Posted on 11/10/2004 10:54:10 AM PST by knighthawk
MOSCOW. Nov 10 (Interfax) - The exhibition of a unique photograph showing pilots at an American base in Poltava, Russia, in 1944, was held at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Wednesday.
U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow said very few people, even among professional historians, knew that such a base existed in the Soviet Union.
The photograph reminds people of the important cooperation between the two countries during World War II, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union were allies, he said.
Vershbow compared Soviet-American relations in WW II with the present-day cooperation between the U.S. and Russia. The two countries are allies in the fight against terrorism, he said.
Ping
I presume it was the shuttle-bombing base (We'd bomb, land in Russia, then fly back) the practice of which was abandoned after a while.
I would love to see the pictures.
There were US airbases all over the "eastern front" - I know of several in Slovakia
Part of the route was through Nevada, up to Alaska, then on to Russia. My mother was well aware of this during WWII. She also remembered all too well the "blackouts" in Fairbanks, Alaska. Bless her soul.
If I were Russian, I wouldn't want those favorably compared. We allied with Stalin because we had to, and there's no room for nostalgic warm fuzzies about that. The libs used to constantly reminisce about what great friends we were in WWII, linking hands across the river, blah blah blah. Stalin was a disgusting murderer, but Hitler was worse so we formed an alliance. Nothing like today at all. Get over it.
Curious that they are reminding us NOW! How timely....
Well, I knew about it. It was the Soviet terminus of shuttle-bombing operations. The Germans learned about it and bombed the heck out of it in mid-1944, btw.
Where is Poltava in Russia? There is a Poltava in the Ukraine but I've never heard of one in Russia.
There were three such bases: at Poltava, Mirgorod and Piryatin. In 1944 they were used as the Soviet terminus for shuttle bombing runs against targets in eastern Germany made by both the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force and the U.S. Eighth Air Force.
That probably should have read "terminii." :)
Well, we are more or less allies again now...on occasion, when our interests coincide...
Yep, Poltava is in Ukraine.
From the biography of Maj. General Alfred August Kessler Jr.
In February 1944 he was sent to Russia to negotiate, build and operate the base in Russia to be utilized for the England to Russia "shuttle bombing" resulting from the agreement between President Roosevelt and Marshal Stalin at the Teheran Conference As commanding officer and later deputy commanding general of these Russian bases, then designated as Eastern Command, U.S. Strategic Air Forces with headquarters at Poltava, Russia, he commanded the first friendly foreign troops to operate from Russian soil. Upon completion of this project in October 1944, he returned to his command of the 13th Combat Wing in England where he participated in the continued operations of the 8th Air Force in the strategic bombing of Germany and direct air support of our ground forces.
http://www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=6049
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