Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front

Serhii Plokhy's 'Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front' unearths a little-known yet pivotal chapter of World War II, detailing the audacious 1943 Allied plan to establish a second air front by basing the US Air Force in Soviet-controlled Ukraine. Dubbed Operation Baseball and later Frantic, this unlikely collaboration saw American B-17 Superfortresses flying missions from bases in the Poltova region. Plokhy masterfully narrates the initial enthusiasm, the cultural clashes, and the rapid deterioration of US-Soviet cooperation, mirroring the broader shift from the Grand Alliance to the Cold War. American airmen, under constant surveillance by Soviet secret police and disillusioned by the limitations of Soviet defenses after a catastrophic German air raid, began to refer to themselves as the 'Forgotten Bastards of Ukraine.' Drawing on newly declassified Russian archives and CIA records, Plokhy delivers a gripping, bottom-up history that reveals how profound political and ideological differences ultimately sabotaged even the most urgent common purpose, offering crucial insights into the origins of the post-war global order.