work of the american operation alsos teams, in november 1944, uncovered leads which took them to a company in paris that handled rare earths and had been taken over by the "auergesellschaft". this, combined with information gathered in the same month through an alsos team in strasbourg, confirmed that the "auergesellschaft" oranienburg plant was involved in the production of uranium and thorium metals. since the plant was to be in the future soviet zone of occupation and the russian troops would get there before the allies, general leslie groves, commander of the manhattan project, recommended to general george marshall that the plant be destroyed by aerial bombardment, in order to deny its uranium production equipment to the russians. on 15 march 1945, 612 b-17 flying fortress bombers of the eighth air force dropped 1,506 tons of high-explosive and 178 tons of incendiary bombs on the plant. riehl visited the site with the russians and said that the facility was mostly destroyed. riehl also recalled long after the war that the russians knew precisely why the americans had bombed the facility – the attack had been directed at them rather than the germans.