Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front: An Untold Story of World War II

Description

From the winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize, the incredible true story of one of the most audacious and little-known operations of WW2 In November 1943, with the outcome of the Second World War hanging in the balance, the Allies needed a new plan. The Americans' audacious suggestion to the Soviets was to open a second air front, with the US Air Force establishing bases in Soviet-controlled territory. Despite Stalin's obvious reservations about the presence of foreign troops in Russia, he was persuaded, and in early 1944 and Operation Baseball and then Frantic were initiated as B-17 Superfortresses were flown from bases in Italy to the Poltova region in today's Ukraine. Award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy tells the gripping, little-known story of this encounter between American and Soviet soldiers and how their collaboration quickly fell apart, mirroring the transition from the Grand Alliance to the Cold War. Soviet secret policemen watched over the Americans, shadowing their every move. A catastrophic air raid by the Germans revealed the limitations of Soviet air defences. As their initial enthusiasm turned into disappointment, the American soldiers started calling themselves the Forgotten Bastards of Ukraine. Ultimately, no common purpose could overcome their cultural and political differences. Drawing on newly opened Russian archives as well as CIA records, Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front offers a riveting bottom-up history one of the Second World War's most unlikely alliances.

Serhii Plokhy is the author of Chernobyl- History of a Tragedy, which won the Baillie Gifford Prize and the Pushkin House Book Prize, and the New York Times bestseller The Gates of Europe. His many acclaimed books, including Nuclear Folly, Atoms and Ashes and The Last Empire, have been translated into over a dozen languages. He is Professor of History at Harvard University where he also serves as Director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

Plokhy is an expert guide, marshalling the archival and memoir material skilfully and telling his story with flair * The Times * Many books claim to tell an "unknown" story of the Second World War. Few of them actually do. Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front is a rare exception. . . Plokhy is at his best when he turns to the human level, the culture clash experienced by US servicemen finding themselves inside Stalin's USSR under constant surveillance from the secret police -- Duncan Weldon * Prospect * Serhii Plokhy's fascinating account of American airmen operating in the Soviet Union toward the end of WWII is not only superb history. It is an important and timely reminder, seventy five years later, that victory in WWII involved allying with Stalinism and all its attendant evils -- Alex Kershaw, author of The First Wave A riveting read that brings together a unique story about American airmen on Soviet territory and US-Soviet wartime politics on the highest level. Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill and key events in World War II diplomacy are seamlessly woven into a compelling tale of the dramatic feats and fates of US servicemen in contact and conflict with their Soviet male and female 'comrades in arms.' At once utterly absorbing, enlightening and moving, this splendid book also unearths absolutely original evidence about the values wars that launched the Cold War even as the hot one was raging -- Nina Tumarkin, Professor of History and Director of Russian Area Studies, Wellesley College A new and enlightening perspective on the collaboration between Soviet and American airmen in Ukraine during their mutual fight against the Nazis, taking the reader onto the airbases to show how cultural differences and the oppressive political oversight of the Russians ate away at the effort from early on. Using detailed accounts not previously available, Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front shows how the interpersonal relationships of Americans and Soviets at ground level were as important as any maneuvering by their country's leaders. An insightful account of a little-known story -- Gregory Freeman, author of The Forgotten 500 Five stars. . . brilliantly researched * Daily Telegraph *