World War II Database

Contributor: David Stubblebine

ww2dbaseOriginally conceived as a means to simultaneously bomb German targets normally beyond the range of American bombers and build trust between the United States and the Soviet Union, Operation Frantic ultimately did little of either.

ww2dbaseBy the fall of 1943, the Germans had moved many of their armament factories eastward, beyond the range of bombers flying from the United Kingdom or Italy. These plants were within range of Soviet air bases but the Soviet Union had not developed a heavy bombing program. In order to reach these plants, the United States Army Air Forces proposed "shuttle bombing" - flying American aircraft into and out of bases in Soviet territory from bases in England or Italy, allowing them to reach what would otherwise be out-of-reach targets in eastern Germany, Poland and the Balkans. The shuttle bombing tactic proved useful earlier in the war when American bombers flew from England to targets deep in southern Germany and then on to bases in North Africa. After reaching the Russian bases, the bombers could then strike other hard-to-reach targets on the flights back to their home bases. Further, it was hoped this arrangement would thin the German fighter dispersal on the western front ahead of the impending Normandy landings. Even more hopeful was the long-range desire the Soviets would allow American bombers to operate from Siberia to bomb Japan (a diplomatically dicey idea since the Soviet Union was not then at war with Japan).

ww2dbaseCode-named Operation Frantic, the shuttle bombing concept was initially proposed through military channels in 1942 but the Russians were unenthusiastic. United States President Franklin Roosevelt liked the idea, however, and discussed it personally with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin at the Tehran Conference in Nov 1943. Roosevelt saw the military advantages but also hoped more face-to-face cooperation with the Russians would be something he could build on diplomatically. After Tehran, the United States ambassador to the Soviet Union, Averell Harriman, and United States military advisors in Moscow continued to negotiate for the program.

ww2dbaseThe British were aware of the proposal and agreed to offer some support but they declined to take part, regarding it as little more than a stunt. Unlike Roosevelt, Winston Churchill was far less optimistic that the overture would do anything to warm Stalin into offering any real cooperation.

ww2dbaseAs Churchill had surmised, Stalin remained reluctant since in nearly all matters, it was his nature to be suspicious and distrusting. There were many obstacles to overcome from Stalin's perspective, however, not the least of which was that he would be allowing a foreign nation's armed forces within Soviet borders for the first time in Russian history. After slow and tedious negotiations, Stalin approved the use of Russian bases "in principle" but at the same time, worked against any swiftness in working out the details. Despite the United States providing massive amounts of war materiel to the Soviet Union via Lend Lease, dealings with the Soviets usually only allowed compromises to go one way: the Americans gave in to whatever the Soviets insisted on.

ww2dbaseThe shuttle-bombing operation ultimately did not begin until Jun 1944 and once again, the Americans had misjudged Stalin and underestimated the Russians' deep distrust of the United States. The Soviets permitted the Americans the use of three airfields in Ukraine. Closest to the front was Pyriatyn (called Piryatin in 1944 American documents), about 90 miles east of Kiev, and Myrhorod (called Mirgorod) 50 miles east of Pyriatyn, and Poltava another 40 miles east of that. The western-most base, Pyriatyn, would be home to the fighter escorts, long-range P-51 Mustangs and P-38 Lightnings, while B-17 Fortresses would fly into Myrhorod and Poltava. The USAAF Eastern Command was also located at Poltava in a joint Soviet-American headquarters. The American forces were put under the command of Major General Robert L. Walsh. The Russians allowed Eastern Command only 1,200 permanent staff at Poltava, which included all ground and maintenance personnel.

ww2dbaseThe bases had been left in ruins by the retreating Germans, who also left behind several booby-traps. All support facilities such as hangars and control towers had to be rebuilt. With no barrack buildings, personnel were billeted in tents. The runways were bare earth and with no time to lay down hard-top runways, 12,393 tons of pierced-steel Marston Mats were installed instead.

ww2dbaseThe steel mats, of course, had to be imported from the United States via the Northern convoys to Murmansk, Russia and then by rail to Ukraine. This was also true of most of the supply chain, from high-octane gasoline to bombs to vehicles to spare parts and most rations (the Soviets supplied meat and fresh vegetables). The Soviets also supplied the labor, which in many cases included women doing heavy work.

ww2dbaseIn a stipulation that would prove critical, the Russians would not allow American fighters to perform air base defense. The three airfields would be protected by Soviet anti-aircraft batteries and Yak-9 fighters.

ww2dbaseBy the time the program was finally ready for implementation, the overall situation had changed in many ways. The Soviet Army had rapidly advanced farther west so the three Operation Frantic bases were even farther from the German lines and their operational value reduced. As the Russians began to sense victory at their own hand, they became even less willing to have foreign forces based in their territory, especially in politically unstable Ukraine.

ww2dbaseDespite the reluctance of the Soviets and the physical improvements needed at the Ukrainian bases, Operation Frantic flew its first operational mission on 2 Jun 1944, barely ahead of the Normandy operations as the Americans had initially hoped. The first mission was called "Frantic Joe" and was flown by the Fifteenth Air Force based in Italy with Lieutenant General Ira C. Eaker in command. Eaker wanted to strike aircraft factories in Latvia and Poland beyond what American bombers could ordinarily reach, but the Russians would not approve those targets. Eaker had to settle for a not particularly important railway yard in Hungary that, ironically, did not require shuttle bombing since it was as close to Italy as it was to Russia, but this was all the Soviets would authorize.

ww2dbase"Frantic Joe" included 130 B-17 bombers and 70 P-51 escort fighters on the a seven-hour flight to Poltava and Myrhorod. Eaker himself flew as copilot on one of the bombers and upon arrival at Poltava, they were greeted by the base commander, Soviet Air Force Major General Alexei R. Perminov, as well as Harriman and his staff from Moscow. The warm welcome was reported by about 20 American, British, and Russian war correspondents who were present taking notes and pictures. The event got worldwide publicity, which displeased Stalin. He was bothered by what he thought were stories describing the Americans as the ones winning the war in the east. He probably did not much like the name "Frantic Joe" either.

ww2dbaseOperation Frantic was conceived from the beginning as two-way bombing missions, bombing on their way into Ukraine and bombing again on their way out. As the return trip for "Frantic Joe" was delayed in Ukraine by bad weather, the D-Day landings took place in Normandy, France. The overall commander of the United States Air Forces in Europe, Lieutenant General Carl Spaatz, instructed Eaker to remain in Russia a few extra days to threaten the German rear and perhaps draw some Luftwaffe fighters away from Normandy. On 6 Jun 1944, at the behest of the Soviets, Operation Frantic aircraft flying from Ukraine attacked an airfield in Galati, Romania and then returned to the bases in Ukraine. Eaker led the bombers back to Italy on 11 Jun 1944, bombing the airfield at Focsani, Romania along the way.

ww2dbase"Frantic Joe" led to high hopes for Operation Frantic but it turned out to be the high point of the entire effort. The second Frantic mission was flown from England on 21 Jun 1944. The 1,550-mile trip to Poltava required using "Tokyo tanks" for extra fuel that extended the range of the 114 B-17s by 40%. The bombers were escorted by 70 P-51 Mustangs and the target was a synthetic oil plant south of Berlin. When retiring toward Ukraine, the Americans saw a lone German Bf 109 fighter keeping pace with them that would duck into the clouds when the fighters went after it. It reported the position of the bombers to the Luftwaffe and an He 177 reconnaissance aircraft was able to photograph the American bombers on the ground shortly after they landed at Poltava. When the reconnaissance plane was returning toward the German lines, it had to fly near the American fighter base at Pyriatyn but the Russians would not allow the American fighters to intercept it.

ww2dbaseIn very short order, the Germans mounted a nighttime bombing strike against Poltava with Heinkel He 111 medium bombers of General Rudolf Meister's Fliegerkorps IV plus a squadron of Junkers Ju-88s, 150 bombers in all. Again, American fighters were not allowed to intercept them. Instead, they were intercepted by Russian Yak-9 fighters but the Germans shot down one and chased the others away. The German bombers were to bomb both Myrhorod and Poltava but a mix-up with the German pathfinders brought the entire force to Poltava. Shortly after midnight on the very night the American bombers arrived, Poltava came under an aerial bombing attack that lasted two hours. The attack was unhampered by anything resembling an effective air defense by the Russians. There were no shielded revetments for the American bombers. German flares lit up the airfield like daylight, allowing for extremely accurate bombing. 43 B-17s were destroyed on the ground along with 15 P-51s and another 26 bombers were damaged. 450,000 gallons of high-octane aviation fuel and most of the munitions in the bomb dump, all requiring great effort to even get to Poltava, were also lost. Almost 30,000 rounds of Russian anti-aircraft fire, aided by searchlights, failed to bring down a single German aircraft. The German raid on Poltava was the costliest enemy air raid for the United States Army Air Force since the Japanese caught Douglas MacArthur's aircraft on the ground in the Philippines on 8 Dec 1941.

ww2dbaseThe other two airfields were struck the following night but with less damage. The surviving American aircraft departed for Italy 26 Jun 1944, striking an oil refinery in Poland on the way. The same day, the USAAF requested permission for a squadron of P-61 Black Widow night fighters to come to Ukraine to defend the bases. The application was delayed in Moscow and shuttled from office to office until it finally just evaporated.

ww2dbaseOne historian would later write, "The German strike on Poltava cast a pall on Frantic ... By July, even transient aircrews who were on the ground for only a few days noticed that relations between the Americans and Soviets were showing signs of tension and strain."

ww2dbaseBecause of the fuel shortages created by the attack, only two fighter-bomber missions were flown in Jul 1944. These were largely placeholder missions to keep the operation alive on some level and were otherwise peripheral to the overall mission.

ww2dbaseThe political pressure to continue the operation was so great that two more bomber shuttle missions were ordered from England for 6 Aug 1944 and 11 Sept 1944 even though there had been no improved provisions for air defense. The Soviet attitudes had changed sharply from the warm welcome offered to General Eaker and "Frantic Joe." Besides being evident in everyday encounters between Russians and Americans, tensions were also expressed in the form of official obstructionism and harassment. The thinking among American officers was that the shift was directed by Stalin himself who was having profound second thoughts about Operation Frantic. Stalin did not want to share credit for the Soviet Army's success or have it appear the Red Army needed help. More importantly, he did not want to share postwar control of the vast territory in eastern Europe then falling under his flag. This would become dramatically apparent in the course of the final Frantic mission.

ww2dbaseAs the Soviet army approached Warsaw in Poland, Polish resistance began attacking the German occupiers in what became the Warsaw Uprising of 1 Aug 1944. The Russians halted their advance and allowed the Germans to turn their full attention to the internal struggle within Warsaw. United States officials in Washington wanted to make supply drops to the resistance fighters in Warsaw but that could not be done without use of the Operation Frantic bases in Ukraine and the Soviets refused. Personal appeals directly to Stalin from both Roosevelt and Churchill made no difference. Stalin did not want to share postwar control of Poland with the Polish; he was satisfied with allowing the Germans to eliminate his competition.

ww2dbaseAfter the Warsaw resistance fighters took a month of pounding at the hands of the Germans, Stalin finally agreed to the supply drop. On 18 Sep 1944, 107 B-17s took off from England bound for Warsaw. 1,284 containers of machine-gun parts, pistols, ammunition, explosives, food, and medical supplies were dropped - but 75% or more did not reach the resistance fighters and were recovered by the Germans. Stalin would not approve another supply drop and by the time the Russian Army resumed its advance, the Germans had killed nearly 250,000 Poles and crushed the uprising.

ww2dbaseThis was the last operational mission of Operation Frantic. Poltava was now so far from the German front that it had little strategic value. The early idea of working with the Soviets to allow bombing missions from Siberia to Japan was politically impossible and strategically unnecessary, since Japan had been brought within bomber range by securing the Mariana Islands. Even so, there were many reasons the Americans wanted to maintain a presence at Poltava. Soviet obstructionism intensified, bogging down all American movements. Every interaction was a struggle. There were some hopes of resuming bombing operations in the spring of 1945 but Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov bluntly told the Americans that the Russians wanted their bases back. The United States ultimately turned over their stockpiles to the Russians who received the goods with the usual lack of grace. One of the transfers was a warehouse full of food, including more sugar and jam than the Russians had ever seen plus thousands of cans of peaches. The Russians later complained that they were shorted 10 cans of peaches from the listed inventory.

ww2dbaseThe last Americans finally left Poltava 23 Jul 1945, shortly after the fall of Germany. During the course of Operation Frantic, American bombers and fighters flew 2,207 sorties to or from Ukraine with combat losses of five B-17 bombers and 17 fighters. The planners had hoped for 800 bombing sorties a month; in four months, the entire operation resulted in just 851 bombing sorties. Adding to the insult, all of the bombing targets could have been struck without using the Ukrainian bases and with less effort. The official USAAF post-war history said, "Some of the attacks would probably not have been regarded as worth making but for the desire to use those [Soviet] bases." Neither did the operation result in the desired diversion of German air defenses; the Luftwaffe did not move any of its fighters east.

ww2dbaseAverill Harriman later said, "From a political viewpoint, President Roosevelt was determined that he could use a wartime friendliness with Stalin to develop a successful postwar relationship." Not only did this wish fall flat at the time, the momentum of the many American concessions and compromises during Operation Frantic carried forward into the Cold War, to the detriment of the west and the benefit of the Soviets. One author said, "Stalin used ‘Operation Frantic' to probe the Americans to see what manner of men they were and to test their mettle."

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