Five Medals of Honor and 56 Distinguished Service Crosses, along with numerous other awards, went to Operation Tidal Wave crew members.

[9] One of the downed American planes crashed into a female prison in Ploiești, resulting in about half of the civilian casualties from the total of 101 killed and 238 injured.

[14] The case for targeting Romania's oil refineries was set forth at the Casablanca Conference by Winston Churchill, who believed that destroying them would deal the "knockout blow" to the German war effort.

To reach the necessary number of bombers, the partially formed Eighth Air Force from England provided three additional bomb groups (44th, 93rd, and 389th).

[24][23] Based on HALPRO's experiences, the planners decided Tidal Wave would be executed by day and that the attacking bombers would approach at low altitude during the last leg of their run to avoid detection by German radar.

No survivors were seen, and due to the additional weight of fuel, Iovine was unable to regain altitude to rejoin the formation and resume course to Ploiești.

Ten other aircrews returned to friendly airfields after the incident, and the remaining aircraft faced the 9,000 ft (2,700 m) climb over the Pindus mountains, which were shrouded in cloud cover.

Although the Americans' orders would have allowed them to break radio silence to rebuild their formations, the strike proceeded without correction, and this proved costly.

[16] Earlier that day, a German signal station picked up a message from the Ninth Air Force regarding the departure of a large bomber formation.

[30] The Romanian and German fighters, although scrambled earlier, were directed to fly at 5,000 m (16,000 ft), as the bombers were expected at high altitude.

[16] Noticing the navigation error, Lt. John Palm, piloting Brewery Wagon, broke off from the 376th Group's formation and attempted to bomb the refineries alone.

The group of bombers heading to Concordia Vega, led by Lt. Norman Appold, dropped their bombs on a distillation plant of the refinery.

Both Kane and Johnson's approach, parallel to the Florești-to-Ploiești railway, had the unfortunate distinction of encountering Gerstenberg's "Die Raupe" ("the caterpillar"), a disguised flak train.

The advantage, however, would rest with the 98th and 44th, whose gunners quickly responded to the threat, disabling the locomotive and killing multiple air defense crews.

Their low approach even enabled gunners to engage in continued ground suppression of air defense crews directly below them.

[40][39] The last Tidal Wave attack bombed the Steaua Română refinery, 8 mi (13 km) northwest of Ploiești[19]: 161 at Câmpina.

The 389th attack, led by Col. Jack Wood, ran into some navigation problems as cloud cover made it difficult to spot the Dealu Monastery, an important landmark for the plan.

After hits to Ole Kickapoo only 30 feet over the target area, the detonation of previously dropped bombs had ignited fuel leaking from the B-24.

Hughes maintained course for bombardier 2nd Lt. John A. McLoughlin to bomb, and the B-24 subsequently crash-landed in an explosive cartwheel[42] in a river bed.

[43] The new fighter aces were personally decorated afterwards by Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria with the Order of Bravery, the first time in 25 years.

[2]: 196  One B-24 with 365 bullet holes in it landed in Libya 14 hours after departing;[45] its survival was due to the light armament of the Bulgarian Avia B-534 (only four 7.92 mm machine guns).

[1]: 75  On 3 August, a de Havilland Mosquito of the SAAF 60 Squadron flew a reconnaissance mission to Ploiești to record the results of Tidal Wave.

[49] Circa September, the Enemy Oil Committee appraisal of Ploiești bomb damage indicated "...no curtailment of overall product output..."[6] because many of the refineries had been operating below maximum capacity.

[52] Through emergency bomb drops on secondary targets, there were casualties at Drenta, Elena, Byala, Ruse, Boychinovtsi, Veliko Tarnovo, Plovdiv, Lom, and Oak-Tulovo.

Given the large and unbalanced loss of aircraft and the limited damage to the targets, Operation Tidal Wave is considered a strategic failure by the Allies.

Following this visit, it was decided to form a Special Intervention Corps with the task of responding to attacked areas and reducing the damage caused in future raids.

[53][54] General Dwight D. Eisenhower and other commanders were persuaded to continue the air campaign targeting Romania's oil production after Tidal Wave.

[51] As part of General Carl Spaatz's plan, the raids restarted in April 1944, initially attacking the rail infrastructure used to transport oil to Germany.

[56] The plot of the 1966 science fiction novel The Gate of Time by Philip Jose Farmer begins in Operation Tidal Wave, where the book's protagonist is one of the many pilots shot down over Ploiești.

While parachuting, he feels a curious dizziness, and when landing, he finds himself not in Romania but in a very strange alternative history world, where the rest of the plot takes place.