Fighting with the Soviets: The Failure of Operation FRANTIC, 1944-1945

by Mark J. Conversino

Release Date: January, 1997

Edition: Hardcover

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"Operation Frantic"

Mark J. Conversino, Fighting with the Soviets: The Failure of Operation Frantic, 1944-1945 (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1997). xi + 284 pp.

Conversino's book examines a little-known Soviet-American cooperative effort known as "Operation FRANTIC," which amounted to "the longest sustained contact between members of the United States and Soviet military establishments during World War II." (p. 210). A professor of airpower history at the Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama and a major in the U.S. Air Force, Mark Conversino is well-qualified to write this monograph. His overall conclusion is that Operation FRANTIC failed in its mission, but he provides a sophisticated account of its positive contributions as well. The objective of the operation was to set up bases in the Soviet Union from which U.S. bomber fleets could open a new front in the air against Germany, thereby dispersing and weakening the German Luftwaffe. The U.S. pilots had found that daylight bombing over Hitler's Germany was too dangerous; the attrition rate was too high. They reasoned that, if they could stage bombing raids from the USSR, they could cut their casualty rate and air travel time in half. They also hoped to lay the foundation for greater joint endeavors in the Far East. It was not a new idea to collaborate with the Soviets vis-a-vis the use of air forces, and experience in China showed the Army Air Force (AAF) that it was possible to mount and support aerial operations from even the most remote and undeveloped areas. For Averell Harriman, U.S. Ambassador to the USSR, a second purpose of the mission was to demonstrate solidarity between the two countries. A number of problems arose that caused tension among the American GIs and Soviet military officials. The process of establishing bases at Poltava, Mirgorod, and Piryatin were delayed because Stalin and other Soviet leaders were most concerned about relieving German pressure against the USSR's eastern front. Thus, they preferred an Allied second land front in Western Europe to an "air front" from their own territory. Moreover, Stalin apparently did not believe strategic bombing was very important, believing airplanes should be used primarily for tactical support to ground forces. He was also loath to allow such a large foreign military presence within his own country. Once the bases were established, the lack of accurate, timely information irritated American personnel. Soviet officials informed them that they needed at least twenty-four hours' notice for authorities in Moscow to clear flight plans and notify the front line troops and air defense units. Naturally this worried the Americans, who feared their operations would be hampered by such lengthy notification times. (p. 41) Also, since the vast majority of Soviet sorties were flown at or close behind the front itself, Soviet authorities tended to present information relative only to a particular mission and not to the entire theater. These procedures created problems for Eastern Command's intelligence officers during the FRANTIC missions as the aircrews would complain bitterly about the lack of accurate data concerning German fighter and flak defenses (p. 49). Although Soviet officials gave Americans total freedom to communicate with U.S. aircraft over Soviet soil, the Americans had to rely on a rudimentary Soviet teletype service among the three bases. Telephone lines among the three bases simply did not exist. By June 1944, Eastern Command had resorted to courier aircraft for interbase messages because of the technical unreliability of the teletype network (p. 50). Since the bases were extremely bare and isolated (especially Piryatin), maintaining the morale of the American troops became a challenge. U.S. soldiers began to "fraternize" with local Ukrainian women. Angry Soviet officials then forbade such fraternization, and the atmosphere between Soviet and American troops on the bases cooled. On the other hand, the Americans did recognize Soviet efforts to make the bases inhabitable for the Americans. While the U.S. Army Air Force brought most of the equipment it needed (including steel matting for runways, high octane gasoline, special purpose vehicles, most rations, and all housekeeping supplies), the Soviets agreed to provide some vehicles, fresh meat, fruits and vegetables, bedding, and of course, housing. They also provided 250-kilogram bombs and machine gun ammunition, and agreed to unload all shipments at the point of entry and move them by rail or truck convoy to Eastern Command bases. (p. 47). The Americans were impressed by the fact that the Soviets transported the equipment all the way from Murmansk in a relatively short period of time, and that much of the work in laying the steel matting was done by female Red Army soldiers. They also admired the Soviet commander, Major General Perminov, who was "a keen, straightforward flyer and routinely used his authority to cut through the red tape to settle on the spot the myriad problems that arose each day" (p. 41). Two possible weaknesses of the book are the lack of primary Russian-language sources and the excessive detail. On the other hand, Conversino makes excellent use of primary U.S. Army sources, such as unpublished manuscript and oral history collections and interviews with actual participants. World War Two and airpower historians will find this book a useful contribution to the extant literature, and selected portions of the book could also be assigned in undergraduate courses.