Frantic was meant to open up new German-held areas of Europe to strategic bombing by the United States Army Air Forces, but saw mixed results, with German leadership perceiving the operation as an American propaganda campaign to impress the Soviets.

Frantic also highlighted significant tensions between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, which proved both unfamiliar with and unfriendly to hosting foreign aircraft for joint operations.

At the Tehran Conference in late November 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt personally proposed the use of Soviet bases by American aircraft to Marshal Joseph Stalin.

In this he was assisted by a personal appeal from his son, Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, also in attendance, who requested the bases for use of his reconnaissance aircraft then operating from Italy.

American heavy bombers stationed in Britain and Italy would fly strike missions deep into the heart of Nazi territory or occupied Eastern Europe.

[2][3] While the shuttle bombing technique complicated German air defenses, in practice most targets were already coming in reach of US bomber streams from Italy and England.

[4] The operations were reduced and finally discontinued due to a number of issues; a catastrophic German air attack on the bases in June; Soviet hostility and non-cooperation that started in August; and the inability of the Americans to receive permission to use the bases for support of the Warsaw Uprising[5] or for repatriation of American POWS from Soviet territory,[6] which soured relations between the two countries.

The political and military leadership wanted also to set a precedent and practical basis for later bombing of Japan from Siberia after the USSR opened the second front in the Pacific.

At the same time, Anderson let his side know that the ultimate goal was the establishment of a numbered American air force in the USSR and a switch to Siberian operations.

At Tehran, General Henry Arnold (chief of the Air Forces) offered Stalin 300–400 B-24 bombers, but noted that they would require a large Soviet training program in the United States.

By the time Stalin finally agreed to activate the plan, in a meeting with US ambassador W. Averell Harriman on 2 February 1944, Soviet victory was assured.

Indications are that Stalin wished to obtain all possible information about superior American technology, and assigned officers with the stated objectives of learning as much as they could about US equipment and concepts of operation.

However, this objective cut both ways, for the USAAF also learned of the extreme vulnerability of the USSR to air attack, and of the primitive technical and infrastructure conditions prevailing on the Soviet side.

In general, US officers agreed that the Red Air Force was cooperative and eager to assist, but the political structure was obstructionist and a source of interminable delays and problems.

Additional supplies and key personnel flew in on Air Transport Command planes from the ATC base at Mehrabad Airport, Iran.

After much preparation at the three Soviet airfields by advance elements of Headquarters, Eastern Command USAAF and Air Transport Command, the first shuttle mission ("Frantic Joe") was conducted by Fifteenth Air Force B-17 Flying Fortresses and their P-51 Mustang fighter escorts taking off from airfields around Foggia, Italy, raiding the railroad marshalling yards at Debrecen, Hungary, and then flying on to the Soviet Union.

[14] What was unknown at the time is that after the raid on Ruhland, the attacking B-17s were being shadowed from a distance by a Luftwaffe Heinkel He 111 bomber, which identified the Soviet airfields where they landed.

On the early morning of 22 June, the Combat Wing of B-17s which earlier landed at Poltava sustained severe losses in a German air attack.

American personnel losses were light due to adequate warning and the network of slit trenches distant from the aircraft parking area.

[11] During this period, the United States at the highest level urgently requested the use of the Soviet bases for air support and supply of the ongoing Polish Home Army uprising in Warsaw.

The attack on the Szolnok rail yards was the end of major Frantic operations, as the original targets had been taken by the rapidly advancing Soviet offensive.

After the issues over Polish resupply, Foreign Commissar Molotov put the Americans on notice that they were no longer needed, and a very hostile climate, including orchestrated episodes of violence and theft, ensued at the bases.

The US and Soviet advances by the spring of 1945 ended the need for shuttle missions and the ATC flew out the last US contingent of personnel from its headquarters at Poltava in June 1945.

Soviet officers who had been too helpful to the Americans fell in disfavor, and one, Chief Air Marshal Alexander Novikov, who had received the US Legion of Merit, was tortured and jailed after the war.

As it became increasingly clear that US-Soviet collaboration was an entirely one-way street, bitterness and suspicion grew amongst the Americans, feeling that would influence a future generation of senior United States Air Force officers.

Though judged by the Germans to be a propaganda exercise meant to impress the Soviets, the operation served to expose and compound strains in the Allied alliance.

[23] This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency The USAAF prepared a secret, detailed report on Eastern Command operations in December 1944 and made it available to the State Department.