava. During Sunday, the Flying Fortress crews studied their flight assignments and the navigators charted their routes and targets. On the way back to Italy, the aerial armada was to bomb the Romanian port of Galati. It was considered a sea port, though it was in fact located on the Danube River. Although Galati was separated from the sea by two hundred kilometers, heavy-laden ocean vessels could easily sail up the Danube without obstacle.
Railway lines converged on the city from various direc
