Ploiești lay roughly 1,000 kilometers from Crete, within the operating range of Wellington-class bombers and later longer-ranged aircraft. This is well short of an implausible thousand-bomber offensive: the island might sustain raids of about 120 to 200 aircraft. That scale would probably require multiple runways, refining the earlier defensive preference for one concentrated field. The target mattered because Romanian oil supplied a particularly valuable share of Germany's premium fuel rather than all of its petroleum needs.
Notable Point · 58:28-59:30
Crete could sustain bomber raids on Ploiești
The island's range and developed air-base infrastructure could support substantial night raids against Romania's premium fuel production.