Welcome
\neveryone, today we will be talking about pilot Tudor Greceanu, one of the
\nhundreds of thousands of Romanian heroes whose lives would be forever marked by
\nthe end of the Second World War. He was born May 13, 1917 into a family of
\nnoble roots. The oldest mention of the name Greceanu transpires in a chronicle
\nof Radu Greceanu, in the second half of the 17th century, in
\nWallachia. Tudor Greceanu graduated the aviation school in 1939. He was one of
\nthe 29 pilots, engineers and cabin crew to make it to the end of their class.
\nThe aviator pursued his calling, at a time when becoming an aviator was very
\nfashionable for the young people who afforded it. Romanian aviation by then had
\nbecome a tradition. The name of inventor Aurel Vlaicu, who had passed away in
\n1913 while trying to cross the Carpathians onboard his aircraft, Vlaicu 2, was
\na case in point. Previously, in 1906, Romanian aviator Traian Vuia would
\nattempt a takeoff onboard a heavier-than-air machine in Paris. Although
\nunsuccessful, his undertaking had impressed many. Finally, Henri Coanda’s
\nexperimental aircraft of 1910 had made aviation very appealing for the young
\nRomanians of good stock, as well as to the adventurous and ambitious types.
\nRomanian military aviation would also stand out through some top-notch pilots,
\nsuch as Capitain Constantin B\u00e2zu Cantacuzino, Captain Alexandru \u0218erb\u0103nescu,
\nCaptain Gheorghe Popescu-Cioc\u0103nel, captain Horia Agarici and many others.<\/p>\n
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The Second World War started
\nSeptember 1, 1939. Greceanu’s and other pilots from his generation were aware
\nthey would soon be asked to sacrifice to defend the nation’s interests.
\nAccording to his own testimony, the pilots knew they would be sent into battle.
\nIn the summer of 1940, France was under Nazi occupation. England was besieged
\nby German air raids while Romania saw Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, Northern
\nTransylvania and Southern Dobruja cut off from its territory. This confirmed
\nwhat many had long foreseen – the Versailles peace treaty at the end of the
\nFirst World War was history. The year 1940 was one of crisis in the life of
\n23-year-old pilot Tudor Greceanu He wanted to quit the army, but his
\nresignation was refused. At the outset of the war he was training as a fighter
\npilot in Bucharest. He owned six licenses, as a military pilot, fighter pilot,
\nflight instructor, two-engine aircraft pilot, nighttime pilot and zero
\nvisibility pilot. He was also owned German, Italian and American pilot’s
\nlicenses and badges. <\/p>\n
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His trial by
\nfire came when he was deployed to the Soviet front. The taking of Odessa in
\n1941 cost many Romanian lives. In an interview from the Center for Oral History
\nof 1993, Tudor Greceanu described the events: <\/p>\n
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A fighter
\nsquadron generally consisted of 15 aircraft, which were not always combat
\nready. At first they were, and we would count on at least 12 aircraft for every
\nday of battle. Some were undergoing repairs, others the technical checkup, some
\nhad little flaws. But at one point, after Odessa had fallen, out of the total of
\n45 aircraft in our 3 squadrons, only 3 were combat ready. Because the planes
\nwere never replaced. The state had initially bought 3 Messerschmitt 109 fighter
\nsquadrons. When the aircraft arrived, they were assembled and prepared for
\nbattle, and then they got to the front. Whatever aircraft got shot down,
\ndeteriorated or entered repairs were taken off the squadron. Do you know how
\nmuch a single plane cost? 62 million lei, which was unthinkably expensive at
\nthe time. You could build 62 10-storey buildings with that kind of money. After
\nOdessa had fallen, my unit returned only with 3 aircraft, of a total of 45. <\/p>\n
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During the war,
\nLieutenant Tudor Greceanu had totaled 6.000 hours of flight time as part of
\n1.000 combat missions, bringing down 42 enemy aircraft. He was bestowed several
\ndecorations, including the Knight of the Mihai Viteazu Order, third class.
\nYet the end of the war did not bring him peace, quite the opposite. Having
\nreturned to Romania in 1945, Greceanu learned that his German-born fianc\u00e9e had
\ncommitted suicide, fearing deportation to the USSR. His brother had also been
\nimprisoned in the Soviet gulag. He was shortly arrested and sent to the Aiud
\nprison, while his parents were placed under home arrest, where they struggled
\nwith disease and poverty. He was tortured in prison, where he lost both legs.
\nHe survived, nonetheless, and was released in 1964. He died in 1994, aged 77,
\nin his modest studio in a workers’ district in Bucharest. <\/p>\n
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(Translated by
\nV. Palcu)<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the flying aces of World War II<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":169641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45210],"tags":[45595,45594,45593,42708],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-169640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rri-encyclopaedia","tag-military-aircraft","tag-romanian-pilots","tag-tudor-greceanu","tag-world-war-ii"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n