Operation Frantic
With the code name Operation Frantic (in German: "Company hectic") a series of seven shuttle bombing operations ("pendulum bombings") of the US air force during the Second World War in 1944 is referred to. These flights were agreed on at the Allied Conference on December 7, 1943 in Tehran .
background
Josef Stalin had repeatedly accused the Western allies of doing too little to build a second front against Nazi Germany. By bombing targets at the limit of the range of the usual bombings, the Americans also hoped that the defense by fighter planes would be diluted. In addition, the Americans were only interested in the possibility of being able to bomb from airfields of the Soviet Union from Japan in the Far East. In particular, the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt was enthusiastic about this plan, as he hoped (in addition to the already ongoing help from the loan and lease law ) a further improvement in relations with the Soviet Union, which should have continued beyond the war.
Operations and the Air Force attack on Poltava
After extensive and complicated preparatory work, the shuttle bombing operations began far later than hoped in June 1944; the only point that did not lead to any major discussion was that the bases should be defended by the Soviets. The Americans agreed to keep their ground crew small, and Soviet mechanics were also allowed. In the hospital, which was ready on June 1, 1944, American paramedics were deployed and non-Americans were also treated.
United States Army Air Forces bombers flew air strikes on targets in Central Europe from Great Britain or southern Italy and then landed in the Soviet Union . There they were refueled and re-ammunitioned in order to carry out another attack on the return flight to England or southern Italy. The bombers landed on two airfields in the Ukrainian Soviet Republic ( Poltava , Myrhorod ), while the escort fighters also operated on Ukrainian territory from Pyriatyn .
The Soviets helped to determine the goals; for example, the aircraft factories that had been relocated to the east before the bombing were not allowed to be bombed in the hope that the Soviets would be able to take them undamaged.
On June 2, 1944, 130 four-engine bombers and 70 fighter planes of the US Army Air Forces attacked from Foggia , Italy from fuel plants in Hungary and Romania. The bombers then landed in Poltava and flew back the next day, bombing airfields in Romania along the way.
After the attack by Allied bombers on the Schwarzheide hydrogenation plant on June 21, 1944, the Allies again landed 114 long-range Boeing B-17 bombers on Poltava airfield ( Lage ). As the Americans knew from a pursuit and a reconnaissance aircraft, this was not hidden from the German air force command: the Soviet commander had forbidden the Americans to let their Mustangs soar to shoot down the He 177 reconnaissance aircraft that appeared over Poltava . On the night of 22./23. On June 6th, combat aircraft from Kampfgeschwader 4 , 27 , 53 and 55 under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Wilhelm Antrup attacked the airfield and destroyed 43 B-17s on the ground. Another 26 were damaged, plus 2 C-47s and a P-38 Lightning escort fighter . 15 Soviet Yak-9 and 6 Yak-7 fighters were devastated. In addition, an ammunition depot and 900,000 liters of aviation fuel were destroyed. The Soviets had forbidden the Americans in Pyriatyn to mount and attack the bombers. The Soviet searchlights had literally shown the Germans the way. Three Americans and 15 Soviets died - even for days after the attack, as the Germans had used SD-2 cluster munitions with delay fuses .
The operation ended after the mission of September 18, 1944, during which the Warsaw Uprising insurgents were supported by the dropping of supplies. Josef Stalin subsequently refused to consent to further missions.
A small department remained in Poltava as a rescue station and repair facility; the last Americans left the Ukraine in July 1945. The five Americans ultimately buried in Poltava were exhumed in 1950 and brought to the USA.
Assessments
Only a small part of the originally planned 800 missions per month had been carried out and no German fighters had been relocated to the east. The effort to bring the Allies closer together had also failed. After taking the Mariana Islands in August 1944, the Americans were able to bomb Japan even without a base in Siberia.
Commemoration
In 1994, the flight was commemorated in Poltava in the presence of three US pilots and a message of greeting from Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma .
literature
- Mark J. Conversino: Fighting With The Soviets: The Failure of Operation Frantic, 1944-1945. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1997, ISBN 0-7006-0808-7 .
- Roger E. Bilstein: Airlift and Airborne Operations In World War II. Air Force Historical Research Center, Maxwell Air Force Base Alabama, 1998.
- Serhii Plokhy : Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front: American Airmen behind the Soviet Lines and the Collapse of the Grand Alliance , Oxford University Press, 2019, ISBN, 9780190061029.
- Eduard Wladimirowitsch Topol: Flying Jazz (Летающий джаз), historical novel, 2020, ISBN 9785040305933 .
Web links
- Operation Titanic (1944) , National Archives and Records Administration - US documentary about Operation Frantic
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d The Poltava Debacle , Airforcemag, February 28, 2011
- ↑ a b c d 390th Bomb Group , Turner Publishing Company, 1994, ISBN 9781563111372 , page 17
- ↑ a b c d wing to wing , Novaya Gazeta, April 27, 2020
- ↑ a b Glenmore S. Trenear-Harvey: Historical Dictionary of Air Intelligence , Volume 9, Scarecrow Press, 2009, ISBN 9780810862944, page 69
- ↑ Horst Boog : The German Empire and the Second World War . Volume 7. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt , Stuttgart 2001, p. 126.
- ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV, Douglas G. Stankey: Air Force Officer Career Summaries, Section A-F. (PDF) 2017, p. 71 , accessed on November 30, 2019 (English).
- ↑ Horst Boog: The German Empire and the Second World War. Volume 7. 2001, p. 364.
- ^ Operation Frantic: America and Russia's joint plan to battle the Nazis , prospectmagazine, November 13, 2019