\nRomanian-American
\nrelations deteriorated at great speed during WWII. Fighting on
\nopposite sides, they were adversaries owing rather to circumstance.
\nRomania had joined Germany in the war to protect itself from the
\naggression of the USSR, while the United States were allies with the
\nUSSR because they were fighting together against Germany. Despite
\nthis, Romania and the United States maintained minimal contacts,
\nwhich eventually helped them re-establish closer ties. One example
\nwas the camp for American prisoners injured in Romania. Gheorghe M.
\nIonescu, who was a member of the National Peasant Party and a
\npro-American, was interviewed in 2004 for Radio Romania’s Oral
\nHistory Centre about his WWII experience. He described how German
\nplanes from a German military aerodrome in Geam\u0103na, Arges county, in
\nthe centre-south of Romania, intercepted the US aircraft when the
\nlatter began bombing the area:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nThey
\nfought in the air above
\nthe village. When the
\nAmerican
\naircraft was hit, eight Americans from the
\n8-crew
\nB-26 bomber parachuted themselves. Four died when hitting the ground
\nand four were injured. The wind had blown them into a forest towards
\nCire\u015fu. The civilian defence, the town hall and army troops were all
\nmobilised and the alarm sounded. We were sent to look for them, but I
\ndidn’t go. The Americans eventually came out of the forest and
\nturned themselves in. They were
\nput
\non two carts and taken
\nto the
\nhospital in Pite\u015fti where they received treatment and recovered.
\n
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nShowing
\nlots of fair-play, the Americans thanked the locals for the humane
\ntreatment they had shown to the prisoners. Gheorghe
\nM. Ionescu:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nAbout
\na month later, we heard an announcement on Radio London: Many thanks
\nto doctor Nelecu, surgeon and the head of the hospital, for the care
\nand attention he gave to the American soldiers. After they recovered,
\nthe American soldiers were of course sent to the prisoner’s camp in
\nPredeal, where it must be said that the Romanians treated them well.
\nThey even played tennis there, it was more like a resort than a
\nprisoner camp, and certainly nothing like those run by the Russians.
\nThe four soldiers who died parachuting themselves were buried in the
\ncemetery in L\u0103ceni. Each had identification tags with their name,
\nregiment, age and their civilian data. The Americans had their own
\nexact records and it couldn’t have been more than a week or ten
\ndays after 23rd
\nAugust 1944 that they showed up in the village and exhumed the
\nsoldiers and took them back to Oklahoma where they had their home and
\nfamilies.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nGheorghe
\nBarbul, the
\npersonal secretary to marshal Ion Antonescu told the historian Vlad
\nGeorgescu in a talk hosted in 1984 by Radio Free Europe that although
\nenemies in the war, Romania and the United States were engaged in
\nnegotiation:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nThe
\nfirst direct contact with the Americans was made in Stockholm by
\nR\u0103dulescu, Mihai Antonescu’s chief of staff. His interlocutor was
\na personal observer of Roosevelt in Europe who did have any official
\ncapacity. The US president used this system in order to circumvent
\nthe regular diplomatic channels and not be reproached by allies that
\nhe was conducting separate talks. The result of the Stockholm meeting
\nwas summed up by Mihai Antonescu like this: president Roosevelt is
\nworried about the line of intersection in Europe between American and
\nSoviet armies. The news brought back by R\u0103dulescu
\nhad a profound effect in Bucharest. Marshall Antonescu felt he had
\nbeen right in believing that by resisting the Russians militarily and
\npreventing them from entering Europe, he was doing a service not only
\nto Romania, but also to the Anglo-Americans.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nAfter
\nGermany’s defeat in 1945 and Romania’s occupation by the Soviet
\narmy, Romania could only hope that the American diplomacy would save
\nit from the prospect of communism. The myth of the Americans’
\nlanding in the Balkans dates to this time and was, naturally, an
\nillusion. The Liberal leader Radu C\u00e2mpeanu said in an interview in
\n2000 that the American envoys told Romanian politicians that the US
\nhad very little influence in Romania:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nNicolae
\nPenescu recounted to me the following episode that took place at the
\nend of 1944. The National Peasant Party kept its files containing
\ncertain secret records and information with a certain Mr Melbourne.
\nHe was an officer from the American mission who had connections with
\nthe political parties. Melbourne lived in a flat somewhere near
\nGr\u0103dina Icoanei. One time the party needed a document kept by
\nMelbourne and sent someone to look for it. After consulting the
\ndocument, Melbourne invited him to stay for a chat and told him ‘I
\nmust tell you that we have no power here, it’s Moscow who has all
\nthe power. You should try and reach and understanding with them, to
\ntalk to them.’ So he goes back and tells his leader Maniu what
\nMelbourne had advised. And Maniu put his hand on his and said: we
\nwill do what we believe in’.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nAlthough
\nhistory separated them from 1945 until 1989, Romania and the United
\nStates maintained their mutual affinities and after 1989 bilateral
\nrelations returned to their normal course, as was to be expected. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
About Romanian-American relations during and post-WWII told through inteviews to Radio Romania’s Oral History Centre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":123226,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41141],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-131671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-history-show"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n