Coming as a shock to absolutely nobody, the two global superpowers of the Cold War
weren’t exactly erstwhile allies during World War Two. Throughout the conflict,
the United States and the Soviet Union remained suspicious of each other,
and these suspicions eventually boiled over. Before the Cold War even started,
the USA and USSR had already faced each other in battle. This is their tenuous story.
While remaining nominally allied for the duration of the Second World War,
the USA and USSR were extremely distrustful of each other. The Soviet pledge to spread
communism around the globe didn’t sit well with the champions of capitalist enterprise.
Nor did empire-building in the Asia-Pacific endear the Americans to the Soviets.
In the last two years of the Second World War, tensions between the great powers were mounting.
Stalin never forgot that his desperate requests for the Allies to open a second
front against the Axis in Europe were ignored for three years. He felt strongly that the
Americans and British had waited for Germany to cripple the USSR before showing their hand,
only invading when the Germans were already beaten in the East and on the run.
While famous for his paranoia, Comrade Stalin’s suspicions may not have been too far from the
truth. On top of that, The US ambassador in Moscow, William Harrison Standley, had spent
a good part of his tenure investigating Soviet war crimes in Poland, undoubtedly straining diplomatic
relations. In Britain, Winston Churchill openly declared in a speech to parliament that
“Socialism is, in its essence, an attack upon the right of the ordinary man or woman to breathe
freely without having a harsh, clumsy tyrannical hand clapped across their mouths and nostrils.”
Stalin saw the investigations and Churchill’s speeches as evidence that the West was plotting
against him. Believing the old dogma “the best defence is a good offence,” Stalin
seized all previously German territory taken over by the Red Army in their push westwards,
establishing friendly puppet governments to consolidate his control. This scared the Western
powers even more than the now-floundering Third Reich, and they sought to act on it.
Both the Western Allies and the Soviets spied on each other throughout the Second World War,
but unfortunately for the Brits and Americans, the Soviets were just
better at it. Soviet agents had effectively infiltrated both British Mi6 and the American
State Department before the war had even started. In fact, it was stolen designs for
an experimental American tank that formed the basis for the formidable Soviet T-34!
Aside from experimental weapons, Stalin wanted his agents to collect intel on the
Western Allies’ communication with Nazi Germany. He worried that Roosevelt and
Churchill would make peace with Hitler early, abandoning the Soviet Union.
On the other hand, the Americans were worried sick about the spread of communism around the world.
But instead of infiltrating the KGB, which REALLY wasn’t easy, they kept tabs on diplomatic
traffic coming from Moscow. The back-and-forth chatter was like an 11-year-old on Xbox live:
a lot of big talk, but nothing usually came of it. Fairly new to the spying game,
the Americans weren’t fully aware of this and managed to scare themselves into believing
Stalin had plans to set up friendly governments in Mexico, as well as in many other countries.
What did all this espionage actually manage to accomplish? Well, both were increasingly paranoid
about the other seeking world domination. What was needed was some joint exercises
to smooth things over — to convince both sides they could work together against a common foe
and that they weren’t so different after all. It worked about as well as you might expect.
The operation was codenamed Frantic, and on principle,
wasn’t a bad idea. American heavy bombers would take off from Italy, bomb targets on
the Eastern Front, then land to rearm and refuel at Soviet airbases. This technique,
known as “shuttle-bombing” massively increased the effective range of the American bombers,
as well as providing an opportunity for increased American-Soviet cooperation.
Operation Frantic ran from June to September 1944,
but problems arose almost immediately. The first was a devastating German counter-attack. On
June 21st, 145 B-17s and various other bombers attacked an oil plant in Ruhland, Brandenburg.
Their mission complete, 73 B-17s landed at Poltava in the USSR, but they had been followed. A lone
Luftwaffe He-177 Greif stalked the bombers from a distance and discovered their secret Soviet base.
The next night, a force of close to 150 He-111s and Ju-88s descended on the airbase at Poltava.
Spotters had warned the ground crews in advance,
and the Soviet air defences were ready. There was just one problem: they were totally useless.
In his infinite wisdom, Stalin only supplied a few truck-mounted .50cal machine guns to defend the
American planes he was *supposed* to be looking after. That was it. The base had no spotlights,
no radar-guided AA guns, and no specialised night fighters, all of which were common at
bomber bases in the West. With nothing to aim at except for the rumbling of German engines,
the Soviet gunners were completely ineffective. Paradoxically, their positions around the airbase
likely marked a convenient perimeter for the German bombers. It was utter carnage.
By the morning, 50 B-17s were burnt wrecks, and of the rest, only 7 could still fly.
Additionally, virtually all the B-17s fuel, ammo, and spare parts were destroyed.
This incident cemented the rift between the American crews and their Soviet hosts. But as
the weeks passed, things only got worse. The Soviets liked to stick rigidly to schedules,
and when a plane appeared in the sky unexpectedly, they tried to shoot it down. On the other hand,
American pilots would sometimes change plans on the wing to seize opportunities as they arose.
The result of these incompatible systems was that American planes coming in outside predetermined
flight corridors and times would often be shot at. In the words of Colonel Moller:
"We did get shot at with a machinegun at Kharkov till the Russians realised we were friendly.
Fortunately, it wasn’t very good shooting.”
With friendly fire incidents stacking up alongside reports of equipment theft and orchestrated
violence, American goodwill ran out and Operation Frantic was brought to a close. Instead of
promoting cooperation between the US and USSR, the operation cracked their tenuous alliance
even further. But it was about to get a whole lot worse, escalating to a full-scale battle.
On November 7th 1944, a group of P-38 lightnings commanded by Colonel
"Curly" Edwinson were flying low through a valley near Nis,
in modern-day Serbia. Their aircraft were fast, cruising at 200 knots,
and around them lay nothing but mountains, the summits of which they were flying under. Curly’s
mission was to strafe a German troop convoy retreating from Greece to the Danube Valley.
Making their way through the valley on the ground was the Soviet
6th Guards Rifle Corps. The men were loaded up in trucks and leading the convoy was
a staff car containing their commander, General Kotov, and several other officers.
They were chasing the same Geman unit, which was travelling parallel in another valley.
Curly, seeing a convoy of trucks ahead of him, manoeuvred his planes into position and
attacked. He and his P-38s made several strafing runs before zipping away over the mountains.
But Curly had made a terrible mistake. He had navigated his planes into the wrong valley
and then launched an attack without first positively identifying his enemy.
High-calibre bullets tore into the Soviet convoy’s lead vehicles. General Kotov’s car was demolished,
killing its occupants, along with several other trucks. In desperation,
Soviet radiomen contacted the nearest airbase, and two squadrons of Yak-3 fighters were scrambled.
The Yak-3s raced to the convoy and pounced on the low-flying P-38s,
forcing them onto the defensive. The Soviet flight leader, Captain Koldunov, was a celebrated fighter
ace and more than a match for the large American planes. Dogfighting high above the city of Nis,
Koldunov and his men managed to shoot down two P-38s before Curly turned tail.
But the damage had been done. Around 30 Soviets were dead, including General Kotov.
The Air Battle over Nis was the only battle between US and Soviet forces
during the Second World War. But one question remains: was it intentional?
There is no doubt the Americans were in completely the wrong place by accident,
but the convoy they targeted was covered in Soviet markings.
Curly’s liaison officer, Colonel Lowenberg, reported “I think that Curly said that the
cars had German markings. Not so! When Curly led the strafing of the column,
several squadron commanders screamed over the radio, 'They're Russians'. That did not stop him.”
On the other side, the striking resemblance between P-38s and Fockewulf-189s initially led
the Soviets to believe they were under German attack, but Koldunov and his airmen quickly
realised their foes were American. This didn’t stop them either. A US investigator commented:
[“Considering the previous attack on the motorized column ... the Soviet fighters
probably attacked in kind, seeking revenge.” Was it intentional? We’ll leave that up to you.
THAT was the story of the tenuous relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States
during the Second World War. But what do YOU think? Why do YOU think Operation Frantic was
such a failure? What do YOU think happened in the skies above Nis on that fateful day?
Was the alliance doomed from the start? Let us know in the comments!