SPECIAL MISSIONS

FRANTIC 

Meanwhile, within the framework of ATC requirements and airborne assault campaigns, a variety of special operations took place. One of these proceeded under the code name, FRANTIC. During the winter of 1943–44, as Germany moved many factories to the east and out of range of Allied bomber strikes, the concept of “shuttle bombing” took hold. The idea rested on bombing missions that could originate in Britain and at Allied bases in Italy, strike German targets at long range, and then proceed to convenient airfields in the Soviet Union. Refueled and armed, the bombers would hit German targets again on their way home. After several frustrating planning sessions, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin finally agreed to the concept in February 1944.

In haste, the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in Europe set up an Eastern Command to carry out the shuttle-bomb requirements for FRANTIC. Heavy equipment and bulky supplies went by sea to the port of Archangel, north of Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), and then to a quartet of new airfields in the Ukraine. Additional supplies and key personnel would fly in on ATC airplanes from U.S. bases in Iran. Delicate negotiations finally fixed a to-tal of forty-two round-trip ATC missions to make the bases operational for the AAF, and allowed an additional rate of two weekly support missions to sustain the U.S. contingent. The issue of flight communications eventually ended with a compromise, allowing U.S. crews to carry out navigation and radio duties with a Soviet observer resident at all related communications centers. 

Eventually, the ATC in support of FRANTIC delivered some 450 personnel and thirty-six thousand pounds of cargo by June 1944. The same month, Gen. Ira Eaker made the first shuttle bombing mission with 129 B–17 bombers of the Mediterranean Air Force. Operations continued through the middle of August 1944, by which time the original sixteen tar-gets identified for Operation FRANTIC had been taken by the rapidly advancing Soviet offensives. A reluctant Stalin agreed to a winter intermission of operations; U.S. and Soviet advances by the spring of 1945 ended the need for shuttle missions and the ATC flew out the last U.S. contingent in June 1945. Operation FRANTIC demonstrated the flexibility of airlift equipment and personnel. It also demonstrated the political role of airlift logistics in terms of operational support that would have been impossible by conventional ground-based means.

CARPETBAGGER and the Balkans 

Other special airlift operations involved a cloak-and-dagger environment, inserting and extracting agents behind enemy lines, as well as supplying resistance forces throughout Europe and the Balkans. Such was the purpose of Operation CARPETBAGGER, launched in the spring of 1944. Special elements of the Eighth Air Force used a variety of equipment, including some forty models of the B–24, modified for clandestine missions over enemy territory. The ubiquitous C–47 transports also played a major role. All of these aircraft and crews were especially busy during 1944, supplying insurgent groups in France and northern Europe during the preparations for the Normandy invasion and during the subsequent Allied advance out of the Normandy beachhead. During that year alone, CARPETBAGGER sorties numbered 1,860 and accounted for some 1,000 personnel drop-and- recovery missions, plus delivery of more than 20,000 containers and 111,000 packages. Other activities included more than 2,000 sorties to drop propaganda leaflets, as well as missions to broadcast Allied radio messages or to jam enemy radio programs. 

Although virtually every special operation was judged vital, some especially important missions were flown to the Balkans. Numbers of AAF flight crews and Allied personnel were evacuated by air from remote airstrips. One extended series of covert missions launched from Italy during 1944–45 airlifted more than two thousand partisans from positions be-hind enemy lines. Using rough, clandestine landing strips, C–47 trans-ports made 50 percent of the necessary sorties. In another case in early 1944, a trio of C–47s towed three Waco gliders loaded with British and Soviet personnel who landed the gliders inside Yugoslavia.